V. 1. 2. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was desolate and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the wind 2) of God swore upon the face of the waters.
1 This is the beginning of this book, and it has truly begun on a high note. But we do not want to go too deep into it. It is enough if we can teach faith from it and understand God's work. First of all, everyone should get used to the idea that he should not regard the words differently than if they were written yesterday. For it is such a short time in the sight of God, just as if they had been written now. Therefore, there is a new thing, and this beginning is still going on.
2nd On the other hand, the beginning is also to be understood in the most simple way, that before it there was nothing, neither hour, nor days, nor time. But this is also a high understanding, that before time there was no time, and yet God was. Therefore divine and eternal life is much different than this life, which always goes from day to night. Therefore, if one clings to it, one cannot think what eternity is. In the sight of God, the beginning of the world is as near as the end; a thousand years...
2) Wind or Spirit (In the old editions in the margin).
as One Day; and Adam, who was created first, as the last man who will be born. For he looks at time as the eye of man brings two things together in a moment, which are far apart. I say this so that no one may have a foolish mind and speak of the beginning as if something had existed before, but that time and creation have begun which did not exist before.
But what is it that he says: "God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was desolate and empty"? This is what I said before, that the Almighty God did not create the world in one fell swoop, but took time and a while to do so, and dealt with it just as He now makes a child. [He] first made the smallest things, heaven and earth, so that it was still uncreated, desolate and empty, since nothing had yet been created or grown, and had not been created or shaped, nor had it been brought into a form.
4 Here, however, one should not think as the philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, did with their ideals, but in the simplest way, that heaven and earth are righteously united.
3) Weimarsche: haw.
The first creature was the first being, as he himself calls it, and the first creature; but neither of them was prepared as it should be. Just as a child in its mother's womb is not nothing at first, but is not prepared as a complete child should be. Just as smoke is not nothing, but it has neither light nor lightness: so also the earth was not made into anything, and had no form, neither in width nor in length, and there was neither grain, nor trees, nor grass on it, but bad, barren earth, as a land or desert, where no one is, and nothing grows. So the sky was also shapeless, and yet was not nothing.
5 Moses indicates this by saying that the earth was desolate and empty, and darkness was on the deep, and the wind of God was hovering on the water. The darkness, depth, water, desolate and empty earth, is nothing else (as Peter explains [2. Ep. 3, 4. 5.]), because the earth was made up by God's word in the water. Around the earth it was like a dark night or fog, and humid air or waters that smoked alike, and there was no light. So the world started.
Now this is the most simple understanding of how the words read that God created the heavens and the earth, but not as it is now. For that one should not take the earth in such a way, the article of faith urges, of which one would have to say that it would have been adorned with tree, grass and all kinds of plants. Therefore he explains himself that neither plants nor living animals were on it, but was desolate and empty, and bore nothing. But afterward, on the third day and afterward, he prepared it to bear all kinds of things. Above it was covered with the deep, which he afterwards called water; which was a moist, thick air, as though it were a cloud; in it lay the earth. But that which was above the earth, the same was heaven, and was the deep, wherein the earth lay, and so that it was compassed about; and where the deep was, there was as yet no light, but the wind, or Spirit of God, floated upon the face of the waters.
In the Hebrew language, "wind" and "spirit" are the same as one name, and you may take it here as you wish. If it is a wind
it is that the air weaves among itself 1) on the deep, as it is wont to do; but if you want to call it a spirit, you may do so. For I do not know how to say it, but if it were called a spirit, it could be understood that God had taken the creature he had created under himself, as a hen takes an egg under herself and hatches the chicken. But I would rather leave it that way, that it is called a wind. For I would like the three persons in the Godhead to be shown here in order one after the other, first the Father, then the Son, then the Holy Spirit, of whom we will say after this. So we have now how first the world was created, and how God attacked it. Now follows one after another, how he distinguished all things.