THE BOOK OF GENESIS,
BERESHITH,[1] בראשית,
CONTAINING THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION AND PATRIARCHS.
CHAPTER I.
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God was waving over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.
4 And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And it was evening and it was morning, the first day.
6 ¶ And God said, Let there be an expansion[2] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between waters and waters.
7 And God made the expansion, and divided between the waters which were under the expansion and the waters which were above the expansion: and it was so.
8 And God called the expansion Heaven. And it was evening and it was morning, the[3] second day.
9 ¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land be visible: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, herbs yielding seed, fruit-trees yielding fruit after their[4] kind, in which its seed is upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees yielding fruit, in which its seed is after their kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And it was evening and it was morning, the third day.*[5]
14 ¶ And God said. Let there be lights in the expansion of the heaven to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years;
15 And let them be for lights in the expansion of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made the two great lights; the greater light to[6] rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.
17 And God set them in the expansion of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule by day and by night, and to divide between the light and the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And it was evening and it was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly moving creatures that have life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open expansion of the heaven.
21 And God created the great sea-mon-
- ↑ This word is the name of the first weekly section, also of the first book of Moses, from the first word thereof, which is Bereshith, i. e. "In the beginning."—It must be understood that the whole law is divided into fifty-four sections, appointed to be read during the course of the year, so that each Sabbath one or two conjointly are read. Each of these sections bears a name derived from the first distinctive word thereof, and this will be found indicated throughout the Pentateuch of this edition.
- ↑ I have preferred this term to the usual translations, because it expresses more correctly the idea of the Hebrew word, from רקע to expand; therefore, the expansion of the atmosphere, not the fixed vault of the skies.
- ↑ Properly, "a second day," the definite article being wanting; and so with all the others, up to the fifth day.
- ↑ Properly, "its kind," referring to עץ tree, collective singular, rendered here with the plural trees.
- ↑ The stars are used to denote the verses where the portions of the various sections end.
- ↑ Heb. "for the rule of."
