---
title: "Genesis 1 - Study King James Bible with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary"
description: "Read Genesis 1 with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary commentary. 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the S"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1"
---

[ Read](/kjv/genesis/1)[ Commentary](/study/genesis/1)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/genesis/1) Audio

 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness *was* upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

 4 And God saw the light, that *it was* good: and God divided the light from the darkness.*

 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.*

 6 ¶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.*

 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which *were* under the firmament from the waters which *were* above the firmament: and it was so.

 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.*

 9 ¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry *land* appear: and it was so.

 10 And God called the dry *land* Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that *it was* good.

 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, *and* the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed *is* in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.*

 12 And the earth brought forth grass, *and* herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed *was* in itself, after his kind: and God saw that *it was* good.

 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.*

 14 ¶ And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:*

 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: *he made* the stars also.*

 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that *it was* good.

 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.*

 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl *that* may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.****

 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that *it was* good.

 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.*

 24 ¶ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that *it was* good.

 26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

 27 So God created man in his *own* image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.*

 29 ¶ And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which *is* upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which *is* the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.**

 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein *there is* life, *I have given* every green herb for meat: and it was so.*

 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, *it was* very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.*

 [Genesis 2](/study/genesis/2) 

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
“*In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth*.” - Heaven and earth have not existed from all eternity, but had a beginning; nor did they arise by emanation from an absolute substance, but were created by God. This sentence, which stands at the head of the records of revelation, is not a mere heading, nor a summary of the history of the creation, but a declaration of the primeval act of God, by which the universe was called into being. That this verse is not a heading merely, is evident from the fact that the following account of the course of the creation commences with w (*and*), which connects the different acts of creation with the fact expressed in Gen 1:1, as the primary foundation upon which they rest. בּרשׁיח (in the beginning) is used absolutely, like ἐν ἀρχῇ in Joh 1:1, and מראשׁיח in Isa 46:10. The following clause cannot be treated as subordinate, either by rendering it, “in the beginning when God created ..., the earth was,” etc., or “in the beginning when God created...(but the earth was then a chaos, etc.), God said, Let there be light” (*Ewald* and *Bunsen*). The first is opposed to the grammar of the language, which would require Gen 1:2 to commence with הארץ ותּהי; the second to the simplicity of style which pervades the whole chapter, and to which so involved a sentence would be intolerable, apart altogether from the fact that this construction is invented for the simple purpose of getting rid of the doctrine of a *creatio ex nihilo*, which is so repulsive to modern Pantheism. ראשׁיח in itself is a relative notion, indicating the commencement of a series of things or events; but here the context gives it the meaning of the very first beginning, the commencement of the world, when time itself began. The statement, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, not only precludes the idea of the eternity of the world *a parte ante*, but shows that the creation of the heaven and the earth was the actual beginning of all things. The verb בּרא, indeed, to judge from its use in Jos 17:15, Jos 17:18, where it occurs in the *Piel* (to hew out), means literally “to cut, or new,” but in *Kal* it always means *to create*, and is only applied to a divine creation, the production of that which had no existence before. It is never joined with an accusative of the material, although it does not exclude a pre-existent material unconditionally, but is used for the creation of man (Gen 1:27; Gen 5:1-2), and of everything new that God creates, whether in the kingdom of nature (Num 16:30) or of that of grace (Exo 34:10; Psa 51:10, etc.). In this verse, however, the existence of any primeval material is precluded by the object created: “the heaven and the earth.” This expression is frequently employed to denote the world, or universe, for which there was no single word in the Hebrew language; the universe consisting of a twofold whole, and the distinction between heaven and earth being essentially connected with the notion of the world, the fundamental condition of its historical development (vid., Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22; Exo 31:17). In the earthly creation this division is repeated in the distinction between spirit and nature; and in man, as the microcosm, in that between spirit and body. Through sin this distinction was changed into an actual opposition between heaven and earth, flesh and spirit; but with the complete removal of sin, this opposition will cease again, though the distinction between heaven and earth, spirit and body, will remain, in such a way, however, that the earthly and corporeal will be completely pervaded by the heavenly and spiritual, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, and the earthly body being transfigured into a spiritual body (Rev 21:1-2; 1Co 15:35.). Hence, if in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, “there is nothing belonging to the composition of the universe, either in material or form, which had an existence out of God prior to this divine act in the beginning” (*Delitzsch*). This is also shown in the connection between our verse and the one which follows: “*and the earth was without form and void*,” not before, but when, or after God created it. From this it is evident that the void and formless state of the earth was not uncreated, or without beginning. At the same time it is obvious from the creative acts which follow (vv. 3-18), that the heaven and earth, as God created them in the beginning, were not the well-ordered universe, but the world in its elementary form; just as *Euripides* applies the expression οὐρανὸς καὶ γαῖα to the undivided mass (οπφὴμία), which was afterwards formed into heaven and earth.

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1","name":"Genesis 1 - Study King James Bible with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read Genesis 1 with keil and delitzsch old testament commentary commentary. 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the S","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary","name":"keil and delitzsch old testament commentary"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis","name":"Genesis"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/keil-and-delitzsch-old-testament-commentary/genesis/1","name":"1"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]}
```