“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” Gen.2:4
In Genesis 1 it was Elohim who acted—a name ever linked with God as creator. It is a plural word, one that hides within its depths the fact that God is a triune God. It occurs some twenty-seven hundred times in the Bible. That plural noun is nearly always used with a singular verb or adjective, signifying the essential oneness of the Godhead.
Here in the closing review of creation, the name Elohim is connected with the name Jehovah (LORD). Jehovah is the same god, only viewed as being in covenant relation with those He has created. The first appearance of the name Jehovah follows the creation of man, for the preeminently it is God’s redemptive name. As Elohim, He tossed the worlds into space; as Jehovah, He planned man’s redemption before ever He fashioned Adam’s clay. In Genesis 1 it is said that God created “the heaven and the earth”; here it is said that God made the “earth and heavens.” The earth comes first here for, as Redeemer, God’s interest is centered on our little planet. The earth became the focal center of the universe, the spot where the whole mystery of iniquity was to be settled.
(taken from Exploring Genesis, by John Phillips)
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