(15685330 - Vetus Testamentum) Separation and Creation in Genesis 1 and Psalm 104, A Continuation of the Discussion of the Verb ברא

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647
Vetus
Testamentum
brill.com/vt
Separation and Creation in Genesis 1 and Psalm 104,

A Continuation of the Discussion of the Verb ‫ברא‬
Ellen van Wolde

Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands
e.vanwolde@ftr.ru.nl
Abstract
The meaning of the verb ‫ ברא‬is the subject of fierce discussions. Conventionally it
has been rendered by biblicists and Hebraists as “to create,” but this traditional inter-
pretation fails to explain adequately numerous linguistic and conceptual aspects of
the verb’s usage. Historical solutions of these problems are discussed. The alternative
hypothesis defended here is that the verb ‫ ברא‬Qal designates “to separate.” It is consid-
ered to be a spatial concept, not a concept that figures in the domain of construction.
In the present article I present further analyses of the verb ‫ ברא‬in Gen 1 and explain
the significance for the idea of creation it represents, and of the most famous creation
psalm, Ps 104, and especially of vv. 26-30 in which the term ‫ ברא‬is used. The similarities
and dissimilarities between these two texts demonstrate that each context of usage of
‫ ברא‬must be independently investigated and appreciated.
Keywords
creation – Genesis 1 – Psalm 104
1 Introduction
It is carved in our collective memory, “In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.” What if Gen 1:1 said something else? What if the verb ‫ ברא‬denoted
“to separate” in the sense of spatial separation? And what are the ramifications
of this meaning for the entire story of Gen 1:1-2:4a? And what would it tell us
about other biblical texts with creation motifs, such as the well-known creation
psalm, Ps 104? The aim of this article is to examine these kinds of questions.
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After a survey of the common understanding of ‫ ברא‬and the problems it en-

tails (section 2), and a short presentation of the alternative hypothesis that ‫ברא‬
designates “to separate,” and a historical discussion (section 3), I will examine
Gen 1 (section 4) and Ps 104 (section 5), first separately and then in compari-
son (section 6), in order to explain the significance of the understanding of
‫ ברא‬designating “to separate” for the images of the universe’s creation in these
texts. In the end I hope to have shown the superior value of this alternative
understanding of ‫ ברא‬for our explanation of Gen 1 and Ps 104.
2 Survey of the Standard Positions and the Problems Involved
The common understanding represented by the major dictionaries and com-

mentaries is that the Hebrew verb ‫ ברא‬designates the divine act of creation.
The fact that God is the only subject of the verb ‫ ברא‬in the Hebrew Bible has
led to the conclusions that this exclusive relation to God is the verb’s most
defining feature, and that it is used to express God’s unique creative act at the
very beginning, namely his creation of something completely new. Since more
than a century ago some biblical scholars have been doubtful about this expla-
nation and suggested that the verb’s meaning comes closer to that of cutting
or separation.1 Yet, they failed to convince the majority, so that the standard
view still is that ‫ ברא‬expresses the meaning “to create,” in the sense of making
something new that did not exist before, and that it refers to God’s unique cre-
ative activity especially with regard to the heaven and earth. Even the biblical
scholars who considered the verb to designate “to separate” understood this
1 In chronological order: W. Gesenius, Hebräisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch über die Schriften

des Alten Testaments mit einschluss der geographischen Namen und chaldäischen Wörter im
Esra und Daniel, Theil 1 (Leipzig: Vogel, 1810), 120; W. Gesenius, Thesaurus philologicus criti-
cus lingvae hebraeae et chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti (Lipsiae: Vogel, 1829), 236; S. R. Driver,
The Book of Genesis, with Introduction and Notes (London: Methuen & Co., 1904), 3; H. A.
Brongers, De scheppingstradities bij de profeten (Amsterdam: H. J. Paris, 1945), 13-16; J. van
der Ploeg, “Le sens du verbe hébreu bara. Étude sémasiologique,” Le Muséon 59 (1946):
143-57; É. Dantinne, “Création et séparation,” Le Muséon 74 (1961): 441-51; K.-H. Bernhardt,
“‫ברא‬,” in G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, and H.-J. Fabry (eds.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum
Alten Testament (10 vols.; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1970-98), 1:773-77 (773); P. Beauchamp,
Création et séparation (Paris: Ed. Du Cerf, 1969); C. Westermann, Genesis 1: Teilband 1: Genesis
1-11 (BKAT 1/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974), 99; R. C. van Leeuwen, “‫ברא‬,”
in W. A. Van Gemeren (ed.), New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and
Exegesis (5 vols.; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), 1:728-35 (731); J. H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient
Cosmology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 128-33.

separation and creation in genesis 1 and psalm 104 613
process of separation in one way only, namely as “to cut in a particular shape,”
“to fashion by cutting,” or “to create,” that is as an act of separation by which
something is “produced.”
However, this understanding of ‫“ ברא‬to create” faces various problems.
These are (1) the distribution of creation verbs in the Hebrew Bible in
which ‫ ברא‬is not used as a distinguishing creative activity for God, (2) the Piel
form of ‫ ברא‬that clearly designates “cutting,” (3) the usages of the Niphal form
of ‫ברא‬, and (4) interpretative problems of a number of biblical texts if the Qal
form of ‫ ברא‬denoted “to create.”
2.1 The Distribution of Terms of Creation in the Hebrew Bible

In the sixty texts with creation motifs in the Hebrew Bible,2 God’s creation of
heaven and earth is expressed in the following ways.
a) God’s creation of the earth is expressed nine times by the verb ‫“ עשה‬to
make,”3 nine times by the verb ‫“ יסד‬to ground,”4 and four times with the
synonymous verb ‫“ כון‬to establish.”5 The other constructions are less fre-
quent: the verb ‫“ רקע‬to spread out” occurs three times,6 the verb ‫ ברא‬two
times (only in Gen 1:1 and 2:4; in Isa 40:28 the object of the verb ‫ ברא‬is the
plural noun “the ends of the earth”), and the verb ‫“ יצר‬to form” twice.7
Hence, the making of the earth is most commonly expressed by the verbs
‫ יסד‬and ‫ כון‬to indicate that God grounded or established the earth, or by
the verb ‫ עשה‬to describe that God made or created the earth.8
2 Gen 1:1-2:4a; 2:4b-24; 5:1-2; 6:7; 14:19, 22; Exod 20:11; 31:17; Deut 4:32; Isa 29:16; 37:16; 40:12-14, 21-
28; 42:5; 43:1, 7, 15; 44:24; 45:7-8, 12, 18; 48:13; 51:9-16; 65:17-18; Jer 4:23-26; 10:12; 27:5; 31:22; 51:15;
Amos 4:13; 5:8-9; 9:5-6; Zeph 1:2-3; Zech 12:1-8; Pss 8; 24:1-2; 33:6-9; 44:3; 74:12-17; 78:69; 89:10-13;
95:5; 102:26; 104; 115:15; 119:90; 121:2; 124:8; 136:5-9; 146:6; 148:5-6; Prov 3:19-20; 8:22-29; 22:2;
Job 3:3-13; 9:8; 26:7-14; 28:20-28; 38; Qoh 11:5; Neh 9:6.
3 ‫ עשה‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Isa 37:16; 45:12, 18; Jer 10:12; Pss 115:15; 121:2; 124:8; 146:6; Prov 8:26.
4 ‫ יסד‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Isa 48:13; 51:13, 16; Zech 12:1; Pss 78:69; 89:12; 102:26; Job 38:4; Prov 3:19.
5 ‫ כון‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Isa 45:18; Pss 93:1; 96:10; 199:90.
6 ‫ רקע‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Isa 42:5; 44:24; Ps 136:6.
7 ‫ יצר‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Isa 45:18; Ps 95:5.
8 See also the Psalm Scroll of Qumran, 11QPsa (=11Q5); the Hymn to the Creator, lines 13-14:
“Blessed be he who makes (‫ )עשה‬the earth by his power, establishing (‫ )כון‬the world in his
wisdom.”
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614 van wolde
b) God’s creation of the heavens is indicated sixteen times by the verb ‫עשה‬
“to make,”9 eleven times by the verb ‫“ נטה‬to spread out,”10 three times by
the verb ‫( ברא‬apart from Gen 1:1 and 2:4, only in Isa 42:5, where it is used
parallel to ‫“ נטה‬to spread out”), twice by the verb ‫“ קנה‬to create” (in Gen
14:19, 22), twice by the verb ‫“ כון‬to establish,”11 and once by the verb ‫טפח‬
“to spread.”12 Thus, the prototypical terms to designate God’s creation of
the heavens are “to make” (‫ )עשה‬and “to spread out” (‫)נטה‬.
c) Another point is that if ‫ ברא‬were the exclusive term for the creation of
the heaven and the earth one might wonder why in Exod 20 the Sabbath
is twice defined in relation to God’s creation of the heaven and the earth,
in which God’s creation is resumed by ‫ עשה‬and not ‫ברא‬. A similar ques-
tion might be posed with regard to Gen 14:19, 22 where God is twice men-
tioned as “the creator of heaven and earth,” in which not ‫ בורא‬but ‫קונה‬
is used to designate God as the creator of heaven and earth. In fact, the
fixed expression of God as “creator of the heaven and the earth” never
contains the term ‫בורא‬, but either the term ‫( קונה‬twice)13 or the term
‫( עושה‬six times).14
In conclusion, if the verb ‫ ברא‬were the standard or conventional term to desig-

nate God’s creation of the universe, this term would have been more regularly
used. Conversely, the verb ‫“ עשה‬to make” appears to be the common term to
designate God’s creation of the heaven, of the earth, and of the heaven and the
earth.
Some scholars consider the fact that the participle ‫ בורא‬with God as sub-
ject is used eleven times in the Hebrew Bible to prove that this verb uniquely
identifies God as creator.15 However, the participle ‫ יוצר‬of the verb ‫“ יצר‬to fash-
ion” with God as subject is used twenty times in the Hebrew Bible16 and the
9 ‫ עשה‬+ ‫ שמים‬in Gen 2:4b; Exod 20:11; 2 Kgs 19:15; Isa 37:16; 45:18; Jer 32:17; Pss 33:6; 96:5;
115:15; 124:8; 134:3; 136:5; 146:6; Neh 9:6; 1 Chr 16:26; 2 Chr 2:12.
10 ‫ נטה‬+ ‫ שמים‬in Isa 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 51:13, 16; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Zech 12:1; Ps 104:2;
Job 26:7.
11 ‫ כון‬+ ‫ שמים‬in Prov 3:19; 8:27.
12 ‫ טפח‬+ ‫ שמים‬in Isa 48:13.
13 ‫ קונה‬+ ‫ שמים‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Gen 14:19, 22 (see also 4QJubg25:11).
14 ‫ עושה‬+ ‫ שמים‬+ ‫ ארץ‬in Isa 37:16; 45:18; Pss 115:15; 121:2; 124:8; 146:6.
15 ‫בורא‬: Isa 40:28; 42:5; 43:15; 45:7, 18; 57:19; 65:17, 18 (x2); Qoh 12:1.
16 ‫יוצר‬: Isa 23:11; 27:11; 43:1; 44:24; 45:7, 11, 18; 49:5; Jer 10:16; 18:11; 33:2; 51:19; Amos 4:13; 7:1; Hab
2:18; Zech 12:1; Pss 94:9, 20; 33:15.

participle ‫ עושה‬of the verb ‫“ עשה‬to make” with God as subject occurs fourteen
times,17 and both participles also identify God as creator.
If theophoric names illustrate the beliefs that the name-giver or name-bear-
er has about the deity, it is revealing that the theophoric name ‫“ בראיה‬Yhwh
creates” occurs only once, in a genealogy, without context, in 1 Chr 8:21, where-
as the theophoric names Benayah, Benayahu, and Yibneyah based on the verb
‫“ בנה‬to build/create” are used forty times, the theophoric names Elasah, Asael,
Asayah, and Yaasiel, all based on the verb ‫“ עשה‬to make/create” are used thirty-
five times, and the theophoric name Elqanah based on the verb ‫“ קנה‬to cre-
ate/acquire” is used twenty times. These Hebrew personal names, all denoting
“Yhwh/God made/created,” point to the fact that the verbs ‫ בנה‬,‫עשה‬, and ‫קנה‬
are predominantly used in the name-giving of a child at birth or in the names
of Israelite people to express the divine act of creation.
2.2 The Piel Form of ‫ברא‬

The best known problem for the common understanding of the verb ‫ברא‬
denoting “to create” is the Piel form of the verb ‫ ברא‬which clearly refers to
“cutting” in Josh 17:15, 18, and Ezek 21:24. The question, then, is: How does this
verb’s Piel meaning “to cut” relate to its Qal meaning “to create”? Most Biblical
Hebrew dictionaries solve this problem by distinguishing two or three hom-
onymous roots: ‫ ברא‬I “to create” (Qal and Niphal), ‫ ברא‬II “to consume food”
(Hiphil), ‫ ברא‬III “to cut, clear” (Piel), and some of them follow Gesenius’ 1835
Thesaurus and 1883 Handwörterbuch in his hypothesis of a historical semantic
development of the root from “to separate, divide” to “to create.” Yet, the five
texts in the Hebrew Bible with the Piel form of the verb ‫ ברא‬are pretty clear.
The Piel of ‫ ברא‬expresses in Josh 17:15, 18 not “to cut down trees,” but “to
make an empty space by cutting down trees.” Ezekiel 21:24 contains the verb
‫ ברא‬twice to designate “to cut out a spot.” Ezekiel 23:47 evokes “to cut down”
adulteresses, to clear the place of them. The Piel or intensive form of ‫ ברא‬thus
figures in a spatial domain in which the act itself is marked as intensive, that is,
“cutting” or “clearing” violently.
2.3 The Niphal Form of ‫ברא‬

Also the usages of the Niphal form of ‫ ברא‬beg for further inspection. In con-
trast to classical Hebrew grammars that understood the Niphal form to express
primarily the reflexive voice, modern studies consider the Niphal to express
17 ‫עושה‬: Isa 17:7; 45:7 (x2); Jer 6:13; 8:10; 10:12; 51:15; Prov 14:31; 17:15; 22:2; Job 5:9; 9:10; 25:2; 37:5.

