Genesis 2

Genesis 2:1-4

Genesis 2:1-4 a. Thus in six days God completed His work of creation, and as He reviewed it He uttered the same verdict on the whole, only in a heightened form (“very good” and not merely “good”) that He had uttered on the successive stages. For the whole is not the mere sum of the parts, it is a unity in which these separate parts dovetail into each other and work together in perfect mutual adjustment and co-operation. It is here described as “the heaven and the earth . . . and all the host of them.” The host of heaven generally means the stars, though it is sometimes used for the angels, and since the stars were often regarded as animate bodies (e.g. Judges 6:20, Job 38:7*, Revelation 9:1 f.), the transition from one sense to the other was easy. Our author ignores the angels, and treats the stars simply as lamps in the firmament.

In Job 38:7, the morning stars sang when the foundations of the earth were laid, and the sons of God (i.e. the angels) raised their joyful shout. The host of earth is not elsewhere mentioned, its occurrence here is due simply to the combination of earth with heaven.

The whole phrase means the total contents of heaven and earth. After work is finished man rests, so also God. Here, indeed, the word used implies simply that He ceased to work, but our author elsewhere says of God that He “refreshed Himself” or, to render more literally, “took breath” on the seventh day (Exodus 31:17), a startling anthropomorphism in P, all the more so that in the creation narrative itself all is achieved by the utterance of the word. Since, then, the author seems to have regarded the work as involving no toil, and therefore as causing no weariness which demanded rest, we must assume that he is here using an idea which he did not originate. He is not interested in the rest of God in itself so much as in the institution of the Sabbath, for which it provides the basis. The seventh day which had brought rest to God is singled out for His blessing, and “hallowed” or set apart as a sacred day on which man may rest.

On the origin of the Sabbath see pp. 101f. Our story is an explanation to account for an already existing institution.

The Heb. text of Gen 2:2, however, creates a difficulty. It seems to state that God completed His work on the seventh day. But the whole point is that no work at all was done on the seventh day; the task was finished by the end of the sixth. The expedients to impose a satisfactory sense on the text do not seem to be successful, and the simplest course is to read (with Sam., LXX, Syr.) “And on the sixth day God finished.” This is so much easier that it might seem to be a correction to remove a difficulty (p. 42), but “seventh” was probably introduced by the inadvertence of a scribe under the influence of the references to the seventh day in the rest of the passage. Genesis 2:3. created and made: more strictly “creatively made,” i.e. God acted in His work as creator, this was part of His creative as distinguished from other forms of His activity. Genesis 2:4. these . . . created: this clause is probably a later insertion (see Skinner’s full discussion). If so, the editor probably intended it to refer to the narrative which follows, the formula meaning “this is the history of.”

Genesis 2:4-17

Genesis 2:4-17. The narrative begins with the words “In the day,” but the construction is uncertain. Perhaps Genesis 2:5 f. is a parenthesis, so that man was formed at the period when “earth and heaven” (J’s phrase for P’s the heaven and the earth”) were made, before there was any vegetation. The absence of vegetation is due to the absence of rain and of a man to till the ground. In Genesis 2:6, however, we are told of a “mist,” or as we should probably render, a “flood,” which irrigated the ground. Genesis 2:6 may be out of place (possibly added with Genesis 2:10-14), for rain would be unnecessary if irrigation was secured by a periodical overflow as in Egypt or Babylonia.

After earth and heaven had been made, Yahweh moulded man (‘âdâm) from the ground (‘ãdâmah) as a potter moulds images from clay, and breathed into his nostrils “breath of life” so that he became a living being. Then He planted a garden or park far away to the E. of Palestine, in a district known as Eden.

It was apparently His own home (Genesis 3:8), but He placed man in it. He then caused such trees to grow in this garden as were pleasant to the eye and good for food, and in particular the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Of other species of trees in the garden or of any trees outside, the author says nothing, nor yet of plants or flowers whether in the garden or without, since he selects those features which lead up to the story in the next chapter. Yahweh charged the man with the care of the garden, and permitted him to use all the trees for food, save that He forbade him the tree of knowledge on pain of death. The position of Eden is more definitely fixed by Genesis 2:10-14 (usually taken to be an insertion). A river rises in Eden, flows through the garden, and on leaving it, branches into four rivers.

Hiddekel is the Tigris in front of Assyria, approaching it from Palestine. The fourth river is Euphrates.

The writer apparently thought of these as springing from one source. Hence he regarded Eden as situated at their point of divergence, and the source of the other two rivers was the same. But his geography was ancient rather than modern, and no one has combined his statements into a consistent scheme. Havilah is unknown, but perhaps in Arabia. Cush is generally supposed to be Ethiopia. In that case Gihon is probably the Nile, though it may be the Indus, which was supposed to be the upper part of the Nile, in which case Pishon might be the Ganges. Other suggestions may be seen in the commentaries. Genesis 2:4. the LORD: i.e. Yahweh. On the significance of the name see Exodus 3:13-15*, where an explanation of the form “Jehovah” (mg.) and the reasons for pronouncing the name Yahweh are also given. Genesis 2:11. compasseth: not necessarily “surrounds”; the verb may mean “to pass along one side of” (Numbers 21:4, Judges 11:18). Genesis 2:12. bdellium: probably a fragrant gum.—onyx: either this or “beryl” (mg.) is the probable meaning. Genesis 2:17. The original text was presumably “the tree in the midst of the garden,” for the woman so describes it in Genesis 3:3, and if the tree had been mentioned under its true name, the point of the serpent’s revelation would have been rather anticipated and so blunted. When the two trees were brought together, the change was made to avoid confusion. Genesis 2:18-25.—Up to this point one living creature alone has been formed, and he is a man. But Yahweh realises that loneliness is unwholesome for him, so He decides to give him a companion to share his life and help him in his work. It is to be a help “answering to him” (mg.), i.e. of his own nature. So, as He had formed man out of the ground, He formed from the same source the animals and the birds, and brought them to the man to see what he called them. The name expresses the nature, hence the naming of the animals showed what impression they made on him. But none of the names indicated any consciousness of fitness for companionship with himself.

This experiment then having failed, for all the range of forms that was covered, Yahweh realised that something quite different was needed. To be made of the same clay was not enough, man and his comrade must be of the same flesh and bone, his companion must be literally a part of himself. He cast the man into a trance-sleep, for it was not fitting that he should penetrate Divine secrets or see Yahweh at work, took a rib from his side and built it (mg.) into a woman and brought her to the man as He had brought the animals. This time the experiment proved a complete success. “Now at last, the man exclaims, “after all my weary search I find my companion, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” This intimacy of relation ship is naturally expressed in a name “woman” (‘isshah) which contains “man” (’îsh) as part of itself. And this is why man seeks the woman, forsaking for her the authors of his being; man and woman were originally one flesh, in wedlock they became one flesh again. Finally the author notes the absence of shame in spite of their nakedness, and thus leads up to Yahweh’s discovery of their disobedience.