Genesis 1:22-28

Mating and multiplying; walkers and wigglers; dark images; the creation of Man.

As I work through the first chapter of Genesis and revise and redo old translation attempts, I’m reminded that one of my motivations for making this translation is the sheer range of possibilities presented by the Hebrew, almost none of which appear in English translations of the Bible, which (almost) all resemble one another closely. By range of possibilities I do not mean the Hebrew is imprecise or vague. Rather, that it is so distant from English that there is no obvious or straightforward translation for any given word of phrase. I could spend years making dozens of translations of Genesis 1, and they would all be satisfactory and unsatisfactory in different ways.

Translation is the most interesting thing in the world because somehow at the end of it, when it works, despite all that is given up in order to express this-or-that aspect of the original language, despite all the necessarily imperfect choices, the result is an understandable, uncanny conveyance of the original. A temporary lifting of Babel’s curse.

Let’s begin where we left off:

He blessed them
He said, “Mate and multiply
  fill the seas
  cover the earth”
 
An evening and a morning
    fifth day
 
He said, “Earth, make animals
    by their kindred
  walkers and wigglers
  earth beasts”
And so it was

He fashioned
  Earth beast
  Walker
  Every soil wiggler
    by their kindred
He saw
  that all was fine
 
He said, “Man, in our semblance
  Man, like us
  Master of
    Sea beasts
    Sky birds
    Walkers
      and all Earth
    Wigglers
      crawling on Earth”

He made Man
  in His semblance
In God’s semblance
  He made him
Male and female
  He made them

He blessed them
He said to them
  "Marry, be many
  Fill Earth
  Master 
    Sea beasts
    Sky birds
    Every beast
      crawling on Earth”

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Genesis 1:26 is a mystery. It seems to be the foundation of Jewish and Christian ethics and anthropology, yet its plain meaning is obscure. He said, “Man, in our semblance…” This is usually translated as image. The Hebrew word, צֶ֫לֶם, has a strongly negative connotation everywhere outside of Genesis:¹

Numbers 33:52 — then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places

1 Samuel 6:5 — So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land…

Ezekiel 7:20 — As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein

Ezekiel 16:17 — You also took your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the harlot…

Psalm 39:6 — Surely man goes about as a shadow!

Psalm 73:20 — As a dream when one awaketh; So, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.

Every bolded word is a translation of צֶ֫לֶם. The additional context for the word makes the passage more strange. I chose semblance to bring at least a hint of the darkness, or at least ambiguity, of the word.

I am uncertain about wigglers. It’s too silly. My other consideration is crawlers. It’s strange that God’s order for man’s mastery of the animals does not include הַבְּהֵמָה֙. The LXX makes more sense: πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς. Perhaps I’ll adopt that.

In the meantime, if you share my fascination with translation, please share this with friends and:

1. Aside from the creation narrative, there is a positive use of צֶ֫לֶם in Genesis 5:3: When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.