1:24. And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its
kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to
their kinds. And it was so done.
1:25. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and
cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And
God saw that it was good.
1:26. And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let
him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air,
and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that
moveth upon the earth.
Let us make man to our image... This image of God in man, is not in the
body, but in the soul; which is a spiritual substance, endued with
understanding and free will. God speaketh here in the plural number, to
insinuate the plurality of persons in the Deity.
1:27. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he
created him: male and female he created them.
1:28. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the
earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls
of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
Increase and multiply... This is not a precept, as some Protestant
controvertists would have it, but a blessing, rendering them fruitful;
for God had said the same words to the fishes, and birds, (ver. 22) who
were incapable of receiving a precept.
1:29. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon
the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind,
to be your meat:
1:30. And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and
to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they
may have to feed upon. And it was so done.
1:31. And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very
good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.
Genesis Chapter 2
God resteth on the seventh day and blesseth it. The earthly paradise, in
which God placeth man. He commandeth him not to eat of the tree of
knowledge. And formeth a woman of his rib.
2:1. So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture
of them.
2:2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he
rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
He rested, etc... That is, he ceased to make or create any new kinds of
things. Though, as our Lord tells us, John 5.17, "He still worketh",
viz., by conserving and governing all things, and creating souls.
2:3. And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he
had rested from all his work which God created and made.
2:4. These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they
were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the
earth: