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■ Creation, Humanity, and Purpose 14 and darkness : God, as the text proceeds to say, designated different terms —“day” and “night”—to denote light’s presence and absence ( Gen 1 : 5 ) . 8 Indeed, when addressing the separation of the waters, Radak uses strikingly forceful language in disputing Maimonides’ approach : I am bewildered by Maimonides’ analogy between the separation [ of the waters ] and the separation between light and darkness . After all, concerning light and darkness the text ] says “and God separated,” [ whereas here the firmament is what does the separating, [ causing the upper waters ] to stand above it and [ the lower waters ] to stand below it . How then can he explain [ the text to mean that God ] separated between the respective forms [ of the upper and lower waters ] ? Even though God indeed fixed the natural order, [ here ] it is the firmament that separates ! Nevertheless, Maimonides’ assertion that their forms are distinct is true in line with what he taught us, as he has enlightened us on this and several other matters that had left us wandering in the dark before his explanations arrived . commentary on Gen 1 : 6 ) ( In this passage, Radak implies a philological objection to Maimonides’ approach . In the preceding verse, God declares that a firmament should emerge in the middle of between the waters above ) ויהי מבדיל ( the waters, and that it should thereby separate and below . When the text, therefore, after God proceeds to make the firmament, uses to denote the actual separation that ensued, the formulation ) ויבדל ( the same verb again suggests that it —that is, the firmament—divided the waters, not that God caused a divergence in their form . Radak probably began composing his commentaries after the turn of the thirteenth century, and 8 his work on Genesis is widely regarded to be his last one . By 1232, when he participated in a controversy over Maimonidean interpretation, he had already reached old age . See Talmage, Man and Commentaries , 29, 58 – 60 ; Louis Finkelstein, The Commentary of Rabbi David Kim ִhi on Isaiah : Edited, with His Unpublished Allegorical Commentary on Genesis, on the Basis of Manuscripts and Early Editions ( Columbia University Oriental Studies 19 ; New York : Columbia University Press, XVI - XXII . ( Avraham Golan expresses doubt concerning the relative date of the Genesis , ) 1926 commentary, but his discussion takes into account only a portion of the relevant scholarship ; see his Radak : Peti ִhah le - Perush ha - Torah [ Jerusalem, 1981 / 2 ] , 27 – 28 . )
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