vv.22. 28 is surprising, but it is idle to speculate on the reason.
26-28. Eighth work: Creation of man.—As the narrative approaches its climax, the style loses something of its terse rigidity, and reveals a strain of poetic feeling which suggests that the passage is moulded on an ancient creation hymn (Gu.). The distinctive features of this last work are: (a) instead of the simple jussive we have the cohortative of either self-deliberation or consultation with other divine beings; (b) in contrast to the lower animals, which are made each after its kind or type, man is made in the image of God; (c) man is designated as the head of creation by being charged with the rule of the earth and all the living creatures hitherto made.—26. Let us make man] The difficulty of the 1st pers. pl. has always been felt.
Amongst the Jews an attempt was made to get rid of it by reading
נַעֲשָׂה as ptcp. Niph.—a view the absurd grammatical consequences of
which are trenchantly exposed by IEz. The older Christian comm.
generally find in the expression an allusion to the Trinity (so even
Calvin); but that doctrine is entirely unknown to the OT, and cannot
be implied here. In modern times it has sometimes been explained as
pl. of self-deliberation (Tu.), or after the analogy of the 'we' of royal
edicts; but Di. has shown that neither is consistent with native Heb.
idiom. Di. himself regards it as based on the idea of God expressed by
the pl. אלהים, as 'the living personal synthesis of a fulness of powers
and forces' (so Dri.); but that philosophic rendering of the concept of
deity appears to be foreign to the theology of the OT.
26. בצלמנו כדמותנו] G κατ’ εἰκόνα ἡμηέτεραν καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν. Mechilta (see above, p. 14), gives as G's reading בצלם וברמות.—On the בְּ 'of a model,' cf. Ex. 2540; BDB, s.v. III. 8.—צלם] Ass. ṣalmu, the technical expression for the statue of a god (KAT3, 4763); Aram. and Syr. צִלְמָה, = 'image'; the root is not ẓalima, 'be dark,' but possibly ṣalama, 'cut off' (Nöldeke, ZATW, xvii. 185 f.). The idea of 'pattern' or 'model' is confined to the P pass. cited above; it stands intermediate between the concrete sense just noted (an artificial material reproduction: 1 Sa. 65 etc.) and another still more abstract, viz. 'an unreal semblance' (Ps. 397 7320).—דְּמוּת is the abstr. noun resemblance; but also used concretely (2 Ch. 43, like Syr. ܕܡܘܬܐ); Ar. dumyat = 'effigy.' The ו is radical (form דִּמְוַת, cf. Ar.); hence the ending וּת is no proof of Aramaic influence (We. Prol.5 388); see Dri. JPh. xi. 216.—ובכל־הארץ] Ins. חַיַת with S (v.s.). Other Vns. agree with MT.
