This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
This is the book of the generations of Adam. This is the usual formula by which a new portion of the Scripture narrative is introduced. The original word, ceeper (H5612), rendered "book" denotes also a record or register, and towlªdot (H8435), "generations," a history of any person or an account of the state and succession of his family (see the note at Genesis 2:4). Here it refers exclusively to genealogy, as is evident from the catalog which this chapter contains; and as, in the passage referred to, the title intimates a resume of the subject treated of in the opening section of Genesis, in order to supply a few important details of man's creation preparatory to the story of his lamentable fall as a moral being, the use of the same formula at the commencement of this chapter is the prelude to a continuation of Adam's family history, by the addition of some particulars bearing upon the subsequent narrative of the flood, by which all his descendants were destroyed, with the exception of a small select remnant.
In the day that God created man - or Adam (see the note at Genesis 2:4). In the likeness of God made he him, х dªmuwt (H1823)]. This word expresses a general similitude, and is different from tselem (H6754), an image, such an exact resemblance as the shadow bears to the object which it reflects (see the note at Genesis 1:26). But the repetition of the fact that man was 'created in the likeness of God,' brief and passing as the mention of it is, has a special significance here, when the historian is about to describe, in this and the following chapters, the sad effects which were entailed by the loss of that likeness on the nature and condition of mankind.