RULER OF THE EARTH
Adam and all of humanity in general were created for a particular goal. They were to exercise redemptive dominion over the fish, birds, cattle, the earth and every creeping thing. The verb יִרְדּוּ (yirdu) in Gen.1:26 is not a normal verb for the idea of “rule”, rather, in most contexts, it connotes a “fierce exercise”, “influence”, and even “mastery”. God’s creation needed a boots-on-the-ground manager, or better yet, it needed God’s creation who would be a loving and selfless king.
BEING APPOINTED BY GOD TO RULE
Incidentally, the idea of the “son of God” in the Hebrew Bible essentially denotes “kingship”, meaning “being appointed by God to rule” (Ps.2). This is probably why, when Luke describes the genealogy of Jesus going back to Adam, we read that Adam was not only “the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam…”, but also “the son of God” (Luke 3:36b-38).
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