616 van wolde
the middle voice.18 Most recently, Ernst Jenni published a comprehensive

analysis of the Niphal, while taking into account the general linguistic study
on middle voice presented by Kemmer.19 In it, he shows that the Niphal in
Biblical Hebrew is a middle voice that expresses an event in which the subject
is concerned with itself as an undifferentiated middle.20 He presents in-depth
analyses of hundreds of Niphal verb forms, for example of the verbs ‫ חבא‬and
‫“ סתר‬be hidden,”21 and the verbs of unification ‫ אסף‬and ‫ קבץ‬Niphal which des-
ignate “come together” (and not: “be assembled”), e.g. in Gen 49:1, “Jacob said
to his sons: ‘Come together’ (‫ אסף‬Ni). (. . .) ‘Assemble (‫ קבץ‬Ni) and listen.’ ”22 His
analyses include nine Niphal verb forms designating separation, among whom
are ‫ בקע‬Ni “split” (e.g. in Exod 14:21, not: “the waters were split,” but “the waters
split”), ‫ פרד‬Ni “divide” (e.g. in Gen 2:10, not: “the river in Eden was divided,” but
“the river divides and becomes four branches”) and ‫ חלק‬Ni “divide, split” (e.g.
18 S. A. Creason, “Semantic Classes of Hebrew Verbs: A Study of Aktionsart in the Hebrew
Verbal System” (2 vols.; Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1995); M. A. Arnold,
“Categorization of the Hitpa‘el in of Classical Hebrew” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard
University, 2005); H. Gzella, “Voice in Classical Hebrew Against its Semitic Background,”
Orientalia 78.3 (2009) 292-325; E. Jenni, “Nifal und Hitpael im Biblisch-Hebräischen,” in
E. Jenni, Studien zur Sprachwelt des Alten Testaments III (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2012),
131-303. For a survey of views on the Niphal in classical Biblical Hebrew grammars, see
Jenni, “Nifal und Hitpael im Biblisch-Hebräischen,” 144 n. 28.
19 S. Kemmer, The Middle Voice (Typological Studies in Language 23; Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins, 1993). She defines transitive verbs as verbs that involve two participants (the
Agent or Initiator/Instigator who acts volitionally on another participant and the Patient/
Endpoint, which is directly and completely affected by that event), whereas intransitive
verbs involve only one participant. Many languages also know a middle voice of transitive
verbs that involve one participant that stands in an Initiator/Endpoint relation to itself.
The main function of the middle voice of verbs is to code the affectedness of an initiating
agent. See, for example, the middle voice in English: “She dressed,” “She sat down,” “They
turned around.”
20 “Es ist unbestreitbar, dass viele im Hebräischen im Nif‘al dargestellte Sachverhalte /
Situationen im Deutschen passiv wiederzugeben sind, sei es im Vorgangspassiv (werden-
Passiv), sei es im Zustandspassiv (sein-Passiv), sei es mit Passiv-Paraphrasen. Das besagt
aber nicht, dass das Nif‘al in ein mediales Nif‘al und ein passives Nif‘al mit Agens und
Patiens aufgeteilt werden müsste. Beide Verwendungen, die aktiv-mediale und die me-
diopassive, sind gleicherweise dem Nif‘al eigene Möglichkeiten, Aussagen über freiwillige
oder erduldete oder auch erzwungene Handlungen und Vorgänge zu bilden, wobei auch
unbelebte Dinge sich medial verhalten können” (Jenni, “Nifal und Hitpael im Biblisch-
Hebräischen,” 145).
21 Ibid., 153-61.
22 Ibid., 179-97.

in 1 Kgs 16:21, not: “then the people of Israel were divided into two factions,” but
“then the people of Israel split into two factions”).
Along the same line, the Niphal of the verb of separation ‫ ברא‬understood
as a middle voice would designate the (collective) middle motion of “going
apart,” or “spreading out,” and its ten usages are then explained as follows. Out
of these ten occurrences, four times the Niphal form of ‫ ברא‬is used in an in-
finitive construction with pronominal suffix and time marker, which expresses
the resultative state of the performed action: in Gen 2:4 “This is the history of
the heaven and the earth in their going apart/when they went apart;” in Gen
5:2 “He called their name ‘humankind’ on the day of their going apart/when
they went apart;” in Ezek 28:13 (to the king of Tyre, who is first described as
staying among the gods in the garden of Eden) “on the day or your going apart”
and in 28:15 “from the day of your going apart.” The Niphal form of ‫ ברא‬is once
used as participle in Ps 102:19, where it also refers to the resultative state with
a spatial notion, namely “the set-apart people will praise Yhwh.” Five times a
finite form of ‫ ברא‬Niphal is used, also expressing a middle voice. The first is Isa
48:6-7: “You have heard all this; look, must you not acknowledge it? As of now,
I announce to you new things, well-guarded secrets you did not know. Only
now they are spread out (‫ ברא‬Niphal), and not of old; before today you had not
heard them.” The second time is Ps 148:5: “the waters above the heavens will
praise the name of Yhwh, because he commanded and they went apart (‫ברא‬
Niphal).” The other three finite usages will be discussed below in more detail.
The here presented translations show the possibility of the middle voice
function of ‫ ברא‬Niphal and of its meaning of “going apart” or “spreading out,”
yet they do not discuss the meaning of separation. Since the semantic contents
of lexemes depend as much on clause construction and literary context as on
root meaning and stemformation / binyan, I will below extensively discuss the
semantic content of ‫ ברא‬Niphal Yiqtol in the clause constructions and literary
context of Ps 104:30, which is a famous creation text in which ‫ ברא‬is invariably
understood to designate “to create.” In the remainder of this section on the
Niphal, I will shortly comment on the semantic contents of the two finite uses
of ‫ ברא‬Niphal in the literary contexts of Exod 34:10 and Ezek 21:35.
In Exod 34:10-16 God offers his covenant to Moses and Israel: “I hereby make
a covenant. Before all your people I will work wonders (‫ )עשה נפלאת‬that will
not ‫( ברא‬Niphal) over all the earth and all peoples.” Biblical scholars offer two
possible explanations: either ‫ עשה‬is used synonymously with ‫ ברא‬and both
verbs refer to God’s “making” of wonders, or the two verbs express different
meanings. The first explanation faces various problems. (a) In the 44 usages of
the noun ‫ נפלאת‬in the Hebrew Bible, when the divine act of working or making
wonders is expressed, the verb ‫ עשה‬is always used in combination with ‫נפלאת‬.

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In other words, it is a fixed word combination. In contrast, the collocation of

the verb ‫ ברא‬and the noun ‫ נפלאת‬is not used in the Hebrew Bible to express
God’s performing wonders. (b) The word combination ‫ עשה נפלאת‬is never
framed negatively; it always has Yhwh or Elohim as its subject and is always
used in a positive sense. Exod 34:10 would be the only exception to this rule.
(c) Another problem is the prepositional construction: ‫ ברא‬is here collocated
twice with the spatial preposition “over” (‫“ )ב‬over the entire earth” and “over
all peoples,” which implies an action including a direction, a movement, or at
least an event with a spatially extended component.
Let us look more carefully at the second option, in which ‫ עשה‬and ‫ ברא‬are
understood to express different meanings. The context of verse 10 in Exod
34:10-16 is the following. In his presentation of his covenant, God describes its
two sides: a positive side, the loyalty between God and Israel, and a negative
side, the attitude towards the other nations, who are to be driven out, with
whom the Israelites are not allowed to make a covenant and whose altars are to
be destructed. Thus the covenant God is offering is conceived of as both bind-
ing the people of Israel with their deity and separating them from the other
nations, who have their own deities.
This covenant, then, is specified by v. 10 in which the wonders figure pre-
dominantly. An examination of all usages of the term “wonders” (‫ )נפלאת‬re-
veals that the God of Israel is performing these wonders to his people only,
while other nations or peoples are never the recipients of these wonders, and
that this granting of wonders is strongly associated with terms of acknowledge-
ment described as the appropriate reaction by the people of Israel. In “making/
working wonders,” Yhwh shows that he is setting the Israelites apart from the
other nations. This pattern is in its entirety visible in Exod 34:10: Yhwh’s work-
ing of wonders is expressed by the collocation ‫ עשה נפלאת‬and is strongly as-
sociated with Moses’ people (“before all your people”). The negative particle
‫ לא‬marks the transition to the act of disassociation with all other people, and
this is expressed by the Niphal of ‫(“ ברא‬the wonders) that will not (be) spread
out over all the earth and all peoples.” In other words, the exceptional deeds
of Yhwh vis-à-vis Israel set the Israelites apart from the other nations. Hence,
these divine extraordinary deeds are unifying Israel with their God as much as
dividing the Israelites from the other people and their Gods. These two sides of
the covenant are extensively described in Exod 34:10-16.
In Ezek 21:35 ‫ ברא‬figures in Yhwh’s speech to the prophet Ezekiel. In the
first part of this speech, in vv. 8-12, Yhwh addresses Jerusalem, referring
three times to his drawing of the sword from its sheath, promising that it
will never return. In vv. 23-28 Yhwh reveals that it is the sword of the king
of the Babylonians that battered Jerusalem, and that it will come upon the

Ammonites as well. The Ammonites are addressed in vv. 33-34, and these vers-
es are immediately followed by ‫ ברא‬in v. 35: “[35a] Return to its sheath! [35b]
In the place of your ‫ ברא‬Niphal, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.
[36] I will pour out my indignation upon you, I will blow upon you with the
fire of my wrath.” The first question is: who are the addressees of vv. 35-37? The
Ammonites? Various scholars choose this option, because these Ammonites
are addressed in the previous verses too.23 The question, then, arises: if the
term ‫ ברא‬in the sense of “to create” describes that the Ammonites are going
to return to the place from whence they came (or “were created”), this would
imply that it is their createdness that is under attack. This seems highly un-
likely: why would the text at this moment and place refer to the Ammonites as
being created? Other scholars consider this verse to refer to the Babylonians
since it was their sword that battered Jerusalem.24 But the main problem is of
a grammatical nature. Three times a feminine singular form is used to express
the referent: the Niphal of ‫)נבראת( ברא‬, the pronominal suffix in ‫“ מכורה‬your
origin,” and the object suffix in “I will judge you,” so that these terms must refer
to the feminine singular noun ‫“ חרב‬sword,” that is elliptically implied in v. 35a:
“return [the sword] to the sheath.” But, then, the verb ‫ ברא‬in v. 35b refers to the
sword and it is hard to understand it in the sense “to create” (which would lead
to the interpretation: “the land in which the sword is created”). In contrast,
the meaning of “unsheathing,” “separating the sword from the sheath” is a very
likely option. And v. 35 could be translated accordingly: “Return it to its sheath,
in the place where you (= the sword) were unsheathed (= ‫)ברא‬, in the land of
your origin (= the sword’s origin), I will judge you.”
In sum, the literary contexts of ‫ ברא‬Niphal in both Exod 34:10 and Ezek 21:35
confirm the possibility of their function as middle voices and of their spatial
semantic contents.
23 See T. Stordalen, The Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2-3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in
Biblical Hebrew Literature (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 340, also for further literature.
24 See, among others, P. M. Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary (LHBOTS 482; New York: T&T Clark,
2007), 158; D. I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1997), 697-98, who remarks that “the word [‫ ]ברא‬plays on its homonym, meaning
‘to carve,’ in v. 24,” but who nevertheless concludes that “the reference is obviously to
Nebuchadrezzar’s return to Babylon, his native land, but the manner in which that land
is described is striking, particularly the first expression.” However, Block does not explain
the feminine singular of the pronominal suffix and the feminine singular of the object
suffix that refer clearly to the sword.

