Commentary: On Genesis 1:1

At the beginning of God’s creation (Genesis 1:1): Let the wise understand that all of our rabbis’ words and midrashic explanations are honest and true. So it is written in tractate Shabbat [63a], “I was eighteen years old [and I had studied the entire Talmud] and I had never realized that a verse never departs from its plain meaning.”

The essence of halakhic and midrashic exegesis is derived from superfluous language in Scripture or from linguistic anomalies. The plain meaning of the verse is written in such a way that one is [additionally] able to learn from it the essence of the midrashic explanation. For example, it is written: Such is the story of heaven and earth behibbare’am—as they were created (Genesis 2:4). The rabbis [Bereshit Rabbah 12:9] interpreted [that last word] midrashically to mean, “be’avraham—through [the merit of] Abraham [they were created].” [They did this] because of the superfluous language of the verse, for the word behibbare’am did not have to be written at all.

Now I shall elucidate the interpretations of earlier exegetes to this verse [Genesis 1:1] so as to explain to people why I do not choose to interpret as they did.

Some interpret the verse to mean, “ba-rishonah—the first things that God created were heaven and earth.” This is impossible to say because water [too] was already created, as it is written: And a wind from God was sweeping over the water (Genesis 1:2). Furthermore, the text does not say ba-rishonah, [a context form] but rather bereshit, a construct form, as in the phrase: The mainstays of [reshit] his kingdom were Babylon (Genesis 10:10).

Some explain this verse as being similar to the phrase: The outset of God’s speaking [teḥillat dibber] to Hosea (Hosea 1:2). In other words, they see the verse as meaning, “At the outset of God’s creation of heaven and earth”—i.e., before God had created heaven and earth—then, “The earth was unformed and void with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the waters.” According to this interpretation, then, water was created first.

This interpretation is also folly. The text should not have read, “The earth was unformed and void,” for the earth was not yet created. How can the text mention the earth even before the creation of the water, which preceded the earth?

The following is the true plain meaning of our text, which follows the Scriptural pattern of regularly anticipating and explaining some matter which, though unnecessary to the immediate context, serves the purpose of elucidating some matter to be mentioned further on, in another passage.

For example, when the text writes: Shem, Ham and Japheth (Genesis 9:18), why does it then proceed to write, Ham being the father of Canaan? It is because it is written below: Cursed be Canaan (Genesis 9:25). Had we not known before who Canaan was, we would not have understood why Noah cursed him.

[Another example is,] Reuben lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Israel found out (Genesis 35:22). Why does the text write at this point that Israel found out when it is not written at this point that Israel said anything about it to Reuben? However, later on Israel’s death bed he would say: Hasty as water, you shall excel no longer, for you mounted your father’s bed (Genesis 49:4). . . . Accordingly the text anticipates and writes that Israel found out, so that one would not be surprised when reading that Israel, towards the end of his life, chastised Reuben. Similarly, [this type of anticipatory style can be found] in many places.

This entire section, concerning the six days of creation, was also written by Moses for anticipatory purposes, so as to explain to the reader what God said when he gave the Torah: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day (Exodus 20:8–11).

For this reason it is written: There was evening and there was morning, the sixth [ha-shishi] day (Genesis 1:31), a reference to that same sixth day, the end of the creation process, of which God spoke when he gave the Torah.

That is why Moses related [this entire chapter about creation] to Israel—in order to inform them that what God said was true. [In other words, Moses said,] “Do you think that this world has forever existed in the way that you now see it, filled with all good things? That is not the case. Rather, bereshit bara’ ’elohim—i.e., at the beginning of the creation of the heaven and the earth, when the uppermost heavens and the earth had already been created for some undetermined length of time—then, the earth which already existed, was unformed and void—i.e., there was nothing in it.”

Similarly, it is written in Jeremiah: I look at the earth, it is unformed and void [tohu vavohu], at the skies, and their light is gone. . . . I look: no man is left, birds of the sky and beasts as well have fled and gone (Jeremiah 4:23, 4:25, 9:9). Accordingly, the meaning of tohu vavohu is that they were desolate, with no one living there. Similarly, Darkness over the surface of the deep is like: At the skies and their light is gone (Jeremiah 4:23).