The Meaning of Exodus 20. 11
APPENDIK XX (Reference: p. 98)
It is very frequently argued that the wording of Exod. 20. 11, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day ....", excludes the possibility of a gap between Gen. 1. 1 and 1. 2 because the whole process of creation was completed within these six days. Those who argue thus assume that the days are literal days - and in this, I think they are quite correct. But it is of tremendous importance in studying the Word of God to observe the precision with which words are used, especially where some important doctrine or institution is involved. What we are told here is that God in six days "made" ( , `asah) the heavens and the earth. It does not say that He created ( bara) them in six days.
I have seen it argued that these verbs are interchangeable because they are used sometimes in successive verses with what appears to be identical meaning. For example, in Gen. 1. 26 it is written, "And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness ....", and in verse 27, "So God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him". Superficially, the two verbs do appear to be equated here. But as Origen and other early commentators noted, by carefully observing what is said and what is NOT said in these two verses, there is an important lesson to be learned, and the lesson hinges upon the difference in meaning between these two governing verbs, 'asah and bara.
It is often found that light is shed upon the fundamental meaning of aword by noting the way in which it is first used in Scripture. The verb 'asah appears significantly in this respect in Gen. 1. 16: "And God made two great lights.... " It seems unlikely that the sun and the moon were not created until the fourth day since green things would hardly be brought into being before the sun was created. The reference in Gen. 1. 16 seems more likely to refer not to a creation but rather to the appointment of the sun and moon as rulers of the Day and Night: they were appointed as markers of time ("signs" - verse 14), precisely as Psa. 104. 19 indicates: "He appointed the moon for seasons". If we allow that the basic meaning of the Hebrew verb
asah is not creation but rather the giving of a new role to something already inexistence, then we have plenty of illustrations throughout Scripture of the use of this verb in this sense.
In the New Testament we are told that Jesus was made a High Priest after the order of Melchizedec (Heb. 6. 20). This illustrates the sense in which "made" means "appointed". In I Ki. 12.51 we have a quite exact parallel where we are told that Jeroboam appointed ('asah) priests of the lowest of the people. In Amos 3. 6 the question is asked, "Is there evil in any city and God hath not appointed ('asah) it ?"
In the Old Testament where the word 'asah forms part of a personal name, it is most appropriately rendered by the English "appointed". Thus we have in II Sam. 2.18 the name Ahasel, meaning "God hat appointed". In II Ki.12.14 we have the name Asahiah which means "Jah has appointed". In I Chron.4.35 we have Asihel, which means "appointed of God".
The word is used of dressing a calf for a meal, ie. , preparing it (Gen. 18. 7,8; Jud. 13.15). It is used of trimming a beard (II Sam. 19.25). In Deut. 21. 12 it is used of trimming one's nails! And in Esther 1. 5 it is used of preparing a feast for the court.
Strong's exhaustive Concordance of the Bible gives a number of meanings to the verb, including the word "appoint", but never the meaning "to create". The word is employed in speaking of the clothes which God made for man (Gen. 3. 21), and of clothing which man makes for himself (Exod.28.2 f.). It always involves working over something which already exists, and usually with a view to changing its form. Sometimes it has more precisely the idea of appointment in the sense that the making is in the future: a multitude of descendants, for example (Gen. 13.16). And it may have the meaning of appointment in a more abstract sense as when a covenant is made between God and Israel (Gen. 9. 12). At least within biblical usage it never means the creation of something out of nothing.
In Isa. 45. 18 we find a whole series of verbs setting forth God's
plan for the earth in which He is said to have created it (bara ), fashioned it (yatsar), appointed it ('asah), and established it (kun). Each word has a specific meaning, and it is not merely re-iteration.
Allowing the word, then, to bear the sense of appointment rather than assuming that it is a synonym for creation, we may observe in Gen. 1. 26 that God appointed for man that he should bear His image and His likeness: but that when the plan was put into effect and man is spoken of as having been created, reference is made only to the image - and significantly, no reference is made to the
likeness. We may gather from this that while both image and likeness were appointed ('asah), only the image itself was created (bara) by God, the achievement of the likeness being left as something to be wrought out by experience.
Origen noted, rightly, that while God intended that man should bear both His image and His likeness, He created only the image, whereas the likeness was something which was "appointed", something to be achieved, to be wrought out in life by the individual who therefore has a responsible part to play in the achieving of it. A number of passages indicate that the image has to do with relationship, in fact with sonship, and as a consequence of this relationship involves also in a certain sense ownership. As Jesus said of the coin (Lu. 20. 24) , the image which was stamped upon it signified that it belonged to Caesar. The image, when it is stamped upon man, signifies likewise that he belongs to God , and not only that he belongs to God as something possessed but rather that he belongs to God as a son belongs to his father. Hence it is common to find in the New Testament that when a man by new birth becomes a son of God (Jn. 1. 12), he is at the same moment re-created in the image of God to restore the image lost in the Fall. The image, therefore, is something which God creates, and it gives to the individual his unique relationship with his Creator. God is not the father of His creatures merely because He created them, for He created the cattle also but this does not make Him their father. But unlike all other creatures, man was created at first, and is re-created, in the "image of God" and thereby achieves his sonship.
But as to the likeness, it is appointed for man but it is not created, it is something to be achieved through experience but it is not imposed. The force of Satan's initial temptation was that man might achieve this likeness (Gen. 3. 5: "Ye shall become like God") by the wrong means. David said he would only be satisfied when he awoke with His likeness (Psa. 17.15). When John wrote his first Epistle he said (I Jn.3.1,2): "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.... Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.... " Our assurance is that we are, right now, sons, for by an act of God we have had His image stamped upon us: but we do also have the assurance that the appointed likeness will yet be achieved, being brought to perfection when He comes.
Thus by taking care to distinguish between words which superficially seem to be indistinguishable, Scripture sheds a new light upon the original Purposes of God and how they will be fulfilled. The word 'asah does not mean "to create", but rather "to make" in the English sense of "appointing".
I do not suggest that the meaning of appointment is the only meaning of 'asah. It has other meanings which come close to the common English word "make" in the sense of doing or working at something. But the fact is that the meaning of appointment, in the sense of working upon something which already exists in order to effect a change in it until it becomes something further is commonly involved. So that when we are told in Exod. 20. 11 that God made heaven and earth in six days, we are not called upon to assume that this has reference to the original creation. We may be quite justified in reading this as a reference to the re-working of something which is already in existence, just as the sun and the moon and the stars may very well have been in existence long before they were appointed to mark the times and the seasons for man who was about to be introduced. Exod. 20. 11 surely refers to the work of these six-days not as a time of creation ex nihilo but as a time in which a ruined cosmos was re-ordered as a fit habitation for man. And when this re-ordering was completed, God rested.
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