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Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

⁴ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Another Account of the Creation

In the day that the L ord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the L ord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; ⁶but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— ⁷then the L ord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. ⁸And the L ord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the L ord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. ¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹²and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The L ord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the L ord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

¹⁸ Then the L ord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” ¹⁹So out of the ground the L ord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. ²¹So the L ord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the L ord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

this one shall be called Woman,

for out of Man this one was taken.”

²⁴ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

24. Therefore shall a man leave It is doubted whether Moses here introduces God as speaking, or continues the discourse of Adam, or, indeed, has added this, in virtue of his office as teacher, in his own person.¹⁵¹¹⁵¹ See Le Clerc on this verse, who takes the same view as Calvin. The last of these is that which I most approve. Therefore, after he has related historically what God had done, he also demonstrates the end of the divine institution. The sum of the whole is, that among the offices pertaining to human society, this is the principal, and as it were the most sacred, that a man should cleave unto his wife. And he amplifies this by a superadded comparison, that the husband ought to prefer his wife to his father. But the father is said to be left not because marriage severs sons from their fathers, or dispenses with other ties of nature, for in this way God would be acting contrary to himself. While, however, the piety of the son towards his father is to be most assiduously cultivated and ought in itself to be deemed inviolable and sacred, yet Moses so speaks of marriage as to show that it is less lawful to desert a wife than parents. Therefore, they who, for slight causes, rashly allow of divorces, violate, in one single particular, all the laws of nature, and reduce them to nothing. If we should make it a point of conscience not to separate a father from his son, it is a still greater wickedness to dissolve the bond which God has preferred to all others.

They shall be one flesh¹⁵²¹⁵² “Erunt in carnem unam.” — “In carne una.” — Vulgate. Εἰς σάρκα μίαν. — Sept. Although the ancient Latin interpreter has translated the passage ‘in one flesh,’ yet the Greek interpreters have expressed it more forcibly: ‘They two shall be into one flesh,’ and thus Christ cites the place in Matthew 19:5. But though here no mention is made of two, yet there is no ambiguity in the sense; for Moses had not said that God has assigned many wives, but only one to one man; and in the general direction given, he had put the wife in the singular number. It remains, therefore, that the conjugal bond subsists between two persons only, whence it easily appears, that nothing is less accordant with the divine institution than polygamy. Now, when Christ, in censuring the voluntary divorces of the Jews, adduces as his reason for doing it, that ‘it was not so in the beginning,’ (Matthew 19:5,) he certainly commands this institution to be observed as a perpetual rule of conduct. To the same point also Malachi recalls the Jews of his own time:

‘Did he not make them one from the beginning? and yet the Spirit was abounding in him.’¹⁵³¹⁵³ ^“Spiritus abundans in eo erat” The word abundans has in English the force of superabounding. — Ed (Malachi 2:15.)

Wherefore, there is no doubt that polygamy is a corruption of legitimate marriage.

¹⁵¹ See Le Clerc on this verse, who takes the same view as Calvin.

¹⁵² “Erunt in carnem unam.” — “In carne una.” — Vulgate. Εἰς σάρκα μίαν. — Sept.

¹⁵³ “Spiritus abundans in eo erat” The word abundans has in English the force of superabounding. — Ed