Revisions on Genesis 1:20-2:3

From seething sea to the sabbath.

I am still editing video from my interviews with Matthew Dean and Chris Andrews, and I’m happy to announce that next week I’ll be interviewing my Hebrew professor, Michael Carasik, who left a helpful comment on my first try at Genesis 2:1-3. If you’re interested in Genesis, then I urge you to get a copy of his translation of The Commentator’s Bible / Miqra’ot Gadolot.

I’ll return to all these verses again after translating the full text, so please comment or email questions and feedback. But going forward I will translate new verses, rather than continue to work over these again and again. As tempting as that is.

For the final verses I stole the modern Protestant coinage sabbathed to translate שָׁבַת֙, shavat, which has the same root as שַׁבָּת, shabbat. (But fear not, I don’t expect to use disciple as a verb..!)

If the switching between God and He at the end seems clunky, I’m trying to follow the Hebrew, which switches between God as the stated subject and God as the implied subject. Because Hebrew verbs have gender and number, it’s not necessary to provide a pronoun; instead, they can have an implied subject, which comes through in English as a pronoun because our verbs only have number and so can’t stand alone in the same way.

God said, "Sea seething
  with creatures
  birds flying
    over Earth
      on Heaven's face"
God built
  Large Leviathans
  All creatures seething
    from Sea
    by their kindred
  Every winged bird 
    by its kindred
He saw
  that was fine
 
God blessed
  them
God said, “Mate, multiply
  fill
    Seas
  cover
    Earth”
 
An evening, a morning
    fifth day
 
God said, “Earth
  make animals
    by their kindred
  walkers, wigglers
  earth beasts”
 
God fashioned
  Earth beast
  Walker
  Every soil wiggler
    by their kindred
He saw
  that 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”
 
God built
  Man
    in His semblance
In God’s semblance
  He built him
Male, female
  He made
    them
 
God blessed
  them
God said,"Mate, multiply
  Fill Earth
  Master 
    Sea beasts
    Sky birds
    Every beast
      crawling
        on Earth”
 
He said, “Look,
  I gave you
    every seeding crop
      on all Earth
    every fruit tree
        to eat
  also for earth beasts
  sky birds
  wigglers on earth
    with life
      every green crop
        to eat”
 
He saw
  that was very fine
 
An evening, a morning
  sixth day
 
Heavens and Earth and their whole order
  finished
God finished
    that seventh day
  the work
    He had done
He sabbathed 
    that seventh day
  from all work
    He had done
God blessed
  the seventh day 
  Consecrated it
    for He had sabbathed
      then
      from all work
        God had built
          for doing.