Introduction: The Book of Beginnings
A Word to Church of God Brethren
There is a great deal in here that will feel right at home to Church of God brethren: the Sabbath, the biblical Feast days (mo'edim), and the whole plan of YAHWEH unfolding from the very first chapter. At the same time, it is vital to state clearly up front where this commentary expands on what is commonly taught. It is only in a few places—minor, yes, but important.
So Genesis shows three spiritual rebellions, not one: Eden, the days of Noah, and Babel.
Do not take any human word for it. Open your Bible and test every verse:
“Test all things. Hold fast to what is good.”
Introduction: The Book of Beginnings
The English name "Genesis" comes from the Greek Septuagint, meaning "origin" — a Greek label attached to a Hebrew book centuries after it was written. The Jews never called it that, and still don't. In Hebrew it is Bereshit, "in the beginning," taken straight from the book's opening words in Genesis 1:1. That is really the whole book in miniature: the beginning of the universe, of marriage, of the Sabbath, of sin, of nations and languages, and eventually of the covenant family that becomes Israel. It sits first in the Bible because almost nothing after it makes sense without it.
Genesis opens the Torah, the five foundational books of Moses that Scripture itself calls “the Law” (Matthew 5:17). In Hebrew thought, the entire Old Testament is anchored in three divisions — the Torah (Teaching), the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings), collectively known as the Tanakh. Every book that follows stands on what Genesis establishes. All Scripture in this commentary is quoted from the Majority Standard Bible (MSB), with all divine speech in italics, whether it comes from YAHWEH, Yeshua, the Angel of YAHWEH, or the Holy Spirit. In the commentary, Hebrew and Greek terms are italicized, as with Bereshit above, so you can tell the original-language word from the English around it.
Who wrote it, and how we have it
Moses wrote Genesis, and the case for it isn't just tradition — it's built on several independent lines that converge on the same answer. First, direct testimony: YAHWEH commissioned Moses to write (Exodus 17:14), and the rest of the Torah repeatedly refers to “the Book of the Law” as something Moses himself completed and handed off (Deuteronomy 31:24–26). Second, capability: Acts 7:22 says he was raised in Pharaoh's household and “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” — trained in exactly the kind of literate, administrative culture capable of producing a document like this.
Third, access: Genesis records conversations and events no human witness could have supplied secondhand — YAHWEH's words to Adam in the garden, His assessment of Babel from His own side of it. Moses didn't need to have been there. Exodus 33:11 says YAHWEH spoke to him “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend,” and whatever the patriarchs had already preserved by memory, YAHWEH was there to confirm and fill in directly. Fourth, later Scripture treats the Torah as a single, closed unit already attributed to Moses by name — Joshua, the Psalms, and the Prophets all quote “the Law of Moses” (Joshua 8:31; Malachi 4:4) as an existing, recognized authority, not a document still being assembled centuries later. And finally, Yeshua (Jesus) settles it outright: “Moses… wrote about Me” (John 5:46), and He repeatedly refers to the whole Pentateuch collectively as “the Law of Moses” (Luke 24:44). Moses likely put Genesis together during Israel's forty years in the wilderness, sometime in the 1400s BC, and from there it passed down through the nation of Israel — the people Paul says were entrusted with “the very words of God” (Romans 3:2).
Why start here
Some readers are tempted to skip straight to the New Testament and treat the Old Testament as optional background. That approach doesn't work. Yeshua opens His first and arguably most important sermon by saying He didn't come to destroy “the Law or the Prophets,” but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17) — and that statement is meaningless to a reader who doesn't already know what the Law and the Prophets actually say. The Torah comes first in the Bible for the same reason it has to come first for any reader: the Prophets assume it, the Writings assume it, and the Gospels assume it. Genesis specifically supplies the vocabulary the rest of Scripture runs on — sin, covenant, sacrifice, Sabbath, the promise of a coming Redeemer. Start in the New Testament and those words show up already loaded with meaning nobody explains to you.
The unseen realm and the living Word
Genesis is not merely an earthly chronicle of ancient nomads; it is the opening theater of a cosmic war. From the moment the serpent strikes in Eden, the narrative operates simultaneously on two planes: the visible dirt of human history and the invisible realm of celestial powers. When Genesis 6 records the rebellious Sons of God (Benei HaElohim) crossing divine boundaries to corrupt human seed (Genesis 6:1–4), and when YAHWEH judicially divides and disinherits the rebellious nations at Babel according to the number of the sons of God (Genesis 11:1–9; Deuteronomy 32:8–9), Moses is laying down the supernatural architecture of the entire biblical worldview. You cannot understand Israel’s calling, the conquest of Canaan, or Messiah’s ultimate victory on the cross without grasping the cosmic rebellion that Genesis records.
Saturated throughout that same history is the active, personal presence of Yeshua the Messiah. Yeshua did not first step into reality in a Bethlehem manger; He is the uncreated Word through whom YAHWEH spoke the universe into existence (John 1:1–3). Long before the incarnation, He is actively walking the pages of Genesis in tangible theophanic form—as the royal priest-king Melchizedek blessing Abram (Genesis 14:18–20), and as the Angel of YAHWEH who speaks as God, sees Hagar in her despair (Genesis 16:7–13), ratifies the covenant on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:11–18), and wrestles Jacob until daybreak (Genesis 32:24–30). Genesis is not just about the promise of a coming Redeemer; it is the living record of the Redeemer already at work in the dust of history.
What's inside, and why it matters
Genesis is where God's Law first shows up, centuries before Sinai puts it into a formal code. The Sabbath is instituted in the first week (Genesis 2:2–3). Murder is condemned the moment Cain kills Abel (Genesis 4:8–11). Adultery runs through the patriarchal narratives and their consequences, and is named as sin against God long before Sinai (Genesis 20:3–9; 39:7–9). Stealing appears when Rachel takes Laban's household gods (Genesis 31:19), and idolatry gets confronted head-on when Jacob has his household bury their foreign gods before Bethel (Genesis 35:2–4). Tithing is kept by Abraham long before Sinai (Genesis 14:20). Even the Feast days of YAHWEH are seeded here — the sun and moon are set in the sky on Day Four “for signs and for seasons,” mo'edim, the same word Leviticus 23 later uses for God's appointed Feasts. And Genesis looks past its own moment entirely — the first direct prophecies of the Messiah (Genesis 3:15; 49:10), and Jacob's blessings over his sons in chapter 49, reach forward to events beyond even our own day. Pull Genesis out and the rest of Scripture starts to wobble. Everything else is built on top of it.