waters below, which are feminine, and had not God separated them by means of the firmament (read ונתן הרקיע . . . והמים הזכרים), their union might have destroyed the world. Seder Rabba di-Bereshit 6. As to other versions comp. the notes 52, 53, and 72.
51 Comp. notes 49 and 54.
52 Seder Rabba di-Bereshit 9 (the source for this paragraph is not identical with that of 6); Raziel 11b, 18a–18b, and 27d; Konen 25. God “tore” the mass of waters into two halves, the waters above and the waters below, and informed them that they would be divided again for Israel’s sake (as to these conditions, comp. also vol. I, pp. 50–51); ‘Aseret ha-Dibrot 63; MHG I, 26; ShR 15.22; Hadar on Gen. 1.4: as compensation to the waters below, God commanded the water libation in the temple and the use of salt with all sacrifices. A similar source was used by Rashi; R. Bahya; R. Shem Tob b. Shem Tob; R. Isaac Caro, and Bertinora on Lev. 2.13; comp. Berliner, Raschi, 426. Comp. also ER 31, 161, concerning the weeping of the primeval elements of creation, which wished to remain all the time in God’s proximity. See further the following note, as well as note 72.
53 ‘Aseret ha-Dibrot 63; MHG I, 26; Raziel 27d. The song of praise to God by the waters originally belonged to another cycle of legends which state that the waters—the primeval element—praised God before any other thing had been created, and that they willingly submitted to His command to withdraw in order to render creation possible. Comp. BR 5.2–4; ShR 17.1 and 15.22 (the second passage, however, contains a mixture of myths, referring also to the rebellion of the waters at the same time); Tehillim 93, 415–416 (in Ma'asiyyot, Gaster’s edition, 8, it is Alexander the Great, not Hadrian, as in Tehillim, who hears the hymn of the waters); PR 192b; Alphabetot 82 (the hymn of the water induced God to create the world); Midrash quoted in Hadar on Gen. 7.5 and Exod. 15.8 (the waters praised God when Israel crossed the Red Sea); Yerushalmi ‘Abodah Zarah 3, 42a; PRE 5; Ta'anit 25b. Comp. notes 71–72; Tertullian, De Baptismo, 3.
54 BR 4.16, where two other reasons are given why the Bible does not have the sentence “And He saw that it was good” with reference to the second day of creation: 1) because the things created on the second day were not completed on that day and were finished on the third; hence this sentence is repeated twice on the third day; 2) because God had foreseen that Moses would incur death on
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