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2.4 The Qal Form of ‫ברא‬

Various Qal usages of ‫ ברא‬are problematic when understood in the sense of
creation, of which I mention only five here, namely Num 16:30-33, Isa 4:5; 40:21-
26; 45:6-7; and 57:19.
In Num 16:30-33 Moses announces that Yhwh will distance himself from
Korah’s people and will send them alive into Sheol. In v. 30 the word combi-
nation ‫ ברא בריאה‬occurs which cannot possibly express “to create creation,”
and some commentaries have translated it with “chasm.”25 Hanson made an
in-depth study of these verses and points at the following parallelism between
v. 30 and vv. 31-33:26
Announcement in Numbers 16:30 Execution in Numbers 16:31-33

And Moses said: Scarcely had he finished speaking
these words when
1. if Yhwh ‫ברא בריאה‬ 1. the ground under them burst open
(‫ בקע‬Ni)
2. and the ground opens its mouth 2. and the earth opened its mouth
3. and swallows them up with all 3. and swallowed them up with their
that belongs to them households, all Korah’s people and all
their possessions;
4. and they go down alive into Sheol 4. they went down alive into Sheol
In his announcement of Yhwh’s verdict in v. 30, Moses states that if Yhwh

performs the action of ‫ברא‬, the consequence will be that the ground opens
its mouth: the ground’s lips will spread out and its throat will swallow Korah’s
people up without any chewing. The result is that they will go down alive into
Sheol. This verdict is immediately executed in v. 31, and in doing so the content
of v. 30 is repeated. The collocation ‫ ברא בריאה‬in v. 31 is replaced by the collo-
cation “the ground burst open” (‫ בקע‬Nifal), which demonstrates that Yhwh’s
deed in v. 30 causes the ground’s opening and that ‫ ברא בריאה‬refers to Yhwh’s
act of opening, his making or splitting a chasm. It can therefore be translated
with “if Yhwh splits open a chasm.”
25 E.g., P. Humbert, “Emploi et portée du verbe bārā (créer) dans l’Ancien Testament,” in
Opuscules d’un hébraïsant (ed. P. Humbert; Mémoires de l’Université de Neuchâtel,
26; Neuchatel: Secrétariat de l’Université de Neuchatel, 1958), 146-65 (147); J. Milgrom,
Numbers: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (JPS Torah
Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1990), 137; Van
Leeuwen, “‫ברא‬,” 732.
26 H. E. Hanson, “Num XVI 30 and the Meaning of BARA,” VT 22 (1972): 353-59.

Another text in which ‫ ברא‬Qal is difficult to understand in the sense of

“to create” is Isaiah 4:5: “Yhwh ‫ ברא‬over the whole shrine and meeting place
of Mount Zion a cloud cover by day and smoke with a glow of flaming fire
by night.” It seems very unlikely that ‫ ברא‬denotes “to create” here, since the
context presupposes a divine activity of spreading out a cloud cover over the
community on Mount Zion, a cloud cover intended to protect them. The very
same phrases return in the Psalms, such as Ps 105:39, where in the same clause
the verb ‫“ פרש‬to spread out” is used. Entailed in both texts is the meaning of
spreading out arms, wings, garments, or voiles similar to the idea of the spread-
ing out of the heavens, expressed by the term ‫ברא‬. Similarly, Isa 45:16-18 where
God, here designated ‫האלהים‬, is described as the one “who spread out/set apart
(‫ )ברא‬the heavens, who formed the earth and made it, who established/found-
ed it. He did not set it (the earth) apart (‫ )ברא‬to be a void, but formed it for
habitation.”
A well-known text in which ‫ ברא‬Qal presents an inexplicable usage of ‫ברא‬
if it denoted “to create” is Isa 45:6-7: “I am the former (‫ )יוצר‬of light and the cre-
ator (‫ )בורא‬of darkness. I am the maker (‫ )עושה‬of good and the creator (‫)בורא‬
of evil.” Did God create darkness? If a reference to Gen 1 is presupposed in Isa
45, this would be impossible, since in Gen 1 darkness is pre-existent. And did
God create evil, at least according to Isa 45? In biblical scholarship Isa 45:7-8 is
thought to be unique in regard to the notion that chaos and evil were created
by the deity.27 However, if the verb ‫ ברא‬designated “to separate” there would
be no problem at all. Then the text states that “God formed the light and sepa-
rated it from darkness” (as indeed, is stated in Gen 1: 2-3), “that he made good
and separated it from evil.”
Still another text is Isa 40:21-22, 26 where in v. 26 ‫ ברא‬Qal figures in the larger
metaphorical context of the making of the heaven and the earth. Verses 21-22
describe how God founded (‫ )יסד‬the earth, spread out (‫ )נטה‬the heavens like a
veil, stretched out the heavens like a tent to dwell in. It shows God as the one
who is enthroned above the vault of the earth from where he can see the in-
habitants as grasshoppers, so large is the distance between heaven and earth.
This distance prefigures the difference in his power (vv. 23-24: he brings poten-
tates to naught) and his incomparability (v. 25). The entire image is concluded
in v. 26: “Lift high your eyes and see: ‫מי־ברא אלה‬.” This verse does not merely
27 For a survey of the extensive literature on Isa 45:6-7 until 1992, see M. DeRoche, “Isaiah
45:7 and the Creation of Chaos?,” VT 42 (1992): 11-21, until 2008, see T. Dykesteen-Nilsen,
“The Creation of Darkness and Evil (Isaiah 45:6c-7),” RB 115.1 (2008): 5-25, and until 2012,
see S. M. Paul, Isaiah 40-66: Translation and Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2012).

622 van wolde
describe “the making of these things,” since this has been metaphorically con-
ceived as the founding of the earth and as the spreading out of the heavens.
Reference is made to the distance between the two cosmological realms in
analogy to the distance in power between God above and human beings below
and is expressed by ‫ברא‬, “Lift up your eyes and see: Who separated these?”
Finally, Isa 57:19 is also difficult to understand in the conventional way with
‫ ברא‬denoting “to create.” All Bible translations struggle with this text. For ex-
ample, Paul writes in his recent translation: “And to the mourners, creating
fruit of the lips/heartening words.”28 The noun ‫ניב‬/‫ נוב‬designates “fruit,” but
what is the meaning of “to create fruit”? Paul gives no explanation but merely
states “i.e. thanksgiving,”29 although the regular meaning of “to create” in com-
bination with “fruit” seems highly unlikely.
3 The Hypothesis that the Verb ‫ ברא‬Designates “to Separate” and a

Historical Discussion
Confronted with all these problems the conventional understanding of ‫“ ברא‬to

create” is facing, the standard reaction in the field of biblical scholarship has
been to opt for a historical solution (see section 3.2). Nevertheless, there is an-
other option, namely to accept the view that the verb ‫ ברא‬expresses a meaning
other than what is commonly assumed (see section 3.1).
3.1 Presentation of the Hypothesis

Based on the above described distributional linguistic and literary data, Van
Wolde (2009) presented an alternative hypothesis with regard to the meaning
of ‫ ברא‬in Gen 1 designating “to separate” as a purely spatial term, which was
further explained and substantiated by Van Wolde and Rezetko (2011).30 These
linguistic studies concluded that the verb ‫ ברא‬functions in the cognitive do-
main of space and designates [separation] or [setting apart]. Whereas
the intensive form or Piel of ‫ ברא‬expresses that this act is performed inten-
sively or even violently, or with an instrument that requires force or violence,
the Qal form of ‫ ברא‬expresses this temporal process neither intensively nor
28 S. M. Paul, Isaiah 40-66: Translation and Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012),
478.
29 Ibid., 478.
30 E. van Wolde, “Why the Verb ‫ ברא‬Does Not Mean ‘to Create’ in Genesis 1.1-2.4a,” JSOT
34.1 (2009): 3-23; E. van Wolde and R. Rezetko, “Semantics and the Semantics of ‫ברא‬: A
Rejoinder to the Arguments Advanced by B. Becking and M. Korpel,” JHS 11.9 (2009): 2-39.

violently. The latter can, dependent on the number and type of its objects and
of the context of use, be translated “to divide, separate, set apart, spread out,
disconnect.” The translation “to differentiate” is not recommended because it
entails more abstract notions such as “distinguishing, making a distinction be-
tween.” The Niphal of ‫ ברא‬has a medial function to be rendered “go apart” or
“spread out,” or a medio-passive function “to be set apart” or “to be spread out.”
All these binyanim of the verb of ‫ ברא‬express the same concept, in which the
starting point is not a unity in substance or matter, but a unity in space. The
verb then designates a process that starts with this spatial unity and has a spa-
tial distance as its endpoint.
3.2 A Historical Discussion

The problems described above in section 2 have commonly been “solved” his-
torically, that is, either language historically, that is, etymologically and com-
paratively, or text historically, that is, with reference to the versions or historical
development in the Hebrew Bible. We will discuss these items one by one.
3.2.1 Etymology
Generally accepted in the dictionaries is the distinction between two or three
homonymous roots: ‫ ברא‬I “to create” (Qal and Niphal), ‫ ברא‬II “to consume
food” (Hiphil), ‫ ברא‬III “to cut, clear” (Piel).31 Following these dictionaries, most
biblical scholars take the etymological distinction between ‫ ברא‬I “to create”
and ‫ ברא‬II “to cut” for a fact. However, more detailed etymological studies of
(a) Biblical Hebrew ‫ברא‬, (b) related terms in cognate languages, and (c) Arabic
show otherwise.
(a) With regard to Biblical Hebrew, Hirsch is one of the first to mention the
notion of “leaving a unity” that lies at the heart of all cognate terms ‫ברא‬, ‫ברה‬,
31 See KB/HALAT: ‫ ברא‬I “schaffen” (Qal and Ni.); ‫ ברא‬II “mästen” (Hi.); ‫ ברא‬III “abholzen”
(Pi.); ‫ ברא‬IV = ‫ ברה‬I “essen”; ‫ ברה‬I = ‫ ברא‬II, ‫ ברה‬II denom. of ‫( ברית‬1 Sam 17:8). HALOT:
‫ ברא‬I “create” (Qal and Ni.); ‫ ברא‬II “make oneself fat” (Hi.); ‫ ברא‬III “cut down, clear”
(Pi.); ‫ ברא‬IV = ‫ ברה‬I “consume food”; ‫ ברה‬I = ‫ ברא‬II, ‫ ברה‬II denom. of ‫( ברית‬1 Sam
17:8). Gesenius’ 18th edn.: ‫ ברא‬I “schaffen” (Qal and Ni.); ‫ ברא‬II “mästen” (Hi.); ‫ ברא‬III
“zurechtschneiden” (Pi.); ‫ ברא‬IV = ‫ ברה‬I “essen”; ‫ ברה‬I = ‫ ברא‬II, ‫ ברה‬II denom. of ‫ברית‬
(1 Sam 17:8). THWAT (W. H. Schmidt) ‫ ברא‬I “schaffen” (Qal and Ni.); ‫ ברא‬II “mästen” (Hi.);
‫ ברא‬III “abstrauen” (Pi.). DCH: ‫ ברא‬I “create” (Qal and Ni.); ‫ ברא‬II “be fat, fatten” (Hi.,
perh. Ni. Ps 104:30); ‫ ברא‬III “cut, cut down, cut out” (Pi.); ‫ ברא‬IV “eat” = ‫ ברה‬I. NIDOTTE
(R. C. Van Leeuwen): ‫ ברא‬I “create, separate (as by cutting)” (Qal); “be created” (Ni.); ‫ברא‬
III “cut” (Pi.).”

