Bereshit Rabbah

English

Rabbi Yudan said in the name of Akilas: To this One it is fitting to call God. The ordinary way of the world is that a flesh-and-blood king is praised in his province though he has not yet built any public baths in it and has not yet built private baths in it. First he proclaims his name and then presents his works. The Unique One of the world, however, first acted and then He was praised. Shimon ben Azai says: “Your humility has made me great” (II Samuel 22:36) – a flesh-and-blood [king] mentions his name first and then his title of praise: So-and-so Augustoli, So-and-so Pro titulo. But the Holy One blessed be He is not so; instead, after creating the needs of his world, only then does He mention His name: “In the beginning…created [bereshit bara]” and then “God [Elohim].”

The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · sefaria-midrash-rabbah

Hebrew / Aramaic

Bereshit Rabbah 1:12 (Vilna numbering) · cc-by-sa

Notes

Why the divine name comes third in the sentence, answered from court protocol and in Greek loanwords. R. Yudan in the name of Akilas — Aquila the proselyte, the translator — says: to this one it is fitting to call God. A flesh-and-blood king is acclaimed in a province before he has built it a public bath or a private one; he proclaims his name first and produces his works afterwards. The Unique One of the world acted first and was praised afterwards. Ben Azzai gets the same from 2 Sam 22:36, 'your humility has made me great': mortals put the name first and the titles after — So-and-so Augustalis, So-and-so pro titulo — but the Holy One, after creating the needs of his world, only then mentions his name: bereshit bara, and after that Elohim. The interest for this crux is that the rabbinic bench has a positive account of the Hebrew word order that the Greek elders were obliged to destroy, and its terms are the honorifics of the Roman provincial administration.

Threads

• ← contests · Babylonian Talmud
  The elders reverse the word order that R. Yudan and Ben Azzai explain and praise. For the Bavli's baraita the sequence bereshit bara … Elohim is a danger to be removed for a Greek reader; for Bereshit Rabbah it is the Holy One's modesty — a mortal king proclaims his name and produces his works afterwards, but God acted first and was named after. The same three words are a liability in Alexandria and a virtue in Caesarea.
• ← parallel · Remigius of Auxerre
  Both benches ask what may properly be predicated of the creator and answer it out of the first verse's word order. R. Yudan in the name of Akilas: to this one it is fitting to call God — because he acted first and was named afterwards, unlike a king acclaimed before he has built anything. Remigius: the Father is a beginning, but not from a beginning. The rabbinic argument is about the order of the words in the sentence and the Latin about the order of the persons in God, and both are reading the same three words.