up the waters (TO, IEz., and a few moderns), but the divine Spirit, figured as a bird brooding over its nest, and perhaps symbolising an immanent principle of life and order in the as yet undeveloped chaos. Comp. Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 19 ff., vii. 233 ff. It is remarkable, however, if this be the idea, that no further effect is given to it in the sequel. (1) The idea of the Spirit as formative principle of the kosmos, while in the line of the OT doctrine that he is the source of life (Ps. 336 10429f.), yet goes much beyond the ordinary representation, and occurs only here (possibly Is. 4013). (2) The image conveyed by the word brooding (מְרַחֶפֶת) is generally considered to rest on the widespread cosmogonic speculation of the world-egg (so even De. and Di.), in which the organised world was as it were hatched from the fluid chaos. If so, we have here a fragment of mythology not vitally connected with the main idea of the narrative, but introduced for the sake of its religious suggestiveness. In the source from which this myth was borrowed the brooding power might be a bird-like deity[1] (Gu.), or an abstract principle like the Greek Ἔρως, the Phœn. Πόθος, etc.: for this the Heb. writer, true to his monotheistic faith, substitutes the Spirit of God, and thereby transforms a "crude material representation . . . into a beautiful and suggestive figure" (Dri. Gen. 5).
due to an original female personification.—מרחפת] Gk. Vns. and V
express merely the idea of motion (ἐπεφέρετο, ἐπιφερόμενον, ferebatur);
TO מנשבא ('blow' or 'breathe'); S ܡܪܚܦܐ. Jerome (Quæst.): "incubabat
sive confovebat in similitudinem volucris ova calore animantis."
It is impossible to say whether 'brood' or 'hover' is the exact image
here, or in Dt. 3211,—the only other place where the Pi. occurs (the
Qal in Jer. 239 may be a separate root). The Syriac vb. has great
latitude of meaning; it describes, e.g., the action of Elisha in laying
himself on the body of the dead child (2 Ki. 434); and is used of angels
hovering over the dying Virgin. It is also applied to a waving of the
hands (or of fans) in certain ecclesiastical functions, etc. (see Payne
Smith, Thes. 3886).
- ↑ In Polynesian mythology the supreme god Tangaloa is often represented as a bird hovering over the waters (Waitz-Gerland, Anthrop. vi. 241).