624 van wolde
‫ברח‬, ‫פרח‬, ‫פרא‬, ‫פרע‬.32 Also Botterweck describes the root br and its etymological
development from the hypothetical and rarely attested origin of “making of
noise” into the widely attested meaning of “to form” and “to separate.”33 Dantinne
presents a great number of Hebrew verbs—‫ברא‬, ‫ברה‬, ‫ברח‬, ‫ברר‬, ‫באר‬, ‫בור‬,
‫חבר‬, ‫שבר‬, and ‫פרד‬, ‫פרם‬, ‫פרק‬, ‫פרר‬, ‫פרץ‬, ‫פרק‬, ‫פרר‬, ‫—פרש‬in which the biconso-
nantal items ‫ בר‬and ‫ פר‬express the notion of cutting or separating.34 Cohen
attributes to ‫ ברא‬the meaning “couper, tailler, séparer” and refers to Punic brʾ as
well as to South-Arabic hbrw “tailler en pièces” and Ethiopian bäräw belä “être
dispersé, se dissoudre,” to support his view.35 Most recently, Dietrich and Arnet
relate ‫ ברא‬to Punic brʾ “graveur” and Arabic bry “zurechtschneiden.”36
(b) In the three modern Akkadian dictionaries edited by respectively
Oppenheim, Von Soden, and Black, George and Postgate, the following
Akkadian words are presented with the biconsonantal item br (and pr) that
express the notion of separation: bari “between, among,” barītu(m) “inter-
vening space, interval,” bāru “open country,” bēru “distant, remote,” bêru(m)
“to choose, select,” biri “between,” birā “between, among,” birītu(m) “interval,
separation, cutting,” birtu “between,” bīru “interval, pause after a march,” and
parāsu(m) “cut, separate, decide.”37 These studies show that it is very well pos-
sible that the Biblcal Hebrew verb ‫ ברא‬is etymologically related to Akkadian
words that express the idea of “division” and “separation.” The same concept of
32 S. R. Hirsch, Der Pentateuch übersetz und erklärt: Erster Teil: Die Genesis (Frankfurt am Main:
Kauffmann, 18671, 19034), 4: “‫ברא‬. Die verwandten Wurzeln: ‫ברה‬, ‫פרח‬, ‫פרא‬, ‫פרע‬, ‫ברח‬,
die sämtlich ein hinausstreben und hinaustreten aus einer Innerlichkeit oder einer
Gebundenheit bedeuten, ergeben für ‫ ברא‬ebenfalls den Begriff des Hinaussehens in
die Äußerlichkeit; heißt ja auch Chaldäisch ‫ ברא‬ohne weiteres das Draußenseiende,
draußen. ‫ ברא‬ist somit das Äußerlichmachen eines bis dahin nur im Innern, im Geiste
Vorhandengewesenen. Es ist jenes Schaffen, dem nichts anderes als der Gedanke und der
Wille vorangegangen.”
33 G. J. Botterweck, Der Triliterismus im Semitischen (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1952), 64-65.
34 Dantinne, “Création et séparation,” 447.
35 D. Cohen, Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques ou attestées dans les langue sémitiques:
Fascicule 2: ʾTN—GLGL (Louvain: Peeters, 1994), 82.
36 W. Dietrich and S. Arnet, with M. Dietrich, Konzise und aktualisierte Ausgabe des
Hebräischen und Aramäischen Lexikons zum Alten Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 79
(based on L. Köhler and W. Baumgartner, Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten
Testament (3rd edn.; Leiden: Brill, 1965-1995).
37 A. L. Oppenheim et al., The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University
of Chicago: Volume 2, B (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1965); W. von Soden, Akkadisches
Handwörterbuch: Volume 1, A-L (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965); J. Black, A. George, and
N. Postgate, A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (2nd [corrected] printing; Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2000).

separation is expressed in Syriac by the verb barrî “to separate, liberate,” and by
the adverb bar “outside,” as Brockelman pointed out.38
(c) Also the usages of pre-Islamic Arabic brʾ clearly designate the acts of
distancing and disconnection. Extensive studies of the Arabic term barāʾa in
Quranic passages demonstrate that the word barāʾa itself expresses disconnec-
tion and is used to describe that Muhammad has to state publicly that he no
longer has a connection with those tribes that had helped him before to defeat
the enemy.39 In contrast, in Quranic passages that relate to creation, the stan-
dard expression for “to create” is kh-l-q, a word that expresses “to divide, appor-
tion” or “to create.” In (the much later composed) Classical Arabic dictionaries
the verb bariʾa is translated “to separate,” whereas the verb bara‌ʾa is commonly
understood to express “to create, to form out of nothing,” in which the under-
standing of Gen 1:1 as creatio ex nihilo seems to have exerted its influence. The
nouns bāriʾ and khāliq are used in the Quran to designate “the creator.”40
In sum, the certainty of many biblical scholars of the distinction between
the two roots of ‫ ברא‬I and ‫ ברא‬II, is etymologically ungrounded. In contrast, a
number of etymological studies of ‫ ברא‬show that it is very well possible that
‫ ברא‬is etymologically related to Akkadian words that express the idea of “di-
vision” and “separation.” The usages of pre-Islamic Arabic brʾ designating the
acts of distancing and disconnection confirm this option too.
3.2.2 Versional Evidence

The question is whether versional evidence supports the traditional under-
standing of ‫“ ברא‬to create,” instead of “to separate.” Due to reasons of space,
38 C. Brockelman, Lexicon Syriacum (2nd edn.; Hildesheim: Olms, 1966), op cit. So far
the verb bārāʾ has not been found in Phoenician, nor in Ugaritic (Lambert, “Technical
Terminology,” 189).
39 U. Rubin, “Barāʾa: A Study of Some Quranic Passages,” Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and
Islam 5 (1984): 13-32. See also E. Kohlberg, “Barāʾa in Shi’i Doctrine,” Jerusalem Studies of
Arabic and Islam 7 (1986): 139-75; J. Wagemakers, “Defining the Enemy—Abū Muḥammad
al-Maqdisī’s Radical Reading of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥana,” Die Welt des Islams 48 (2008): 348-
71; idem, “The Transformation of a Radical Concept: al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ in the Ideology
of Abu Muḥammad al-Maqdisī,” in R. Meijer (ed.), Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious
Movement (London: Hurst & Co., 2009), 81-106.
40 Also in the Quran we find images of the creation of the heavens and the earth that fit the
“separation” idea of Gen 1:1, namely Sura 21, verse 30. Pickthall translates this passage as
follows: “Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one
piece, then We parted them, and We made every living thing of water? Will they not then
believe?” (M. M. Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation
by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall [New York: The New American Library, 1953]).

626 van wolde
I have to limit myself to Aramaic and Greek texts dating from the Second
Temple period.
(a) The Qumran Aramaic fragment of 4QEnc i vi (= 1 Enoch 13:6-14:16) con-
tains the line ‫ליא חלק ועבד וברא‬, “So he has divided/decreed and made and
divided/separated” (translation J. T. Milik).41
(b) In Hellenistic Judaism, the Aramaic texts of the Samaritan liturgy are
particularly instructive, because cosmology and the view of God as creator play
an important role.42 God is very often described in these texts as “the creator
of the world,” ‫עבודה דעלמה‬, and with the collocation ‫פעל כל עלמה‬. Equally fre-
quent is the expression of the idea that God created everything, ‫עבודה דכלה‬. In
all these Samaritan creation texts, the divine act of creation is expressed either
by ‫ עבודה‬or ‫פעל‬, but never by ‫ברא‬.43 Hans-Friedrich Weiss made an analysis of
how in Samaritan cosmology two main groups of texts are distinguishable.44
The first group of texts relates their view of creation to Gen 1 and understands
the creation of the world as God’s battle against the powers of chaos. The sec-
ond group has its origins in Greek-Hellenistic philosophy. To the former be-
long, among others, Hymns IV 13 and V 3. In Hymn V 3 God reveals the dry
material by putting the waters of the tehôm aside. Hymn IV 13 is even more ex-
plicit, and Weiss translates it as follows: “Die Wasser der Tehom halt er zurück,
und die Wasser der (Himmels-)Feste hält er hoch. Er hat ausgebreitet (‫)נפש‬
zwischen ihnen einen Raum (‫ )טעיל‬für die, die ihn lieben.”45 Cowley explains
the meaning of ‫ טעל‬in Samaritan texts as follows: “‫טעל‬ . . . to be or make wide;
impft. ‫נטעיל‬ . . . spread open . . .; imperat. ‫ טעיל‬spread out . . . ‫טעיל‬ . . . space.”46
The metaphoric image presented in Hymn IV 13 is in line with the beginning of
Gen 1 and describes the making of the space between the waters of the tehôm
and the heavenly vault. And this is exactly what is expressed in Biblical Hebrew
by the verb ‫“ ברא‬to separate, set apart, make space.”
41 J. T. Milik (ed.), The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1976).
42 See H.-F. Weiss, Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie des hellenistischen und palästinischen
Judentums (TU, 97; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966), especially 129-38; and the edition
and glossary of the texts of the Samaritan liturgy by A. E. Cowley, The Samaritan Liturgy
(2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1909).
43 Cf. also the Aramaic text in Jer 10:11 (“let the gods who did not make heaven and earth,
perish from the earth and from under these heavens”) which uses the very same verb ‫עבד‬.
44 Weiss, Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie, 131-38.
45 Ibid., 131.
46 Cowley, The Samaritan Liturgy, vol. 2, lvii.

(c) When we turn to Greek texts, and especially the Septuagint, we notice

that it is often stated that the Greek verb κτιζω in the Septuagint used to trans-
late the Hebrew verb ‫ ברא‬confirms (or even proves) the unique status of the
verb ‫ ברא‬as the expression of God’s unique action of creation, especially with
regard to “the heaven and the earth” and “all things.”47 A more detailed study
of κτιζω proves otherwise.
(i) In Classical Greek, the verb κτιζω is widespread in its meaning “to
found” or “to institute.” Originally the root may have been used in the field
of agriculture to refer to actions like clearing of an area in order to cultivate
it, but later it became used to designate colonization or settling in new ter-
ritories, and (often) to designate foundations of cities (this was still later ex-
tended to objects referring to public buildings and structures).48 Eberhard
Bons concludes therefore: “As for the use of the root κτιζω in the sense of
‘create,’ there is only slight evidence in pre-Christian times. In the Roman
epoch, however, and probably under Jewish and Christian influence, magi-
cal texts allude to the biblical traditions about God as creator of the universe
or of particular creations.”49
(ii) In the Septuagint the verb κτιζω has about sixty occurrences of
which more than a third appear in Ben Sira, while κτιζω is completely ab-
sent from the Creation stories in Gen 1-3 as well as in the historical books
(namely Joshua, Judges, 1-4 Kingdoms, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah).50 To
start with the majority of usages in Ben Sira, it appears that the Greek ver-
sion of Ben Sira contains κτιζω twenty-three times, and in fifteen cases the
Hebrew text is extant.51 In these fifteen texts, six times κτιζω represents the
Hebrew verb ‫“ חלק‬to divide, apportion.” In his study of Ben Sira, Michael
O’Connor demonstrates that this verb ‫ חלק‬is used both in the sense of “to
divide, division, portion” (Ben Sira 14:9 [x3]; 16:16; 33:13; 41:21; 42:3; 45:22)
and in the sense of “to create” (Ben Sira 31:13; 38:1; 39:25; 40:1). These results
47 See for a recent update and defense of this position: E. Bons and A. Passoni Dell’ Acqua,
“A Sample Article: κτίζω – κτίσις – κτίσμα – κτίστης,” in J. Joosten and E. Bons (eds.),
Septuagint Vocabulary: Pre-History, Usage, Reception (Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2011), 173-88.
48 M. Casevitz, Le vocabulaire de la colonization en grec ancient. Étude lexicologique: les
familles de κτίζω et de oἰκέω—oἰκίζω (Paris: Klincksieck, 1985), 13-72.
49 Bons and Passoni Dell’ Acqua, “A Sample Article,” 175.
50 Ibid., 175.
51 M. O’Connor, “The Language of Creation in Ben Sira: ‫ = חלק‬κτιζω,” in J. Corley and
V. Skemp (eds.), Studies in the Greek Bible: Essays in Honor of Francis T. Gignac (CBQMS,
44; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2008), 217-28.

