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Sublimely Subliminal

Sublimely Subliminal 

Genesis 2:4

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

 

I’m not proficient enough as a linguist to know whether this particular ESV translation best translates the meaning of the Hebrew here, but the wording is spectacular in its subtlety. “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth in the day that the LORD God made them.” See, ‘generations’ can be read as the plural form of the verb ‘to generate,’ as in ‘the beginnings of the heavens and the earth,’ but it can also be read as a nominal synonym for ‘lifetimes’ or ‘epochs’—as in ‘the generations from Adam to Noah.’ And both are true. So this Scripture sings of divine providence, of the wonder that God finished the whole story before the earth was even a day old. In fact, it’s as if our Creator, right before speaking the words “Let there be light,” whispered another word to the unformed cosmos that resonates beneath all others, that holds all things in place, that keeps our souls secure in the chaos, that speaks through all the ups downs of life with sublime succinctness: 

 

“It is finished!”