ld-crowded
galaxies of the existing universe. The only other information
respecting it that we have in Scripture is in that fine descriptive
poem in Proverbs viii., in which the Wisdom of God personified--who
may be held to represent the Almighty Word, or Logos, introduced in
the formula "God said," and afterward referred to in Scripture as the
manifested or conditioned Deity, the Mediator between man and the
otherwise inaccessible Divinity, the agent in the work of creation as
well as in that of redemption--narrates the origin of all created
things:

"Jehovah possessed[38] me, the beginning of his way,
Before his work of old.
I was set up from everlasting,
From the beginning, before the earth was;
When there were no deeps I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding in water."

The beginning here precedes the creation of the earth, as well as of
the deep which encompassed its surface in its earliest condition. The
beginning, in this point of view, stretches back from the origin of
the world into the depths of eternity. It is to us emphatically _the_
beginning, because it witnessed the birth of our material system; but
to the eternal Jehovah it was but the beginning of a great series of
his operations, and we have no information of its absolute duration.
From the time when God began to create the celestial orbs, until that
time when it could be said that he had created the heavens and the
earth, countless ages may have rolled along, and myriads of worlds may
have passed through various stages of existence, and the creation of
our planetary system may have been one of the last acts of that long
beginning.

The author of creation is Elohim, or God in his general aspect to
nature and man, and not in that special aspect in reference to the
Hebrew commonwealth and to the work of redemption indicated by the
name Jehovah (_Iaveh_). We need not enter into the doubtful etymology
of the word; but may content ourselves with that supported by many,
perhaps the majority of authorities, which gives it the meaning of
"Object of dread or adoration," or with that preferred by Gesenius,
which makes it mean the "Strong or mighty one." Its plural form has
also greatly tried the ingenuity of the commentators. After carefully
considering the various hypotheses, such as that of the plural of
majesty of the Rabbins, and the primitive polytheism supposed by
certain Rationalists, I can see no better reason than a