Genesis 2:4 – 4:26 THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH 2:4 On These are the generations, see the Introduction above. Since the genitive in this formula is uniformly subjective, the reference is not to the origin of the heavens and the but the sequel thereof, particulary the early history of the earthlings. The first part of this verse, therefore, must be taken not with the preceding but the following account, which is not, then, presented as another version of creation. When they were created is literally ‘in their being created’. This expression is used like the grammatically equivalent ‘in their going forth from Egypt’ (Dt. 4:45 ; 23:4; Jos. 5:4) and ‘in your passing over the Jordan’ (Dt. 27:4,12) to denote an era according to its opening and formative event. Cf. Also Gn. 33:18; 35:9. The reference in 2:4a (cf. The parallel in 4b) is evidently to the entire antre-diluvian peroid spanned in 2:4 – 4:25. The Lord God (Heb. yhwh ‘elohim, ‘God’, and proper name, Yahweh, is found repeatedly in Gn. 2 and 3. ‘elohim is used in Gn. 1 for God as Creator; it denotes God as He is known through His revelation in creation and general providence, including man’s inward and intuitive knowledge of God. Yahweh is used alone beginning with Gn. 4; it is God’s personal name describing Him as revealed through His historical-covenantal revelation as the Lord of eschatological purpose and sovereign fulfilment. The transitional combination, Yahweh God’, in Gn. 2 and 3 serves to identify Yahweh the convenant Lord, as God, the Creator, Such multiple designations of deity were common iin the biblical world. 2:5-25 Man’s original beatitude 2:5-8 Man in the garden of God. 5 Follow Rv, ‘and not plant of the field was yet in the earth’. AV obscures the Hebrew idiom ffor an emphatic negative. RSV would treat vv. 4b-7 like a long clumsy sentence, making GN. 2 teach that man was created before vegetation. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain. During the creation era, punctuated though it was with acts of supernatural origination, the preservation of life was by natural origination, the preservation of life was by natural means. Thus the Creator did not originate plant life before the availability of water, whether through a process of nature or through artificial irrigation devised by man. 6, 7 A mist went up (preferably, ‘began to go up’). These verses describe the povision of the two things mentioned as missing in v. 5. The uncertain mist (Heb. ’ēd) probably refers to sub terranean waters springing up over the ground. The Lord God formed man. Man’s oneness with the created world is brought out by the similarity of ’ādām (man) and ’ᵅdāmâ (ground); the first man was of the earth, an earthling (cf. 1 Cor. 15:47). Man’s first breath was the very breath of life which God breathed out; an intimacy of created mode is suggested that is consonant with the nature of man who, though an earthling, stands in imagerelationship to God (cf. 1:27). The creature thus animated was not previously alive and it was nothing short of man, the image of God, that now by this immediate divine action first became a living being (cf. 1 Cor.15: 45). For man’s eschatological pontential see 1 Cor. 15:46ff. 8 ‘Had planted’ would be a proper translation. Eden could be a Sumero-Akkadian loan-worl meaning ‘steppe’, but appears to be a name here meaning ‘delight’. As the garden of God (cf. Is. 51:3; Ezk. 28:13; 31:9), the garden was a holy place and man’s position there involved priestly vocation. The preparation of the garden is developed in vv. 9-14; the assignment of man in the garden in vv. 15-17. 2:9-14 source of life. 9 The garden of God, the Source of life, ministered abundantly to man’s life, aesthetic and physical. The tree of life symbolized the prospect of a glorified life (cf. vv. 15-17). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, like the tree of life, was named after the destiny to which it would lead. To know good and evil is to be seasoned in discriminating between opposites. The context indicates the sphere of discrimination, such as physical sensation (cf. 2 Sa. 19:35) or, as here, ethical religious experience (cf. 1 King. 3:9; Heb. 5:14). 10 The river system which kept the garden wll watered (cf. Gen. 13:10) perhaps exemplifies the mist (’ēd) phenomenon (cf. 2:6). 11-14 The narrative’s concern with real earthly history is apparent in the geographical notes, especially the familiar Hiddekel (i.e. ‘Tigris’) and Euphrates (v. 14). Pishon (‘Gusher’) and Gihon (‘Bubbler’) are not known, and this suggest the possibility af vast changes in the terraim between Adam and Moses. Eden’s fertility and its surrounding treasures fulfilled the promise of its name (cf. on v. 8) and manifested the favour of God. 2:15-17 Law of the Lord. 15 recapitulates v. 8, adding man’s commission. Subjugation of the earth (cf.1:28) began with cultivation of the garden. Keep it is perhaps a cultic charge, i.e. to guard the sanctity of God’s dwelling; cf. the use of the same verb šāmar in 3:24; Ne. 13:22; Zc. 3:7. 16 Commanded the man. For true covenant servant the law of the lord is a delight (cf. Ps. 1:2) ; it gave direction to man’s original state of blessedness. 17 The tree of knowledge, as the focus of probation, stood in Adam’s path of to the tree of life, the sacramental seal of the proffered consummation of blessing. You shall die. Thought probation’s proper purpose was unto life, the law of God’s covenant placed Adam, as it did Israel at a later day, before life and good, death and evil (cf. Dt. 30: 15ff.). 2:18-25 A wife for the man. 18 It is not good. Only when man existed male and female could the work of the sixth day be called ‘very good’ (cf. 1:27, 31), for only then could the divinely-ordanied cultural programme unfold to its genealogical fullness (cf. 1:28a). A helper. The woman was made for the man (cf. 1 Cor. 11:9), yet not as his slave-gilr but his queen. Fit for him (Heb. kᵉnegdȏ) suggest primarily correspondence, likeness (cf. vv. 20, 23); as man is the image and glory of God, so the women is the glory of the man (1 Cor. 11:7). 19 Read ‘now… God had formed’; thus the Hebrew can and should be translated (cf. v. 8). 20 The man gave names. God’s naming activity (1:5, 8, 10), by which He assigns to the creation kingdoms their meaning, was imitated by man in this process of giving the creatures name interpretations. A prophetic function is thus see to be added to the royal and priestly aspects of man’s role in God’s kingdom. 21, 22 The deep sleep was not so much an anaesthetid for the man as a veil about the women until she wa prepared to be led as a bride to her wedding. Paul understood this record of the woman’s origins as straight forward history, observing that ‘man was not made from woman, but woman from man’ (1 Cor. 11:8). Scripture itself thus provides us with the direction to be followed in our exegetical approach to the narrative materials of this chapter. Following that directions in our exegesis of the account of the origin of man in 2:7 particularly,we find ourselves pointed away from any theoretical reconstruction in which the creative act that produced Adam is attached organically to some prior life process evolving at a sub-human level. 23 Woman, because she was taken out of Man. The assonance of ’îŝ and ’iŝŝâ (man and Women) reflects the original name interpretation of the woman as derivative from, and hence of kind with, the man (cf. vv. 18b, 20). 24 They became one flesh. In their separation still male-female correlatives of one kind, they become one flesh in a new sense as God koins them in marriage (cf. Mat. 19:4ff.). this verse is a divine directive . 25 Cf. 3:7.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 03:49:55 +0000
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