628 van wolde
allow him to conclude that the Septuagint’s κτιζω expresses in Ben Sira either
“to divide, apportion” or “to create.” In other biblical books, the Septuagint
uses the verb κτιζω not only to translate ‫ חלק‬and ‫ברא‬, but it also serves as a
translation for ‫ קנה‬in Gen 14:19, 22 and Prov 8:22, ‫ יסד‬in Exod 9:18, ‫ שכן‬in Lev
16:16, ‫ כון‬in Deut 32:6, and ‫ יצר‬in Isa 46:11. From these distributional data, and
especially from the absence of the term κτιζω in the creation texts and the
historical books, it is difficult to conclude that the verb κτιζω is the standard
Greek equivalent in the Septuagint for “to create.” It is even more difficult to
draw language-historical conclusions from this verb’s usage in the Septuagint.
3.2.3 Historical Development in the Hebrew Bible

Another way to deal with the distribution of the verb ‫ ברא‬in the Hebrew Bible
and the difficulties it entails, is to explain the usages of ‫ ברא‬in the Hebrew
Bible from a text-historical perspective. In their recent study, presented in
reaction to the above presented alternative hypothesis on ‫ברא‬, Bob Becking
and Marjo Korpel represent such a historical approach.52 They argue that early
biblical texts use (anthropomorphic) verbs such as ‫“ בנה‬to build,” ‫“ יצר‬to form,
shape,” ‫“ עשה‬to make,” and ‫“ קנה‬to beget, bear, create,” whereas late biblical
texts (especially the postexilic Priestly Writer) use the non-anthropomorphic
verb ‫ברא‬. From these data they deduce that God creates with ‫ ברא‬in late texts
such as Gen 1-2 (postexilic Priestly Writer) and Chronicles in order to avoid
anthropomorphism. Consequently the change in language purportedly re-
lates to a theological shift in thinking over time, from older texts that use
anthropomorphic language about God to later texts that refer to creation in
a way that sharply contrasts God’s activity to human activity. They also sug-
gest the translation “to construct, build” for ‫ ברא‬rather than “to create” or “to
separate.”
Do the biblical data substantiate this hypothesis? The data are:
‫ברא‬ ‫בנה‬ ‫יצר‬ ‫קנה‬
Genesis J: 6:7 J: 2:22 J: 2:7, 8, 19 14:19, 22

P: 1:1, 21, 27
(x3); 2:3, 4; 5:1, 2
(x2)
52 B. Becking and M. C. A. Korpel, “To Create, to Separate or to Construct: An Alternative for
a Recent Proposal as to the Interpretation of ‫ ברא‬in Gen 1:1-2:4a,” JHS 10.3 (2010): 2-21.

Exodus J: 34:10
Numbers J: 16:30
Deuteronomy 4:32 32:6
Joshua 17:15, 18 (Pi)
Samuel 1 Sam 2:35;
2 Sam 7:27
(//1 Chr 17:25)
Kings 1 Kgs 8:16 2 Kgs 19:25
(//2 Chr 6:5); (//Isa 37:26)
11:38 (x2)
Isaiah I: 4:5 I: 22:11; 27:11;
II: 40:26, 28; 41:20; 37:26 (//2
42:5; 43:1, 7, 15; Kgs 19:25)
45:7 (x2), 8, 12, II: 43:1, 7, 21;
18 (x2); 48:7; 44:2, 21, 24;
54:16 (x2); 45:7, 9 (x2),
57:19 11, 18 (x2);
III: 65:17, 18 (x2) 46:11; 49:5
III: 64:7
Jeremiah 31:22 18:9; 24:6; 31:4, 1:5 (K/Q); 10:16;
28; 33:7; 42:10; 18:11; 33:2;
45:4 51:19
Ezekiel 21:35; 28:13, 15 36:36
21:24 (x2); 23:47
(Pi)
Amos 4:13 9:6, 11 4:13; 7:1
Zechariah 12:1
Malachi 2:10
Psalms 51:12; 89:13, 48; 28:5; 51:20; 33:15; 74:17; 139:13
102:19; 104:30; 69:36; 78:69; 94:9; 95:5;
148:5 89:5; 102:17; 104:26;
127:1; 147:2 139:16
Proverbs 8:22
Qoheleth 12:1
Lamentations 3:5

630 van wolde
table (cont.)
Chronicles 1 Chr 17:10 (//2

Sam 7:11, ‫)עשה‬, 25
(//2 Sam 7:27); 2
Chr 6:5 (//1 Kgs
8:16)53
To begin, the distributional list shows that the data do not confirm Becking
and Korpel’s claim. First, with regard to the use of ‫ ברא‬in possibly early texts
it should be pointed out that J (the “Yahwist”; Gen 6:7; Exod 34:10; Num 16:30),
Deut 4:32, Isa 4:5, Jer 31:22, and Amos 4:13, and several potentially early Psalms
(51:12; 89:13, 48; 102:19), also use ‫ברא‬. Second, the verbs ‫ יצר‬,‫בנה‬, and ‫ קנה‬are
used in possibly late texts. So, for example, III Isaiah has both ‫( ברא‬65:17, 18
[x2]) and ‫( יצר‬64:7), and Zechariah has only ‫( יצר‬12:1). Third, in Prov. 8:22-31
(dating from the Persian or Hellenistic period) the verbs used of Wisdom’s gen-
esis (by Yahweh) describe it in the language of birth, using ‫ קנה‬and the even
more anthropomorphic verb ‫“ חיל‬to be brought forth [through labor pains]”
twice.54 Its highly anthropomorphic portrayal of the deity do not square easily
with Becking and Korpel’s historical explanation of ‫ברא‬. In conclusion, their
proposal that “late” ‫ ברא‬replaced “more anthropomorphic” ‫בנה‬, ‫יצר‬, ‫קנה‬, and
so on in “late” biblical writings, is not supported by the actual Biblical Hebrew
data and must be rejected.55
3.2.4 Conclusions with Regard to Historical Explanations

No historical argument has been put forward so far that can prove or confirm
the claim that the verb ‫ ברא‬should be rendered “to create.” Neither etymological
53 All together in synoptic Samuel-Kings//Chronicles we find the following situation: 2 Sam
7:11 )‫ (עשה‬// 1 Chr 17:10 )‫ ;(בנה‬2 Sam 7:27 ‫ )(בנה‬// 1 Chr 17:25 (‫ ;)בנה‬1 Kgs 8:16 (‫ )בנה‬// 2
Chr 6:5 (‫)בנה‬. The more anthropomorphic verb ‫ בנה‬in undisputed postexilic 1 Chr 17:10 is
interesting when compared to the more generic ‫ עשה‬in 2 Sam 7:11.
54 See, for example, M. V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary (AB, 18A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 279-89.
55 For a detailed discussion of all Becking and Korpel’s arguments, see Van Wolde and
Rezetko, “Semantics and the Semantics of ‫ברא‬.”

and comparative linguistic studies, nor versional and text-historical studies have
justified the conclusion that from a historical perspective the verb ‫ ברא‬should
be interpreted “to create.” It also does not justify the conclusion that this verb
is used uniquely to describe God’s creation of “everything” or of the heaven and
the earth.
4 Analysis of Genesis 1
Now we can move on and consider the consequences of the alternative hy-
pothesis that the verb ‫ ברא‬does not designate “to create” but “to separate.”
First, I will concentrate on the verb ‫ ברא‬in Gen 1 and explain its significance for
the idea of creation it represents. In the next section, an analysis of the most
famous creation psalm, Ps 104, will be made, and I will focus especially on vv.
26-30 in which the term ‫ ברא‬is used. The aim is to give answers to the follow-
ing questions: What do these texts describe when the verb ‫ ברא‬designates “to
separate” or “to set apart?” Is this a viable solution for an understanding of
these texts?
4.1 Genesis 1:1-10

In order to understand the meaning of the verb ‫ ברא‬in Gen 1:1, the opening
verses have to be scrutinized. The syntax of v. 1 is notoriously difficult, because
the definite article is missing in the first word ‫“ בראשית‬in beginning,” thus
meaning either “in a beginning” or “in the beginning of.” In the former case,
reference is made to an unspecified beginning: “in some beginning.” In the lat-
ter case, the noun “in the beginning” is in the construct state with the relative
clause, and indicates that it is restricted to the event of which it marks the
beginning: in the beginning of the divine action described as [‫ ברא‬the heavens
and the earth].56 The latter option is, from a syntactic point of view, the most
plausible one. The implication is that the sentence is not finished in v. 1, but
continues in the following verse or verses. Another implication is that v. 1 does
not describe an absolute beginning in time (let alone the beginning of time),
but marks the starting point of the divine action. Thus v. 1 does not express
God’s very first action, but tells us about the start of God’s ‫ברא‬-action over and
against the situation described in v. 2.
Verse 2 paints in three short strokes (1) the earth as ‫תהו ובהו‬, that is, it de-
scribes the earthly condition as still covered with the cosmic waters of the
56 See R. D. Holmstedt, “The Restrictive Syntax of Genesis i 1,” VT 58 (2008): 56-67.

632 van wolde
‫תהום‬,57 (2) darkness as over the ‫תהום‬, and (3) ‫ רוח אלהים‬or God’s wind or breath
and its action expressed by the participle ‫מרחפת‬. The semantic content of ‫רחף‬
is somewhat difficult to ascertain, because it occurs only three times in the
Hebrew Bible.58 The Piel participle of the verb ‫ רחף‬appears to express here
either a movement such as “to hover,” meaning “to stay in the same position in
the air without moving forwards or backwards,”59 or a movement of going back
and forth constantly. Hence, the mental picture that v. 2b evokes is either of a
stationary kind or expresses a constant going back and forth of God’s breath or
wind over the waters.
Verse 2a, then, describes the condition of the earth covered with waters and
of darkness over the abyss of waters. That is, v. 2a zooms in on the condition
of the heaven and earth referred to as direct object in v. 1, whereas v. 2b zooms
in on God’s ‫ברא‬-action in v. 1 and specifies it as God’s breath or air that is con-
stantly active (marked by participle) over these waters. Together, vv. 1 and 2 de-
scribe the initial action of God in which he separates the heaven and the earth:
He sets them apart by constantly moving his wind or breath over the primeval
waters. This first act of separation creates a spatial realm between the water
masses which enables God to make later on the heavenly vault that will keep
the waters apart (this will be described in vv. 6-8) and to let the waters on earth
move in an outward direction so that the dry land will appear and will keep the
sea waters away (as will be described in vv. 9-10).
In the immediately following vv. 3-5, God starts to speak. He addresses first
the situation of darkness. God says: “Let light be,” immediately followed by its
accomplishment: “And light was.” God then separates in v. 4b the newly made
light and the previously existing darkness, which is indicated by the verb ‫בדל‬
in the Hiphil. Upon calling the light “day” and darkness “night,” the nights or
rather days can be numbered (“day one” in v. 5b). In these verses the sequence
of divine actions is that of two speech acts by which God makes light and calls
its name “day” alternating with two distinctive acts, one of separation (‫)בדל‬
and one of numbering.
57 For recent analyses of the terms tohu wa-bohu see R. S. Watson, Chaos Uncreated (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2005), 16-17; D. T. Tsumura, Creation and Destruction: A Reappraisal of the
Chaoskampf Theory in the Old Testament (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 22-35;
and Walton, Genesis 1, 140-46.
58 It occurs once in the Qal Qatal (Jer 23:9, “all my bones are trembling”), and twice in the
Piel, Gen 1:2 (participle) and Deut 32:11 (yiqtol) (“Like an eagle who stirs up its nestlings
and who hovers over his young”).
59 Definition of “hover” in J. Sinclair (ed.), Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary
(9th ed.; London: HarperCollins, 1993), 708.

In vv. 6-8, God addresses the waters again with a speech act (v. 6a) followed
by an act of separation (expressed by the verb ‫ בדל‬in the Hiphil in v. 6b). In v.
7, again God’s making (‫ )עשה‬is followed by his act of separation (‫ בדל‬Hiphil)
between the waters below the vault and the waters above the vault (v. 7b) with
the effect that the two collections of water masses, one above and one below
the heavenly vault, are kept at a distance from each other.
Verses 9-10 relate to the waters as well, namely to the waters below the heav-
ens on the earth disk. God starts to speak, and although no explicit verb of
separation is provided, the gathering of waters is in fact a horizontal spatial
movement of the waters in an outward direction so that the dry earth appears.
Since in the ancient cosmic view the earth is seen as the land or continent in
the middle of the seas that surround it,60 God’s speech act implies that he com-
mands the waters to retreat from and keep at a distance from the center of the
earth disk and thus involves an enduring separating spatial movement to be
maintained by the waters on earth.
From this we can conclude that the divine actions as recorded in vv. 6-10
result in four distinct spatial realms, namely the waters above the heaven, the
heavenly vault, the earth disk with dry land in the middle and seas surrounding
it, and the waters under the earth. In each realm, the created phenomena from
heavenly vault to the waters on earth are defined by their separating activities.
This leads to the observation that the only spatial realm not mentioned in vv.
6-10 is that between the heavenly vault and the earth disk. Why not? Because
the spatial realm between heaven and earth was already described in vv. 1-2 as
the result of God’s action of separation (expressed in v. 1 by the verb ‫ )ברא‬and
specified by his constant areal movement over the waters (expressed in v. 2b
by the participle-construction ‫)רוח אלהים מרחפת‬. Thus these opening verses
show that it is God’s breath (or wind) that is continuously hovering over the
waters, thus filling the space between the heaven and the earth with his life
giving breath. From then on, and only from then on, God could have started
his creative activities.
4.2 Five Spatial Realms in Genesis 1:11-28

The following verses of the story, vv. 11-28, describe how God fills one by one
the newly made spatial realms. First of all, God incites the earth to produce
60 See I. Cornelius, “The Visual Representation of the World in the Ancient Near East and
the Hebrew Bible,” JNSL 20 (1994): 193-218; W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 20-42; B. Janowski and B. Ego with A. Krüger (eds.),
Das biblische Weltbild und seine altorientalischen Kontexte (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2001).

