Matthew Poole English Annotations Book of Genesis

Our design, good reader, was not to tell thee how the fathers interpreted texts, (Aquinas, Justinianus, and others have done that work,) nor yet to tell thee any grammatical niceties, or what learned men have critically noted upon terms or phrases, (that is done in the Synopsis Criticorum,) nor yet to tell thee what conclusions of truth may be raised from the verses, (that hath been done profitably upon many books of Scripture by Mr. Dickson, Hutchinson, Fergusson, Guild, Durham, and some others,) much less to handle the controversies that have risen from any portion of Scripture. Our work hath been only to give thee the plain sense of the Scripture, and to reconcile seeming contradictions where they occurred, and as far as we were able to open scripture by scriptue, which is its own best interpreter, comparing things spiritual with spiritual, "that thy faith might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the wisdom and power of God." If we have reached this end, it is all we aimed at; if thous gettest any good by what we have done, remember thy sacrifice is due at another altar, even His who "ministreth seed to the sower," who both watereth the furrows of the field, and blesseth the springing of the corn; let Him have the praise, and we only thy prayers, that we may live a useful life, and die a happy death, and "attain to the resurrection of the dead," in which we shall all see and understand more perfectly than we yet do.