In God We Rest

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Recommended: Genesis interpretive essay

George Herbert’s “The Pulley” describes how God first created man. Herbert writes with first hand experience to the glory of God and the expectation that God has for humanity. He shows the reader that God has blessed man with all the world’s riches, but has decided to withhold his final blessings of rest to ensure man’s return to him for peace and comfort. Humanity is not the ready for all of God’s gifts because overindulgence can lead to a lack of appreciation for the many gifts that they already possess. Many cultures have their own version of the creation story; Herbert introduces the reader to the Christian viewpoint of how God made man. The poem begins with the creation of man, God “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Herbert describes God’s intentions to provide for humanity by saying, ”Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:” (Line 3). Humanity was given all the bounty that the earth had to offer, but he has a time line in mind as stated in, “Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span” (4-5). God’s nature is to provide for his creation, so we are never have to worry about what we are to eat or how we are going to be clothed. We are only to look at the lilies of the field and how they grow to find the proof that his gifts are abound. It is hard to imagine that humanity would not be appreciative of any gift that comes from above because they are gifts of love, which should be reciprocal with worship and thanksgiving. God showered man with gifts of strength, beauty, wisdom, honor, and pleasure; all attributes that should be used to build humanity up morally and spiritually (6). However, God knows that man is not perfect, and “spotting a flaw in his original plan and making that an occasion for a new, more original creation” (Brisman 24). Herbert poem is much like a sermon of the life of Adam and Eve. God dispersed the world’s riches on them, yet they disobeyed God and tasted the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

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