All the well-known attempts at explanation, such as those of Pye-Smith,
Chalmers, H. Miller, Pratt, and the ordinary commentaries, can be placed
in one or other of these categories.
Now, as regards both, I recur to the curious fact (already noted) that
it seems never to enter into the conception of either school to inquire
for a moment what the sacred writer meant by "created"--God
"created"--God said "let there be." It _is_ curious, because no one can
reasonably say "these terms are obvious, they bear their own meaning on
the surface;" a moment's analysis will scatter such an idea to the
winds. Yet the terms _are_ passed by. The commentators set themselves
right earnestly to compare and to collate, to argue and to analogize, on
the meaning of the term "days;" the other term "created" they take for
granted without--as far as I am aware--single line of explanation, or so
much as a doubt whether they know what it really means!
The interpretation that I would propose to the judgment of the Church is
just the very opposite. It seems to me that the word _day_ as used in
the narrative needs no explanation; it seems to me that the other does.
As regards the term "day," it is surely a rule of sound criticism never
to give an "extraordinary" meaning to a word, when the "ordinary" one
will give good and intelligible sense to a passage.
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