Genesis 2:4-14
Book of the birth of Heaven, of Earth. Man from the dust of Soil. The trees and the rivers.
It is a great mystery why verses 2:1-3 are not part of the first chapter. They are a logical continuation of the preceding account of creation, and they wrap it up nicely with the Sabbath.
The fourth verse begins things again. The first half of the verse is a rare instance where I translate from the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew: αὕτη ἡ βίβλος γενέσεως οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς. That phrase is why Genesis is called “Genesis”. The fourth verse is also the first appearance of the tetragrammaton. As you’ll see below, I translate that untranslatable name as LORD. My choice is traditional but provisional.
There is a play between the name of man in these verses, הָֽאָדָם, and the material with which God makes him, הָאֲדָמָה. HaAdam is made from the dust of HaAdamah. The only way I could think to reproduce this in English was with human/humus, but that distorts more than it reveals. So I’m left with Man/Soil, and the connection between the two in Hebrew is lost.
I love the introduction of the rivers. It’s one of the most beautiful moments in the text. It takes us from the cosmic to the local. Just a few verses before God was creating whole categories of matter. Now He’s making named rivers… of which, I know people who’ve the shores of at least one.
Book of the birth
of Heaven
of Earth
In the time
of LORD God’s making
earth
heaven
Every field shrub
unplanted
All field grass
unsprouted
For
LORD God
hadn’t sent rain
upon Earth
nor man
worked Soil
Geyser went up
from Earth
watered
every plot of Soil
LORD God fashioned
Man
of dust
from Soil
breathed
into his nostrils
living soul
LORD GOD planted
an easterly garden
Eden
There He placed
Man
whom He’d fashioned
LORD God grew
from Soil
every tree
beautiful
or toothsome
Tree of Living
mid Garden
Tree of Knowing Good and Evil
A river ran
from Eden
to water it
thence split
to four headwaters
Pison
circling Havilah
whence gold
good gold
of that land
amber
precious stone
Gihon
circling Kush
Hidekel
running east of Assyria
Euphrates
the fourth
If you know someone who might be interested in what I’m doing, please:
An "earthling" created out of "earth" would work well – not only because there are female earthlings, but to point to the transition from the cosmic to the down-to-earth. This occurs elsewhere in Genesis too, and is extremely important at the beginning of the book of Job.