'Ye shall be as God (gods A.V.), knowing good and evil' (Gen. 3:5).

The evil one suggested that God was holding back further blessings and

powers for selfish ends.  It was certainly true that God had given Adam a

limited domain, but it was equally untrue to suggest that any good things had

been withheld.  The word 'good' like most terms is relative.  What might be

good for a man might be evil for a child; and what would be good for an angel

might be evil for Adam.  Had Adam been found faithful in few things, he would

have been made ruler over many things.  Satan, however, tempted him to seek

control over powers that, while he was still immature, would inevitably be

evil in their results.

The Bible does not use the language of science, but it makes many

references to the mighty forces of Nature.  In some passages these forces are

said to be under the control of a special angel, and it would seem that man

himself, though at first 'a little lower than the angels', was destined in

God's good time to be higher than the angels, and to have an extended

dominion.  This dominion was at first related primarily to the animal world,

but it would doubtless have been extended to include the world of chemistry

and physics, with perfect power and full knowledge, whereas today man is

becoming more and more conscious that he is dabbling with forces which at any

moment may turn back and destroy him.  Much that is called 'progress' may

really be the intrusion, before the time, into things that were intended as

man's domain at a subsequent period.

We must now return to Genesis 1:26, in order to investigate what is

actually implied by the word 'dominion'.  There are various possible

alternatives that are not used in this passage.  The word used here is not

baal, 'to have dominion as lord and proprietor' (Isa. 26:13), or mashal, 'to

reign as a governor, or a superior' (Judges 14:4), or shalat 'to rule' (Psa.

119:133), but radah, 'to tread down, to subdue'.  The following are three

passages in which this particular word occurs:

'They that hate you shall reign over you' (Lev. 26:17).

'With force and with cruelty have ye ruled' (Ezek. 34:4).

'Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies' (Psa. 110:2).

These references indicate something of the nature of this particular

type of dominion, and particularly the passage from Psalm 110 which is

Messianic and speaks of the Day of the Lord.  The Psalm goes on to speak of

the Lord 'striking through kings', 'filling places with dead bodies' and

'wounding the heads over many countries' (Psa. 110:5,6).  This conception of

dominion is carried over into verse 28 of Genesis 1 where we read:

'Replenish the earth, and subdue it'.

The word 'subdue' is a translation of the Hebrew kabash, and its

significance may be gathered from the fact that its form as a noun (its

substantival form) means a 'footstool' (2 Chron. 9:18).  In Nehemiah 5:5 it

is rendered 'to bring into bondage'; and it is the word used by the king when

he exclaims of Haman, 'Will he force the Queen?' (Est. 7:8).  The word is

also used of the conquest of Canaan under Joshua (Josh. 18:1), a subjugation

whose rigour there is no need to quote chapter and verse to prove.