Project translation

Translation

[1] In the beginning the Mystery created the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was chaos and emptiness, and darkness lay over the deep — and the life-breath of the Mystery hovered over the waters. [3] Then the Mystery said: "Let there be light!" — and there was light. [4] The Mystery saw the light: it was good. And the Mystery separated the light from the darkness. [5] The Mystery called the light "day" and the darkness "night". Evening came, and morning came — the first day.

[…]

[27] So the Mystery created the human being as its counterpart: as the counterpart of the Mystery it created them. As male and female it created them. [28] And the Mystery blessed them and said to them: "Be fruitful and become many, fill the earth and care for it — for the fish of the sea, for the birds of the sky, and for every living thing that moves upon the earth."

[…]

[31] And the Mystery saw everything it had made: and look — it was very good. Evening came, and morning came — the sixth day.

Notes

• "the Mystery" — Hebr. אֱלֹהִים (Elohim). Per 3.5 no fixed image of God is set in place; here the plural-form name is rendered as "the Mystery" so that no grammatical gender attaches to it in English.
• "chaos and emptiness" — Hebr. תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu wa-bohu): a rhyming pair for the not-yet-ordered. Not "nothing", but the unformed.
• "life-breath" — Hebr. רוּחַ (ruach): breath, wind, spirit at once. "Life-breath" holds the physical sense that "spirit" loses.
• "as its counterpart" — Hebr. בְּצַלְמוֹ (b'tzalmo), traditionally "in his image". Because the prohibition of images (2.9) also governs the translation, the relational sense is chosen: the human being stands over against God as a genuine Thou.
• "care for it" — Hebr. וְכִבְשֻׁהָ (w'chivshuha) is a hard word ("subdue"). The note belongs here rather than a silent softening: the text speaks from an agrarian world in which securing land against wilderness was survival. Rendering it as domination contradicts 2.2; the translation therefore chooses "care for", and this decision is named here rather than hidden (3.6).

Theological placement

The chapter is not a report about the how of the world's coming-to-be but a hymn about its why. Its rhythm — speech, seeing, naming, blessing — describes creation as gift, not as labour. Everything created is called good before any human being has done anything. That is the indicative before the imperative (2.10): belonging comes first, the task follows from it.