If it
did, the word
barishona (Bet Resh Alef Shin Nun He) would have been necessary, whereas the word
reshit (Resh
Alef Shin Yod Tav) is always in the construct, as
in Jer. xxvii. 1, Gen. x. 10, Deut. xviii. 4;[67] likewise
bara (Bet Resh Alef) must here be taken as an
infinitive
(Bet Resh Alef with shin dot); the same
construction occurs in Hosea i. 2. Shall we assert that the
verse intends to convey that such a thing was created before
another, but that it is elliptical (just as ellipses occur in
Job iii. 10, Is. viii. 4, Amos vi. 12, Is. xlvi. 10)? But
this difficulty arises: that which existed first were the
waters, since the following verse says, that "the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters," and since the text did
not previously speak of the creation of the waters, the waters
Rashi's exegesis is a bit complicated, because his beliefs
prevented him from realizing that the narrative of Genesis
presupposes a primordial chaos; but his explanations are
ingenious, and do away with other difficulties. They have been
propounded again as original explanations by modern commentators,
such as Ewald, Bunsen, Schrader, Geiger, etc. Botticher even
proposed the reading
bara (Bet Resh Alef). I did not give
the preceding commentary in its entirety, because it is fairly
long and, in this respect, not typical.
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