634 van wolde
plants and trees, each with its own seeds and fruit in order to reproduce dis-
tinct species. Repeated six times in vv. 11-12 is “the seed,” three times with regard
to plants and three times with regard to trees. The Hiphil participial phrase
‫ מזריע זרע‬in v. 11 indicates the causative sense of the verb, in which the plants
are conceived as producing the seed, and the seeds themselves are responsible
for the process of germination and production of new life in the ground. The
fruits of the trees are described in v. 12 as seed containers. Repeated three times
is the notion that each plant and tree should bring forth new life according to
its own species (‫למינו‬, ‫למינהו‬, ‫)למינהו‬. In this way the text emphasizes both the
activity of the plants themselves and their system for maintaining the neces-
sary distinctions between their offspring. Hence, the life of plants on earth is
qualified by reproduction and separation, and by keeping distinct species.
In vv. 14-19, God makes the lights in the heavenly vault “that they separate
day from light” (v. 14), “rule the day and rule the night”(v. 16), summarized in
v. 18 as “to rule the day and night, and to separate light and darkness.” The per-
spective given is the earth’s: the heavenly bodies are made in order to shine
upon the earth and to be distinctive markers of time on earth. Here again, the
making or creation of the heavenly phenomena is characterized by their func-
tion as separators: they are made in order to separate.
In vv. 20-23, God addresses the animals. In v. 20 two groups of animals are
introduced, the animals that swarm the seas, and the birds that are character-
ized in relation to earth and heaven. In v. 22 the swarming sea animals are
blessed and encouraged to be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the
seas whereas the birds are also blessed but are only told to multiply on earth.
However, in v. 21, three groups of animals are mentioned, even though only
two groups have been created in v. 20. The ‫ תנינים‬are the third group of animals.
They are not described in v. 20 as being brought forth by the waters of the sea
and they are not addressed in the imperative in v. 22 either, when God tells
the animals to be fruitful and to multiply. They figure for the first time in v. 21.
Grammatically, ‫ התנינם‬is a noun in which the definite article reflects the shared
knowledge of the referent by author and readers. According to this knowledge,
the ‫ תנינים‬are the inhabitants of the ‫ תהום‬which are considered to have existed
prior to God’s creative activities and to differ from the other animals in their
origin and procreative abilities. In contrast to these, the sea animals (the sec-
ond group of animals mentioned in v. 21) are presented as brought forth by
the waters and are asked to reproduce themselves in order to swarm the sea.
The last group of animals is that of the birds that fly over the earth across the
sky; they are still related to the earth and to the aerial realm below the heav-
enly firmament. In other words, v. 21 describes an action with God as its agent
subject with respect to the three groups of animate inhabitants, namely those

living in the ‫תהום‬, the sea and the sky, and an activity in which the verb ‫ ברא‬is
used to express this divine action. This verb cannot, therefore, mean to create
in the sense of making something new, because the ‫ תנינים‬already existed. It
must designate something else. Whereas the preceding v. 20 tells us about the
last two groups’ coming into being, the subsequent v. 22 narrates how they are
told to multiply. In this picture we miss but one element, namely the spatial
separation of the three groups of animals who share the same liquid and aerial
spheres. This condition then would be met in v. 21 if God’s operation of ‫ברא‬
designated separation, with the effect that the ‫ תנינים‬obtain their place in the
water mass below the earth disk, the sea animals take their place in the sea
waters on earth, and the birds receive their place in the sky below the firma-
ment. In separating them, God assigns each party to its own life sphere, which
they have to fill with their own species of animate life, with the exclusion of the
‫ תנינים‬who are not reported as reproducing new life.
This explanation becomes even more likely when the contrast to the mak-
ing of the land animals is taken into account. In God’s creation of the land
animals in vv. 24-25, three groups are also mentioned: creeping things, cattle,
and wild animals that are all closely linked to the earth. These animals are not
conceived as deriving from one pre-existing group of animals, and then sepa-
rated and placed in distinct areas (in the way the water-related animals are in v.
21). Instead, they are considered to be living together in the same spatial sphere
of the land on the earth. This might explain why the word ‫“ ברא‬to separate” is
not used in vv. 24-25.
The following vv. 26-28 relate to the human being. Here again, I propose to
discern two elements, one of creation expressed by ‫עשה‬, and one of separation
expressed by ‫ברא‬. In v. 26 God proposes to his fellow gods to create human-
kind, for which he uses the verb ‫“ עשה‬to make.” In his speech act he appends
a complement clause in which he sets the norm of what the human being will
be like, namely “the image and likeness of gods,” and the goal of human cre-
ation, namely “their rule over the creatures on earth.” The two terms ‫בצלמנו‬
and ‫ כדמותנו‬are simply juxtaposed and have a common referent, namely ‫אלהים‬,
God or gods. I follow Garr in his analysis that the preposition ‫ כ‬expresses a
similarity, likeness, or approximation between otherwise dissimilar and non-
identical entities, that is to say, an approximation between semantically differ-
ent and referentially distinct entities, and that the preposition ‫ ב‬is a locative
which designates a specific spatial location (“in”) or it restricts the locus of a
particular area (“within”), thus indicating (restricted) localization.61 In v. 26
61 W. R. Garr, In His Own Image and Likeness: Humanity, Divinity, and Monotheism (CHANE,
15; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 98-99. Garr demonstrates convincingly that both Gen 1:26 and

636 van wolde
God specifies two comparable attributes of the human creature: one proxi-
mate (“image”), and the other distal (“likeness”). Through its “image” and its
“likeness” with God or with the divine beings the human race will master (‫)רדה‬
the world and exercise its mighty control over the earth and the many crea-
tures that inhabit it.
In v. 27, God is the term of comparison against which the human being is
valued. The singular is visible in the singular pronominal suffix: ‫“ בצלמו‬in his
image.” The starting point of conceptualization is God; better still, it is that
aspect of God that is qualified as his image. In reference to this divine point
of reference the human being is differentiated. The starting point here is the
similarity between the two entities, visible in the preposition ‫ ב‬and in the prox-
imity expressed by ‫“ צלם‬image.” The verb ‫ ברא‬then takes the initial situation of
the human inclusion in the set of God as its starting point and proceeds from
this point onwards in that the human being is located relative to God’s image.
God sets the human being apart from himself, puts him spatially at a distance,
at least from the embodiment of God that is called his image. The subsequent
distinction of the human race into male and female beings includes this very
same notion of separation. The single human being is divided into two gen-
ders: male and female (v. 27c). The verb ‫ ברא‬expresses this separation from the
unique unity, the human being, into males and females.
After the three processes of separation in v. 27 have been fulfilled—the
twice mentioned spatial separation of the human being from God and the
separation of human beings into males and females—the conditions are met
to secure the continuing existence of humankind on earth. Consequently, in
v. 28, God can command the human beings to fill the earth and to master it.
Thus, the human race shares the capacity with the divine beings in general and
with God in particular to exert dominion over the earth, and God locates these
human beings at a distance from him on earth, because the earth is the place
where they belong.
In vv. 29-31, God gives the plants on earth as food to the human beings and
to the animals. As a result, all recently-made creatures on earth are related to
each other as both distinct and dependent: the animals differ from each other
and are separated from one another so that they live in their own spatial do-
mains; they differ from the plants and the human beings, but at the same time
Gen 5:3 adopt the pattern of the two prepositional phrases in which the former of the two
phrases is marked with the locative-proximate ‫ב‬, while the latter is marked with the sim-
ilative-separative ‫( כ‬ibid., 113). The coreferential phrase comes first; the non-coreferential
comparison comes afterwards. Other texts (Num 29:18; Deut 28:62; Judg 20:39; Ps 102:4)
reveal the same syntactic pattern too.

they depend on the plants for food and on the human beings for dominion. The
plants on earth differ from one another as to their seed-bearing devices and
their ability to keep apart and procreate into different species, but they also de-
pend on the human beings who are their monitors. And the human beings are
divided into two sexes, attributed to two different spatial life spheres and thus
they are able to procreate. Humankind is also dependent on the plants which
provide their food and whose seeds guarantee continuity in food production,
although they are at the same time their stewards. A hierarchy of distinctions
and dependencies characterizes, therefore, this life on earth. The members of
the human race share with the deities in heaven their capacity as rulers, yet in
contrast to them, their spatial realm is not the heaven, but the earth.
4.3 Conclusion on Genesis 1

Based on the analysis presented above, Gen 1:1-2:4a (from now on referred to
as Gen 1) can be summarized as follows. First, God separated the heaven and
earth in order to make space between them so that life on earth would be-
come possible. This space or Lebensraum is filled with his ‫ רוח‬or breath that
will allow the creatures on earth to breathe. God made light and separated it
from darkness, made the heavenly vault so that it would in its turn keep the
waters apart, made the heavenly bodies so that they would separate light and
darkness and distinguish day and light, and rule the days, months, years, and
festivals on earth. He made the plants on earth so that they would multiply
in distinct species, and the animals so that they would multiply and fill the
distinct areas on earth. And God made the human beings so that they would
multiply, reproduce, fill the earth, and rule the network of hierarchical rela-
tions on earth.
These analyses lead to the conclusion that Gen 1 does not only narrate about
the alternation of the processes of creation and separation, but tells us also
about the strict order in which these processes are executed: God’s first ac-
tion is separation so that he subsequently could create new phenomena that
in their turn would take care of the life-giving and separating processes. These
various processes are clearly marked. Whereas the act of separation by God is
in Gen 1 expressed by the verb ‫ברא‬, the act of creation by God is expressed by
his speech acts and by the verb ‫עשה‬. Whereas the act of separation performed
by the heavenly bodies is expressed by the verb ‫בדל‬, the act of life-giving is im-
plied by the Hiphil ‫“ האיר‬to bring light” on earth (without sunlight there is no
life on earth). Whereas the acts of separation performed by the plants on earth
are marked through their reproduction in distinct species (‫)למינו‬, their acts of
procreation are expressed by the collocation ‫“ מזריע זרע‬seed-bearing.” Whereas
the acts of separation executed by the animals on earth are marked by their

638 van wolde
distinct locations, their acts of procreation are expressed by the verbs ‫“ פרה‬to
be fruitful” and ‫“ רבה‬to multiply.” Whereas the acts of separation performed by
the human beings are expressed in their task to ‫“ כבש‬to conquer” or “to rule”
the world, thus maintaining the hierarchy between the living entities on earth,
their acts of procreation are expressed by the verbs ‫“ פרה‬to be fruitful” and
‫“ רבה‬to multiply.” In short, Gen 1 tells us about God’s separation and creation
as causative processes that enable the created phenomena to procreate and
separate, that is, to continue living in separated species and areas.62
5 Psalm 10463
5.1 Psalm 104:1-28

The picture Ps 104:2-4 sketches of the situation before Yhwh began to create is
one of waters and of a deity wrapped in light. It is implied that the light itself is
not created. Light is seen as Yhwh’s physical representation, his embodiment,
just as the newly made heaven is presented as his abode. Psalm 104 sketches
the first stage of creation as an activity that Yhwh performs out of himself and
for himself. By spreading out heavens like a tent-cloth, Yhwh creates a spatial
realm in the waters, an area filled with air framed by the textile of clouds. This
is the deity’s heavenly living area, the divine Lebensraum, constructed with
upper rooms. From this heavenly abode Yhwh is ruling, and the weather phe-
nomena are seen as his servants.
In the next five verses, Ps 104 turns to Yhwh’s creation of the earth: he
founded the earth on her foundations (v. 5), he established the place for the
water (v. 8), and he set the boundaries which the waters are not allowed to pass
(v. 9). Before he started to do so, the ‫ תהום‬or primeval water mass covered the
earth “like a garment.” This pre-existent situation in which the waters were the
rulers of the earth, was transformed by Yhwh’s blast, as is told to us in a nar-
rated sub-world in vv. 7-9: the waters fled and rushed away. Merely by speaking
62 I agree with J. H. Walton (Genesis 1) that in Gen 1 the materialistic view is altogether ab-
sent. Genesis 1 is not interested in or dealing with God’s making out of matter (creatio
ex materia) but only in God’s making in order to (creatio ut). Rather than calling this a
functionalist worldview, as Walton proposes, I prefer to consider the worldview of Gen 1
comparable to a chemist’s world view. At the heart of it stands God’s separation and mak-
ing of elements that in continuous action and reaction with one another will (and have
to) perform their own processes of separation, maintenance, and procreation.
63 For an impressive and comprehensive study of Ps 104, see A. Krüger, Das Lob des Schöpfers.
Studien zu Sprache, Motivik und Theologie von Psalm 104 (WMANT, 124; Neukirchen:
Neukirchener Verlag, 2010).

