GENESIS 2:4-7

A Condensed Recap of Creation

 

Genesis 2 is not a 2nd creation account. What we have here are two accounts of the same event, each with a different focus.

 

2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day Yahweh God made earth and heaven (day one).

 

The term “generations” (toledoth in Hebrew can be translated “history” or “geneology”) and is derived from the root yalad, which means “that which has been fathered by, produced by”.

 

No longer are we dealing with the origins of heaven and earth, but with what has proceeded from them. Mankind is now the center of attention. Mankind is both heavenly and earthly in origin. Their bodies are from the earth, but they were created for communion with God.

 

Because man was obviously not present until the end of the sixth day of creation, what God did in days 1 through 6 was most likely told to Adam, who wrote it down. It was later handed down and compiled by Moses under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

 

The uniting of the two divine names, “Lord” (Yahweh) and “God” (Elohim) occurs twenty times in Genesis 2-3, but only one other occasion in the entire Pentateuch.

 

The clause, “in the day”, is not metaphorical, but represents the first day of creation when God “created the heavens and the earth” (1:1).

 

2:5-6 And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth; and every plant of the field had not yet sprouted; because Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no mankind to work the ground. But there went up a mist (fog, vapor) from the land and watered the whole surface of the ground.

 

Genesis 2:5-6 is a description of creation as it appeared after the separation of land and water recorded in Genesis 1:9-10 and before the formation of mankind in Genesis 1:26.

 

The Lord God would not cause it to rain upon the earth until the great Flood in Genesis 7. So God provided water in another way. Water vapors (mists of water) arising from the earth would go up and water the whole face of the ground.

 

The verb for “would go up” (yaleh) is in the qal imperfect tense marking repeated action in the past (would continue to go up from the ground).

 

The verb for “watered” (shaqah) is in the hiphil perfect tense, signifying past action with present result (has watered and continues to water the ground).

 

2:7 And Yahweh God formed the man [out of] dust from the ground. And He breathed in his nostrils [the] breath of life. And the man became a living being.

 

The preposition [out of] and the definite article [the] are not in the original Hebrew text and were added by the translators for better readability in the English.

 

Notice that the creation of the light givers, fish, birds, and animals are skipped and the narrative proceeds immediately to man himself.

 

This verse tells not of the creation of man (as in Genesis 1:27), but of the formation and energizing (bringing to life) of his body.

 

Man is formed out of the “dust from the ground”.  The Hebrew word for “dust” (aphar) generally means “loose earth/mud/mortar. All of this language is reminiscent of the act of a potter in shaping clay.

 

Job 10:-8-12 You formed me with your hands; You made me, yet now You completely destroy me. Remember that You made me from dust—will You turn me back to dust so soon? You guided my conception and formed me in the womb. You clothed me with skin and flesh, and You knit my bones and ligaments together. You gave me life and showed me Your unfailing love. My life was preserved by Your care.

 

God used the “dust of the ground” to make man’s body, a remarkable phrase conveying the thought that the smallest particles of which the earth was composed were also to be the basic elements of the human body.

 

The wordplay in Hebrew, “man” (adam) and “ground” (adamah), shows man’s close connection with the ground and underlines the apostle Paul’s later teaching that the first Adam was fashioned in a natural body for an earthly existence.

 

1 Corinthians 15:45-49  So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have born the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

 

 

Life can come only from life, and the living God is the only self-existent Being, so it must ultimately come from Him. Thus, God Himself directly imparted life and breath to man.

 

And He breathed in his nostrils [the] breath of life. And the man became a living being (a living soul).

 

The “breath of life” is shared in common with animals. “Breath” (ruach) is the same word as “spirit” or “wind.” However, it was only to man that God directly “breathed” into his nostrils the “breath of life.”

 

The greatest differentiation between man and animals is man’s bearing the image and likeness of God and his ability to worship and have fellowship with God.

 

Note the refutation of the assumption of human evolution in verse 7. It says “man became a living being” not “a living being became man.” Man was not formed from preexistent life as the evolutionists claim. He received both his body and soul directly from God.

 

Another refutation of evolution is the fact that Adam was the first man. There was no pre-Adamic man, as evolutionists have suggested, a fact supported by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:45: The first man Adam became a living being…