The Text[1] |
Commentary |
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| 01 | Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (1) | End of the 6th day of creation |
| 02 | And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (2-3) | Creation of the seventh day through a seventh sunset. |
| 03 | These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, (4) | A new account of creation from a different perspective. “…in the day” vis-à-vis “in the time or season, not a 24-hour day. |
| 04 | And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. (5-6) | On the third day, prior to God saying, “Let the Earth bring forth…” |
| 05 | And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (7) | Creation of mankind on the 6th day. |
| 06 | And the LORD God planted a Garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man, whom he had formed. (8) | From the third to the sixth day. |
| 07 | And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the Garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And a river flowed in Eden to water the Garden; and from there it divided into four headstreams. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is pure: there is bdellium and the onyx stone is also found there. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that winds through the entire land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris: it flows to the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (9-14) | Mentioning the specifics of the Garden that the Lord “planted,” vis-à-vis mature plants, as understood from the Septuagint, and the Garden must have covered a very wide space, since the text speaks of the mouth of four rivers flowing out of it. |
| 08 | And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (15) | The Lord “took” vis-à-vis “laid hold” of the man and “put” vis-à-vis appointed him to guard and dress the Garden. |
| 09 | And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die. (16-17) | Although the man was permitted to eat of any tree in the Garden, the Lord charged him to keep from eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If and when he did, he would die. |
| 10 | And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (18) | The man had matured enough to say Genesis 1:31 was no longer true. At this point it was no longer good for the man to be without a mate. |
| 11 | And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. (19-20) | To think that Adam did all this in a single day is simply inconceivable. He would have had to name 725 mammals and birds per hour, or 12 per minute, vis-à-vis one every 6 seconds (see websites: Birdfact and AZ Animals for data to prove this statement.
Furthermore, men spend years studying animal behavior, which Adam would have had to do, if he were to give them proper names that describe their behavior. |
| 12 | And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; (21) | “ribs” the Hebrew is so translated only here. It is translated “chamber” when describing the Temple of God (1Kings 6:5, 8; Ezekiel 41:6-9, 11, 26). |
| 13 | And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. (22) | Whatever was taken from Adam constituted the feminine/female of mankind and was shaped into the woman, and the Lord brought her to the man. |
| 14 | And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (23) | Adam, now constituting the male of the species, considers the woman his equal “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh,” vis-à-vis selfsame kindred, as distinct from the animal species. |
| 15 | Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (24) | Therefore, a man shall leave his family and join to his wife, and the two shall be one body, vis-à-vis capable of reproduction, as Adam was prior to the Lord taking his feminine characteristics out of him. |
| 16 | And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (25) | Both the man and the woman were naked, vis-à-vis without a body of flesh and were not ashamed.
Note: Genesis 2:7 claims the man had breath (spirit) and became a living soul. Nothing is said of a body. Later, Paul speaks of casting off his body of flesh, in the hope that he won’t appear before God naked (1Corinthians 5:1-4). |
In Genesis 2:3 we are officially given a new account of creation. This account probably comes from one of the Patriarchs, Enoch or Noah, while Genesis 1 to 2:2 is probably given directly to Moses by God. It seems that the writer of Genesis 2:3-25 begins by announcing he’s writing out the creation story, and begins with a list of what was done, but not necessarily in chronological order:
- Genesis 2:5-6 constitutes new information about a mist or a fountain that’s added to Genesis 1 on the third day, but prior to God creating anything new.
- Genesis 2:7 offers more details about the creation of mankind, done on the 6th day in chapter one.
- Genesis 2:8 tells us that originally the Lord specifically created a Garden for the man to live in, while the rest of the Earth was still maturing. In other words, the Lord created mature plants and trees in the Garden, whose dimensions aren’t given, but was probably very large, vis-à-vis having a river that separated into four other rivers etc. Man was probably formed out of the soil of this Garden.
- Genesis 2:9-14 offers a more detailed description of the Garden where man lived. It also betrays editorials in that its rivers wind around nations that didn’t exist until after the great Genesis Flood. Therefore, trying to make Genesis 2:3-25 a chronological description of the 6th day is ridiculous.
- Genesis 2:15 at first seems to say God physically ‘put’ man in the Garden by taking him away from somewhere else. However, this is not the case, according to how the Septuagint can be rendered. What’s happening is that God put (G5087; titheme) or appointed (cp. John 15:16; Acts 13:47; Hebrews 1:2) the man to cultivate and guard the Garden. In other words, man was given the responsibility to image God back into his creation, vis-à-vis behave like God by working the Garden, according to its original intent, when it was created.
- Genesis 2:16-17 puts limits upon man’s authority. After giving mankind authority over the Garden, he was told that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not included in God’s allocation of responsibility. That “tree” was retained by God for his use only.
- Genesis 2:18 represents the passage of time, after which Genesis 1:31 was no longer true. The man is developing, like a child maturing, and just as a child needs to put away childish ways to become a mature adult, so something must now be done to complete mankind’s development. It is no longer good for him to be alone.
- Genesis 2:19-20 mentions God’s plan to acquaint the man with the idea that he needs to come to a new level of his development. He offers the man a project of studying and naming the animals. This project took much longer than a single day. Depending upon how many kinds of animals were in existence at this time, it could have taken years for Adam to study and name the animals.[2] Nevertheless, in carrying out the project, the man discovered each animal had a mate, but he did not! Why was that?
- Genesis 2:21-23 chronicles that when man questioned this idea, God put him in a deep sleep, wherein the Lord performed an operation, resulting in God removing something within the man that constituted femininity. Afterward, the man became a male, and, with whatever was removed from the man, God made the female of the species. God brought the female to the man, whereupon he acknowledged that this one was of the same substance, as he was, and would be called woman, because she was taken out of man.
- Genesis 2:24 tells us that because of what God had done to mankind, the male will leave his family in order to join with his female, and the two together would constitute the one of God’s original creation of humanity (Genesis 1:27).
- Genesis 2:25 reveals that both the man and the woman were naked, in the sense that they were spirit and soul but without a “covering” vis-à-vis without a physical body (1Corinthians 5:1-4), but they were unashamed. (Genesis 2:1-25)
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[1] The text has 649 words, which are not counted in my dissertation. I prefer to keep my studies under 1000 words.
[2] Some critics want to put a contradiction in Genesis 2:19, saying God made the birds out of the soil, but in Genesis 1:20-22 God made the fowl from the waters. However, the critics are reading that interpretation into the text. Actually, God caused the waters to produce the fish, but the origin of the birds is left unsaid. Instead, just as the fish fill the waters, so the fowl are to fill the open sky, out of which the waters fall to the earth.
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