is likeness to God and in his having entire {315}
supremacy over the whole earth, and although it could have found therein
reasons enough for assigning a proper day to the creation of man, to which
the whole preceding creation pointed, and whom the whole creation on earth
should serve, yet in its account of the creation it evidently desires man
to be looked upon in his connection as a creature with the animal world.
Moreover, we should not overlook, in the Biblical account, that the
benediction which God gives to the animals of the water and the air, at the
end of the fifth day, is in the sixth day not pronounced over the
land-animals--although they certainly are as much entitled to it as fish
and birds--but over man. Of course, it is presupposed that the land-animals
naturally partake of the benediction of man, so far as it can be due to
them; the benediction, namely, of fertility and of increase. According to
these indications and to the Biblical conception, man stands in still
another and closer connection with the animal world than in that of mere
supremacy over it.

The second circumstance to which we have to call attention, is the
declaration (Genesis II, 7), that God created man out of earth; or rather,
as the literal translation says: "_And the Lord God formed man (of) dust of
the ground._" It is of no importance whether the accusative "dust of the
ground" is, as some say, a mere appositive, or, as others explain it, the
accusative of matter. When the account calls man dust of the ground, or a
being formed of dust, the difference is infinitely insignificant, whether
the earthly matter out of which God formed man who is dust of the earth,
was an animal organism or not; whether man was formed {316} directly or
indirectly out of the earth, and whether the forming demanded a longer or a
shorter time. For that it did demand time, and that it was not an
instantaneous creation, is implied in the expression "to form."

We call attention to this passage for still another reason. The second
account of creation, as it begins Genesis II, 4, and goes on to the end of
the third chapter, is strikingly different from the first account, Genesis
I-Genesis II, 4. It has its origin in that author whose book is called that
of the Jehovist, or, more lately, the judaico-prophetic book; and who,
among all those that have contributed stones to the building of the
Pentateuch, gives the deepest insight into the nature of sin and grace, and