Basic HTML Version
nonmaterial (Gen. 2:7). From the outset he occupied an exalted position over the rest of
the earthly creation and was promised an even higher position (eternal life) if he obeyed
God: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28; cf.
2:16- 17). In Gen. 1 “man” is depicted as the goal and crown of creation, while in Gen. 2
the world is shown to have been created as the scene of human activity. “Man” was in
God’s image with reference to his soul and/or spirit. (He is essentially spiritual; he has an
invisible and immortal aspect which is simple or indivisible.) Other elements of this
image are his mind and will, intellectual and moral integrity (he was created with true
knowledge, righteousness, and holiness), his body (this was seen as a fit organ to share
immortality with man’s soul and the means by which dominion over the creation was
exercised), and dominion over the rest of the creation.
The Fall greatly affected the nature of “man,” but he did not cease to be in God’s
image (Gen. 9:6). Fallen “man” occupies a new and lower position before God: “And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5; cf. 8:21). No longer does
“man” have perfect communion with the Creator; he is now under the curse of sin and
death. Original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness are destroyed. Restoration to his
proper place in the creation and relationship to the Creator comes only through spiritual
union with the Christ, the second Adam (Rom. 5:12-21). In some later passages of
Scripture
is difficult to distinguish from
—man as the counterpart of woman
and/or as distinguished in his maleness.
Sometimes
identifies a limited and particular “group of men”: “Behold, waters
rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land [of
the Philistines], and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men
[used in the singular] shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl” (Jer. 47:2).
When used of a particular group of individual “men,” the noun appears in the phrase
“sons of men”: “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the
children of men builded” (Gen. 11:5). The phrase “son of man” usually connotes a
particular individual: “God is not a man [
], that he should lie; neither the son of man,
that he should repent …” (Num. 23:19; cf. Ezek. 2:1). The one notable exception is the
use of this term in Dan. 7:13-14: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son
of man [
] came with the clouds of heaven.… His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away …” Here the phrase represents a divine being.
*
is also used in reference to any given man, or to anyone male or female:
“When a man [anyone] shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot,
and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto
Aaron …” (Lev. 13:2).
The noun
means “ruby.” This word occurs 3 times and in Hebrew only. It
refers to the red stone, the “ruby” in Exod. 28:17: “… the first row shall be a sardius
[
], a topaz, and a carbuncle.…”