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
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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.