Yhwh caused the waters to gather into one single place. This new situation is
a secure and steady one, because never again will the waters cover the earth.
In vv. 10-18, the psalm continues to describe the present situation on earth,
in which Yhwh is characterized as the one who is responsible for the waters
on earth. He sends up the spring waters from the water reservoir below the
earth and sends down the rainwaters from his upper rooms. In the end, the
earthly creatures will profit from the results of the divine water management.
However, Ps 104 does not explicitly express that God made the animals or the
human beings. It only narrates how Yhwh takes care of the watering of the
earth and of the growth of its plants and trees, for all creatures’ benefit.
Verses 19-23 direct the readers’ attention to Yhwh’s making of the moon. It
opens in v. 19 with the fronted verb ‫עשה‬, “he made or created the moon (‫)ירח‬
as the marker of the set times,” that is the calendar of the month, the week, the
seasons, and the seasonal feasts. The term ‫ ירח‬refers in the Hebrew Bible to the
moon as a star visible at night and profiles its light-shining capacity; the word
‫“ ירח‬month” is closely related to it. The explicit link between the moon-cycle
based calendar and the deity as its originator only occurs in Gen 1:14-16 and in
Ps 104:19. It labels Yhwh as the creator of time and calendar.
The next episode of the psalm in vv. 24-30 pictures the situation on earth in
such a way that the positive and negative consequences of the creatures’ de-
pendence on Yhwh alternate. The opening in v. 24 mentions three times that
it is Yhwh who made everything: “how many are your works (the noun phrase
‫)מעשיך‬, Yhwh; you have made (‫ )עשית‬them all with wisdom; the earth is full
of your creations (the noun phrase ‫ קנינך‬of the verb ‫)קנה‬.” The verbs ‫ עשה‬and
‫ קנה‬are used in Ps 104 to designate Yhwh’s creation of all and everything. The
tone of exaltation inspires the readers to join the psalmist in his admiration
for Yhwh as their creator. They are invited in vv. 25-26 to look at the waters of
the seas and all small and great creatures living in them, at the ships that go
on them, and even at Leviathan, the famous primordial water monster who
lives beneath the sea level and who now turns out to be made (the verb ‫ )יצר‬by
Yhwh to sport with, and not as a threatening creature at all. Verses 27-28 show
that all of them acknowledge that they are dependent on Yhwh for food, care,
and shelter. Without that they would not survive. This negative possibility is
further explored in vv. 29-30.
5.2 A Closer Look at Psalm 104:29-30 and the Verb ‫ברא‬

Verses 29-30 sketch the negative consequences of the events that will happen
if and when Yhwh hides his face. These clauses appear to be closely inter-
woven as the following correspondences show: (1) the repetition of the term
‫“ פנה‬face” in “your face” in v. 29a, and “the face of the earth” in v. 30b, (2) the

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repetition of the term ‫“ רוח‬breath” in “their breath” in v. 29b, and “your breath”
in v. 30a; and (3) the parallel usages of the verbs of movement with the object
“breath,” namely ‫“ אסף רוח‬to collect breath” and ‫“ שלח רוח‬to send away breath”
in v. 29b and v. 30a, respectively. In the generally accepted reading of these
verses, v. 29a and v. 29b are taken together and v. 30a and v. 30b are read to-
gether. In this standard interpretation, v. 30a is commonly translated with “you
send (back) your breath and they are created.” Why then is this reading, in my
view, incorrect?
First of all, the meaning of the verb ‫“ שלח‬to send away” is incompatible
with the standard interpretation of v. 30a. In its 844 (BDB) or 847 (DCH) oc-
currences in the Hebrew Bible, the verb ‫ שלח‬denotes “to send, dispatch” in the
Qal. DCH offers an in-depth lexicographical survey of the usages of the verb in
the Hebrew Bible with some revealing results.64 I limit myself here to the Piel
form, since this is the form used in Ps 104:30. Linguistically the verb ‫ שלח‬can
be described as follows. It expresses a temporal process in which at the start
someone has, disposes of, or is in close connection with an object (which can
be something or somebody); in the next stage of the process, this person or
another person (the agent) causes the object to move away from its owner; and
in the final stage of the process the object is no longer in the same location or
in the same position as in the initial stage, but somewhere else. The verb ‫שלח‬
profiles the first stage of this process: it expresses the action at the moment the
object is leaving someone as the result of the action caused by the agent. This
is true for all circa 850 usages of the verb in the Hebrew Bible, but is especially
true for the Piel forms of the verb ‫ שלח‬that in addition express the intensive or
causative aspect, thus emphasizing even more the sending off or the sending
away moment. Remarkably, DCH presents Ps 104:30 as the only exception to
this rule, when it states: [‫ שלח‬Piel, Ps 104:30] “of Y., send his spirit, i.e. to give
life.”65 Thus DCH proposes to interpret the verb ‫ שלח‬in the sense of “giving”
and not as “sending away.” What is the difference between the two verbs? In
“giving” the emphasis is on the receiving person, or more accurately, the verb
“to give” profiles the last stage of a process in which an object that was first in
the possession of a person is moved away so that it comes into the possession
of someone else (grammatically, the indirect object). In fact, this is opposite to
“sending away,” where the emphasis is on the first stage of the process and on
the agent that causes the removal. In accordance with all other occurrences in
D CH 8:372-89. The Piel of the verb ‫ שלח‬is used 267 times in the Hebrew Bible and des-
64
ignates according to DCH: “to let go, set free, let escape, let loose, send away, drive away,
cause to go in exile, expel, send off, send home, send out troops” and the like.
65
D CH 8:387.

the Hebrew Bible, it is more correct to understand the verb ‫ שלח‬in Ps 104:30
in its standard way, and read it as “Yhwh sends away his breath.”66 By this act
Yhwh causes the breath to move away from the creatures.
Secondly, the Niphal form of the verb ‫ ברא‬begs for further inspection. As de-
scribed above in section 2.3, recent studies of the Niphal show that this binyan
expresses a middle voice. Therefore, the verb ‫ ברא‬Niphal, which is understood
to designate in the Qal “to separate,” is a middle voice that can be translated
as “to go apart.” Hence, in Ps 104:30 the Niphal of ‫ ברא‬expresses the process
in which those who were a unity at first (namely a material body filled with
divine breath) now go apart, or, more idiomatically “fall apart,” or even, “fall
into pieces.”
Thirdly, and finally, the grammatical arrangement of the clauses in vv. 28-30
shows the singular status of the last verbal clause in v. 30b. Whereas the five
verbal clauses in vv. 28a, 28b, 29a, 29b, and 30a with a finite verb form in the
second person singular are connected without a conjunction, the final verbal
clause in v. 30b (also with a finite verb form in the second person singular) is
connected to the previous clauses with the conjunction ‫ו‬, thus marking v. 30b
as the consequence of the actions previously described in v. 28a-30a: “and then
you will renew the face of the earth.”
These data justify the conclusion that the first three bi-cola, vv. 29a, 29b,
and 30a, belong together. They all sketch the negative consequences of what
would happen if Yhwh hides his face, collects the breath of the living beings,
and sends his own breath off: these living beings will all die. Whereas the previ-
ous vv. 27-28 indicate how the living beings on earth are dependent on Yhwh
for food, care, and protection, vv. 29-30a show what happens when Yhwh
does the opposite. Verse 30b shows that this need not be the end of life on
earth, because Yhwh could start all over again and renew the earth with new
creatures.67 This explanation of Ps 104:27-30 takes into account the grammati-
cal clause structure, lexicographical data, and textual context better than the
66 In the common understanding of v. 30a, with ‫ ברא‬in the meaning of “to create” and the
Niphal “to be created,” the combination of the two clauses in the sentence “send away
your breath, and they will be created” is problematic. Since the verb ‫ שלח‬certainly de-
notes “to send away,” the first clause describes that Yhwh causes his breath to move away,
whereas the second clause suggests that he, at the same time, creates, that is, inserts his
breath. Hence, the standard reading is in itself very implausible or even contradictory,
which explains, of course, why DCH feels compelled to construe the meaning of ‫ שלח‬as
“giving.”
67 It is possible that in the standard interpretation, in which one holds ‫ ברא‬to denote “to
create” and takes vv. 30a and 30b together, the text of Isa 43:19, “behold, I create something
new,” figures on the background. Yet, in Isa 43:19, the verb ‫ עשה‬is used.

642 van wolde
standard interpretation. It leads to a coherent text structure that can be trans-

lated as follows:
29a you hide your face, they are terrified

29b you collect their breath, they perish and return to their dust
particles,
30a you send off your breath, they fall apart,
30b and then you will/can renew the face of the earth.
5.3 Psalm 104:31-35

The final episode of Psalm 104 in vv. 31-35 confirms this reading of vv. 29-30. At
first sight this final part seems to be merely a song of praise, but there is more
to it. It opens in v. 31 with a modal form: “May the ‫ כבוד‬of Yhwh be forever,
may Yhwh rejoice in his works.” The term ‫ כבוד‬in the Hebrew Bible is the attri-
bute of Yhwh par excellence and denotes Yhwh’s glory, honour, and majesty,
as well as his power and might. In some texts in the Hebrew Bible it evokes
admiration and joy, in other texts it inspires awe and fear, and so the ques-
tion is what the term ‫ כבוד‬entails and evokes in Ps 104. First of all, v. 31 clearly
refers to the opening v. 1 in its emphasis on the glory and greatness of Yhwh.
From v. 2 onwards, this glory was related to Yhwh’s works of creation. Also in
v. 31 Yhwh’s ‫ כבוד‬is closely linked to his works of creation as the denomina-
tive ‫“ מעשיו‬his works” (from the verb ‫ )עשה‬shows, since it reflects the acts of
creation the psalm extensively described. Furthermore, the wish that Yhwh
also personally rejoice in his works is distinctive, both in this psalm and in the
Hebrew Bible.68 Whereas v. 31 shows the sunny side of Yhwh’s ‫כבוד‬, the next
verse, v. 32, shows the fear provoking side, as is visible in the two participial
clauses: “who looks at the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains
and they smoke.” Yhwh is envisioned here as the deity with impressive and
frightening power. One look of him or one slight touch by him will arouse the
fear of the earth and the mountains. Thus Ps 104:31-32 appears to represent
both sides of the ‫ כבוד‬of Yhwh as including glory and might, as arousing joy
and fear in nature.
The human reaction to Yhwh’s ‫ כבוד‬is the topic of the subsequent vv. 33-35.
The psalmist’s personal declaration of intent to sing and make music, to pray
and rejoice in Yhwh is a loud and positive response to the divine works of
68 See J. Goldingay, Psalms, Volume 3: Psalms 90-150 (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament
Wisdom and Psalms; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 194, who points to the fact
that only in Ps 104:31 is Yhwh the subject of this verb.

creation. Yet it is also but the first of the psalmist’s reactions, since the second
one is completely different, if not opposite: “may sinners disappear from the
earth, and the wicked be no more.” Many biblical scholars express their sur-
prise at such an unexpected transition. They need not be surprised, however,
because it repeats the transition in vv. 27-30 that went from the deity’s giving
of food, opening of the hand, and caring for the lives of all those that look at
him, to the moment in which Yhwh’s hiding of the face leads to terrifying fear
in all beings and the removal of his breath which leads to their return to dust.
Here in v. 35a, the sinners, the godless people, have to fear for Yhwh’s ‫כבוד‬. The
verb ‫ תמם‬denotes “to come to an end,” “to cease to live,” “the sinners may they
be finished.” The very same content is expressed in v. 35b: “the wicked: may
they be no more.” Only at this stage can we fully grasp the meaning of vv. 29-
30: those referred to in general terms in vv. 29a-30a as the beings from whom
Yhwh “collected their breath” are these sinners. The psalmist asks, hopes, ex-
pects that just as Yhwh will show his benign side to the good people, he will
show his fearful side to the wicked, and that he will take his breath away from
them so that they will be no more. The final conclusion in the very last line of
Ps 104 in v. 35b is positive again and points back to v. 1a: “Bless Yhwh, O my
soul.” Thus the psalm opens and closes with a reaction of blessing of this glori-
ous and great deity.
5.4 Psalm 104: Call to Praise and to Fear Yhwh

