The word _created_ means, that God caused that to exist which, previously to this moment, had no being. The Rabbins, who are legitimate judges in a case of verbal criticism on their own language, are unanimous in asserting, that the word ברא _bara_ expresses the commencement of the existence of a thing, or its egression from nonentity to entity. It does not, in its primary meaning, denote the _preserving_ or _new forming_ things that had previously existed, as some imagine; but _creation_, in the proper sense of the term, though it has some other acceptations in other places. The supposition that God formed all things out of a pre-existing eternal nature, is certainly absurd: for, if there was an eternal nature besides an eternal God, there must have been two self-existing, independent, and eternal Beings, which is a most palpable contradiction. _Ex nihilo nihil fit_, “That out of nothing, nothing is produced” is a maxim that applies itself in every case where Deity is not concerned; it was the main argument used by Aristotle and his followers, but is completely refuted by the authority of Divine revelation. God created את השמים ואת הארץ _eth hashamayim veet haarets_, “the heavens and the earth.” The word את _eth_, which is generally considered as a particle, simply denoting that the word following is in the accusative or oblique case, is often understood by the Rabbins in a much more extensive sense, “The particle את _eth_,” says Aben Ezra, “signifies the _substance_ of the thing.” The like definition is given by Kimchi in his _Book of Roots_. “This particle,” says Mr. Ainsworth, “having the _first_ and _last_ letters of the Hebrew alphabet in it, is supposed to comprise the _sum_ and _substance_ of _all things_.” “The particle את _eth_,” says Buxtorf, Talmudic Lexicon sub voce, “with the Cabalists, is often mystically put for the _beginning_ and the _end_, as Α alpha and Ω omega are in the Apocalypse.” On this ground, these words should be translated, “God in the beginning created the _substance_ of the heavens, and the substance of the earth: i.e. the _prima materia_, or first elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were successively formed.”[23]