Genesis 1:26 - Exposition

The importance assigned in the Biblical record to the creation of man is indicated by the manner in which it is introduced. And God said, Let us make man. Having already explained the significance of the term Elohim , as suggesting the fullness of the Divine personality, and foreshadowing the doctrine of the Trinity ( Genesis 1:1 ), other interpretations, such as that God takes counsel with the angels (Philo, Aben Ezra, Delitzsch), or with the earth (Maimonides, M . Gerumlius), or with himself (Kalisch), must be set aside in favor of that which detects in the peculiar phraseology an allusion to a sublime concilium among the persons of the Godhead (Calvin, Macdonald, Murphy). The object which this concilium contemplated was the construction of a new creature to be named Adam ; descriptive of either his color , from adam , to be red, (Josephus, Gesenius, Tuch, Hupfeld); or his appearance , from a root in Arabic which signifies "to shine," thus making Adam "the brilliant one;" or his compactness , both as an individual and as a race, from another Arabic root which means "to bring or hold together" (Meier, Furst); or his nature as God's image, from dam , likeness (Eichorn, Richers); or, and most probably, his origin , from adamah , the ground (Kimchi, Rosenmüller, Kalisch). In our image, after our likeness . The precise relationship in which the nature of the Adam about to be produced should stand to Elohim was to be that of a tselem (shadow—vid. Psalms 39:7 ; Greek, σκια ì σκι ì ασμα ) and a damuth (likeness, from damah , to bring together, to compare— Isaiah 40:8 ). As nearly as possible the terms are synonymous. If any distinction does exist between them, perhaps tselem (image) denotes the shadow outline of a figure, and damuth (likeness) the correspondence or resemblance of that shadow to the figure. The early Fathers were of opinion that the words were expressive of separate ideas: image , of the body, which by reason of its beauty, intelligent aspect, and erect stature was an adumbration of God; likeness , of the soul, or the intellectual and moral nature. According to Augustine image had reference to the cognitio veritatis ; likeness to amor virtutis . Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen saw in the first man nature as originally created, and in the second what that nature might become through personal ethical conflict, or through the influence of grace. Bellarmine thought "imaginem in natura, similitudinem in probitate et justitia sitam esse," and conceived that "Adamum peccando non imaginem Dei, sed similitudinero perdidisse." Havernick suggests that image is the concrete, and likeness the abstract designation of the idea. Modern expositors generally discover no distinction whatever between the words; in this respect following Luther, who renders an image that is like , and Calvin, who denies that any difference exists between the two. As to what in man constituted the imago Dei , the reformed theologians commonly held it to have consisted

In this connection the profound thought of Maimonides, elaborated by Tayler Lewis ( vial . Lunge , in loco ), should not be overlooked, that tselem is the specific, as opposed to the architectural, form of a thing; that which inwardly makes a thing what it is, as opposed to that external configuration which it actually possesses. It corresponds to the min , or kind, which determines species among animals. It is that which constitutes 'the genus homo . And let them have dominion . The relationship of man to the rest of creation is now defined to be one of rule and supremacy. The employment of the plural is the first indication that not simply an individual was about to be called into existence, but a race, comprising many individuals The range of man's authority is farther specified, and the sphere of his lordship traced by an enumeration in ascending order, from the lowest to the highest, of the subjects placed beneath his sway. His dominion should extend over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air (literally, the heavens), and over the cattle (the behemah ), and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing (romeo) that creepeth upon the earth.