The entire psalm builds into a meaning structure in which Yhwh is envisioned
as the deity with admirable and frightening power. And this power provokes
the most unimaginable transitions. The most impressive transition is present-
ed at the beginning: the flight of the primeval waters. These waters were the
most powerful, if not only powerful elements in the universe and on earth,
apart from the deity. They covered the entire earth like a garment, yet they
fled away because of the threat of Yhwh’s voice. Next best is Leviathan, the
most dangerous of all animals, the primordial monster that inspired fear in
generations of humans, who is rendered harmless. He turns out to be a play-
mate, made by Yhwh to sport with, which makes Yhwh even more frighten-
ing. Along the same lines, the most imposing natural phenomena, volcano and
earthquake, smoke or tremble out of fear of Yhwh’s sheer touching and look-
ing. Such fearful reactions attributed to nature cannot but convince the human
beings of Yhwh’s inconceivable might and power. That his power has positive
and negative dimensions is made visible in vv. 27-35. The deity, upon whom all
depend for life, food, and care, may hide his face with terrible consequences.
When this happens, all will be terrified, because the deity, who gave his ‫ רוח‬so

644 van wolde
that living beings could start breathing in the first place, is also the one who
can take their breath away. Verse 35 specifies whose fate this will be: the sinners
and the wicked ones who despise Yhwh. They should be fearful of his wrath.
Psalm 104 refers seven times expressis verbis to Yhwh’s act of creation: three
times (in vv. 4, 19, 24) the verb ‫ עשה‬is used to designate the act of creation it-
self, three times (in vv. 13, 24, 31) the noun phrase ‫יך‬/‫“ מעשו‬your/his works” is
used to resume Yhwh’s works of creation, and once (in v. 24) the noun phrase
‫“ קנינך‬your creations” is used to refer to the result, namely that the earth is
filled with “your creations.” It is obvious that v. 24 takes up a crucial position
in this respect, since in it all three terms occur side by side. Emphasized and
praised here are the quantity (“how many are the things you have made”), the
quality (“in wisdom you made them all”), and the result (“the earth is full of
your creations”) of the divine acts of making. Together with the opening and
closing clauses full of praise, v. 24 at the heart of the psalm sets the hymnic
marking-stones. Yet, within this framework of praise, emotions that vary in de-
gree from fright to dread form a returning topic. It is precisely because of his
unimaginable great power as creator, that Yhwh evokes admiration and awe.
6 Comparison of Genesis 1 and Psalm 104
Similarities between Gen 1 and Ps 104 abound.69 Both texts offer a comparable
picture of the initial pre-existent situation in which the deity and water exist
side by side. A small difference between both texts is noticeable in the creation
of light, since in Ps 104:2 the light already existed before God’s making of the
heavens and the earth is recorded, and appears as the deity’s garment (just as
the water is presented as the earth’s garment), whereas in Gen 1:3 the light is
the first thing made by the deity. Genesis 1 and Ps 104 share the same cosmic
view, but within this shared cosmic framework, the two creation texts empha-
size different aspects, of which the week structured into six days plus one day
in Gen 1 is the most noticeable. It is completely absent in Ps 104. Slighter differ-
ences in accent are the description of the animal groups in Ps 104, which are
not as strictly divided and ordered as in Gen 1, and that of the ‫ תנינים‬in Gen 1:21
69 A great number of studies have been published on the similarities and differences with
Gen 1 and Ps 104, of which the most recent are: A. Berlin, “The Wisdom of Creation in
Psalm 104,” in R. L. Troxel, K. G. Friebel, and D. R. Magary (eds.), Seeking Out the Wisdom
of the Ancients: Essays Offered to Honor Michael Fox on the Occcasion of his Sixty-Fifth
Birthday (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 71-83; M. S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of
Genesis 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 23-27, Krüger, Das Lob des Schöpfers, 441-42.

and Leviathan in Ps 104:26, since in the former text the ‫ תנינים‬appear to be pre-
existent to creation, whereas in the latter text Leviathan is made by the deity.
Another difference relates to the heavens. It is presented as the divine abode
in Ps 104:2-4. However, Gen 1 refers to the heavens as a kind of vault, as a mate-
rial construction, and does not regard it as the divine Lebensraum, or as the
place from where he sends his servants to the earth. Still another remarkable
difference has to be mentioned: Gen 1 indicates repeatedly that God evaluates
his newly made work as “good” or “very good,” and the entire well-structured
order of creation is reflected in a well-structured literary form, which cannot
but evoke in its readers admiration and gratitude. Psalm 104 does not aim at
admiration alone. Yhwh’s making of the heavens and of the earth in Ps 104 is
embedded in a larger context that emphasizes his power and might. In con-
firming Yhwh’s sovereignty over all and everything, the psalm evokes in its
readers both praise and dread for Yhwh.
At the heart of the present study stands the verb ‫ברא‬. In the analysis above,
I argued that Gen 1 tells us as much about the processes of creation as about
the processes of separation and of the strict order in which these processes
are executed. I also argued that the newly created phenomena are supposed
to continue these processes of procreation and separation on earth. Based on
this analysis, I drew the following conclusions: God’s act of separation in Gen 1
is expressed seven times by the verb ‫ברא‬,70 whereas God’s act of creation is ex-
pressed by his speech acts71 and seven times by the verb ‫עשה‬.72 The process of
separation executed by the heavenly bodies is expressed by the verb ‫בדל‬, and
that performed by the plants on earth by their reproduction in distinct species
(‫)למינו‬. The process of separation executed by the animals on earth is expressed
by their distinct locations, and that of the human beings is expressed in their
task to ‫“ כבש‬to rule” the earth and thus maintain the hierarchy between the
living entities on earth. Psalm 104, on the other hand, explicitly and repeatedly
describes Yhwh’s acts of creation, but it never refers to his works of separa-
tion, of arrangement and order, as Gen 1 does. It does not present a strict week
schedule in which the Sabbath is set apart, and it refrains from telling about
heaven and earth as completely separated or distinct areas. The spatial areas
seem to be depicted more in their connectivity. Psalm 104 focuses on the total-
ity of the created universe, which inspires its readers to have respect and awe
for the deity who made it all and situates it in the context of his sovereignty.
Within this framework, concepts of separation and arrangement do not play
70 In Gen 1:1, 21, 27a, 27b, 27c; 2:3, 4a.

71 In Gen 1:3, 9, 14, 20, 24.
72 In Gen 1:7, 16, 25, 26, 31; 2:2a, 2b.

646 van wolde
a role at all. This also explains why Ps 104 does not use the term ‫ ברא‬to denote
the process of separating, but merely exploits terms of making: the verb ‫עשה‬
“to make,” the noun phrase ‫יך‬/‫“ מעשו‬your/his works,” and the noun phrase ‫קנינך‬
“your creations.” These lexicographic usages confirm the hypothesis presented
earlier, namely that God’s creation of the universe is expressed by the verb ‫עשה‬,
and not by the verb ‫ברא‬.
The only time the verb ‫ ברא‬does occur in Ps 104:29-30 is in the context of
the relationship between God’s breath and the living beings. Verses 29a-30a
sketch the death of the living beings caused by Yhwh’s withdrawal of his
breath of life. The Niphal of ‫ ברא‬indicates its consequence in v. 30a: without
divine breath the living beings will “fall apart.” This clause functions parallel
to the previous clause, in which Yhwh’s collection of their breath resulted in
their “return to their dust particles” (v. 29b). Verse 30b demonstrates that after
these deaths, Yhwh could start all over again and renew the earth with new
creatures. This explanation of ‫ ברא‬in Ps 104:29-30 offers a viable solution for
the understanding of this text and resolves problems that previous interpreta-
tions of Ps 104:29-30 could not resolve, for it explains better (a) the parallel uses
of the terms ‫ אסף רוחם‬and ‫שלח רוחך‬, (b) the plural noun phrase ‫“( עפרם‬their
dusts”), and (c) the asyndetic connection of the clauses in v. 29a, v. 29b, v. 30a
over against the syndetic connection of the clause with ‫ ו‬in v. 30b, which marks
the latter’s conclusive character.
7 Conclusion
The overall pictures of the creation of the universe in Gen 1 and Ps 104 are simi-
lar in many respects. Yet, on essential points there are important differences.
Genesis 1 appears to focus more than Ps 104 on the distinction and arrange-
ment of the spatial areas, their inhabitants and the creatures’ responsibility
for the sustenance of the distinctions, and emphasizes the temporal order in
weekdays and Sabbath. Spatial and temporal arrangement, spatial separation
and creation, these are the central processes that lie at the heart of Gen 1. This
explains why the notion of the divine act of separation, expressed by the verb
‫ברא‬, and the notion of divine act of creation, expressed by the verb ‫עשה‬, both
figure side by side in Gen 1, and why both terms are used seven times. What
is commonly called “God’s creation” thus appears to figure in three semantic
domains: space, time, and construction. It is marked by verbs that express the
processes of spatial separation and of making/creation. In contrast, Ps 104 con-
centrates on the divine works of creation in its totality. Its perspective is that of

unity and ownership. Since Ps 104 emphasizes Yhwh’s creation in the frame-
work of his overwhelming power, it only uses terms of creation. Seven times,
Ps 104 includes terms of making to designate this creation. Not only does it
exploit the verb ‫ עשה‬to mark Yhwh’s act of creation itself, but it also refers to
the cosmos as its result by the noun phrase ‫יך‬/‫“ מעשו‬your/his work of creation,”
and by the noun phrase ‫“ קנינך‬your work” in the sense of “your acquirement,”
which shows that the entire universe is conceived as Yhwh’s work of creation.
The totality of the cosmos testifies to his ownership and sovereignty.
Consequently, both texts on the creation of the universe are similar and dis-
similar at the same time. They share a complex network of analogies and dis-
tinctions, which is something that many biblical texts have in common with
Gen 1 and Ps 104. In each and every biblical text, the same or similar words
return, yet they figure in distinct contexts of usage. This is true for the verb ‫ברא‬
too. It is therefore necessary to examine the use of the verb ‫ ברא‬in all texts of
the Hebrew Bible, each text in its own right, in order to draw conclusions with
regard to the presented alternative hypothesis. Still, the study of Gen 1 and Ps
104 does confirm indeed the hypothesis that the verb ‫ ברא‬designates “to sepa-
rate,” and not “to create.”


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Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647

Separation and Creation in Genesis 1 and Psalm 104,

Ellen van Wolde

creation – Genesis 1 – Psalm 104

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/15685330-12341295

After a survey of the common understanding of ‫ ברא‬and the problems it en-

2 Survey of the Standard Positions and the Problems Involved

The common understanding represented by the major dictionaries and com-

1 In chronological order: W. Gesenius, Hebräisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch über die Schriften

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647

2.1 The Distribution of Terms of Creation in the Hebrew Bible

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In conclusion, if the verb ‫ ברא‬were the standard or conventional term to desig-

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647

2.2 The Piel Form of ‫ברא‬

2.3 The Niphal Form of ‫ברא‬

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the middle voice.18 Most recently, Ernst Jenni published a comprehensive

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647 Downloaded from Brill.com05/18/2021 07:40:07AM

In other words, it is a fixed word combination. In contrast, the collocation of

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647 Downloaded from Brill.com05/18/2021 07:40:07AM

2.4 The Qal Form of ‫ברא‬

Announcement in Numbers 16:30 Execution in Numbers 16:31-33

In his announcement of Yhwh’s verdict in v. 30, Moses states that if Yhwh

Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 611-647

Another text in which ‫ ברא‬Qal is difficult to understand in the sense of

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3 The Hypothesis that the Verb ‫ ברא‬Designates “to Separate” and a

Confronted with all these problems the conventional understanding of ‫“ ברא‬to

3.1 Presentation of the Hypothesis

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3.2 A Historical Discussion

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3.2.2 Versional Evidence

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(c) When we turn to Greek texts, and especially the Septuagint, we notice

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3.2.3 Historical Development in the Hebrew Bible

‫ברא‬ ‫בנה‬ ‫יצר‬ ‫קנה‬

Genesis J: 6:7 J: 2:22 J: 2:7, 8, 19 14:19, 22

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‫ברא‬ ‫בנה‬ ‫יצר‬ ‫קנה‬

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‫ברא‬ ‫בנה‬ ‫יצר‬ ‫קנה‬

Chronicles 1 Chr 17:10 (//2

3.2.4 Conclusions with Regard to Historical Explanations

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4.1 Genesis 1:1-10

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4.2 Five Spatial Realms in Genesis 1:11-28

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1 In chronological order: W. Gesenius, Hebräisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch über die Schriften