1. In the beginning. To expound the term beginning of Christ is altogether frivolous. Moses simply intends to assert that the world was not complete at its commencement, as it now is, but that it was created an empty chaos of heavens and earth. His language therefore may be explained in this way: When God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, the earth was empty and waste. He moreover teaches by the word created that what before did not exist was now made; he did not use the term yatsar, which signifies "to frame or form," but bara, which signifies "to create." Therefore, his meaning is that the world was made out of nothing. Thus he refutes the folly of those who imagine that unformed matter existed from eternity and who gather nothing else from the narration of Moses than that the world was furnished with new ornaments and received a form of which it was before destitute. This indeed was formerly a common fable among heathens, who had received only an obscure report of the creation and who, according to custom, adulterated the truth of God with strange figments. But for Christian men to labor in maintaining this gross error is absurd and intolerable. Let this then be maintained in the first place — that the world is not eternal but was created by God. There is no doubt that Moses gives the name of heavens and earth to that confused mass that he shortly afterwards (verse 2) calls waters. The reason for this is that this matter was to be the seed of the whole world. Besides, this is the generally recognized division of the world.

God. Moses used the word Elohim, a plural noun. From this the inference is drawn that the three Persons of the Godhead are here noted; but since, as a proof of so great a matter, it appears to me to have little solidity, I will not insist upon this but rather caution readers to beware of uncertain interpretations of this kind. Some think they have testimony against the Arians here, to prove the deity of the Son and of the Spirit, but in the meantime they involve themselves in the error of Sabellius because Moses afterwards says that Elohim had spoken and that the Spirit of the Elohim rested upon the waters. If we suppose three persons are here denoted, there will be no distinction between them. For it will follow both that the Son is begotten by himself and that the Spirit is not of the Father, but of himself. For me it is sufficient that the plural number expresses those powers that God exercised in creating the world. Moreover, I acknowledge that the Scripture, although it recites many powers of the Godhead, yet always recalls us to the Father, and his Word, and his Spirit, as we will shortly see. But those absurdities to which I have alluded forbid us to distort with subtlety what Moses simply declares concerning God himself by applying it to the separate Persons of the Godhead. This, however, I regard as beyond controversy — that from the peculiar circumstance of the passage itself, a title is here ascribed to God, expressing that power that was previously in some way included in his eternal essence.

2. Now the earth was formless and empty. The Hebrews use tohu and bohu when they designate anything empty and confused, or vain and worth nothing. Undoubtedly Moses placed them both in opposition to all created objects that pertain to the form, the ornament, and the perfection of the world. Were we now to take away from the earth all that God added after the time alluded to here, we would have this rude and unpolished, or rather shapeless, chaos. Therefore I regard what he immediately adds — that darkness was over the surface of the deep — as a part of that confused emptiness: The light began to give some external appearance to the world. For the same reason he calls it the deep and waters, since in that mass of matter nothing was solid or stable, nothing distinct.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Interpreters have misinterpreted this passage in various ways. The opinion of some that Spirit here means the wind is too weak to require refutation. Those who understand it to mean the Eternal Spirit of God are correct. I now state, in the first place, what (in my judgment) Moses intended. We have already heard that before God had perfected the world, it was a formless mass; he now teaches that the power of the Spirit was necessary in order to sustain it. There are two meanings of the Hebrew word for hovering over that suit the present place — either that the Spirit moved and agitated over the waters in order to change them, or that he brooded over them to cherish them. It makes little difference which of these explanations is preferred; so the reader is left to judge for himself. But if that chaos required the secret work of God to prevent its speedy dissolution, how could this order, so fair and distinct, subsist by itself unless it derived strength from somewhere else? Therefore, the following Scripture was fulfilled: "When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth" (Psalm 104:30). On the other hand, as soon as the Lord takes away his Spirit, all things return to dust and vanish away (Psalm 104:29).

3. And God said. Moses now, for the first time, introduces God in the act of speaking, as if he had created the mass of heaven and earth without a word. Yet John testifies that "without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3). It is certain that the world had been begun by the same efficacy of the word by which it was completed. God, however, did not put forth his word until he proceeded to originate light; in the act of distinguishing between light and darkness, his wisdom begins to be conspicuous.

"Let there be light." It was proper that the light, by means of which the world was to be adorned with such excellent beauty, should be first created. It was not, however, by thoughtlessness or accident that the light preceded the sun and the moon. To nothing are we more prone than to tie down the power of God to those instruments that he uses. The sun and moon supply us with light. And according to our thinking we say that they give light, so that if they were taken away from the world, it would be impossible for any light to remain. But the Lord, by the very order of the creation, bears witness that he holds in his hand the light, which he is able to impart to us without the sun and moon.

4. God saw that the light was good. Here God is introduced by Moses as surveying his work, that he might take pleasure in it. But Moses does this for our sake, to teach us that God has made nothing without a certain reason and design. We should not understand the words of Moses as if God did not know that his work was good until it was finished. Rather, the meaning of the passage is that the work, such as we now see it, was approved by God. Therefore, nothing remains for us but to acquiesce in this judgment of God. This admonition is very useful, for while man ought to apply all his senses in admiring contemplation of the deeds of God, we see what license he allows himself in detracting from them.

5. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." That is, God willed that there should be a regular vicissitude of days...