This page was originally written in December 2016.
The formatting below should not be taken to imply that Genesis 2:4-7 is poetry. I’ve just put parts of it in lines to make some relationships I see between clauses clear. I’ve also translated in such a way as to make the case I’m making clearer. Consult the Hebrew text for yourself and see what you think.
Structure
This is the account concerning the sky and the land when they were created,
the day Yahweh God made land and sky.
(_A) _No wild plant was yet on the land (B) no crop had yet grown (A’) because Yahweh God had not brought rain on the land (B’) and [because] there was no human to work the ground (A”) and [?] would come up from the earth, which watered the whole surface of the ground (B”) and Yahweh formed a human from the ground’s dust, and breathed life-breath into his nostrils, and the human came to life.
The structure, as I understand it, of Genesis 2:4-7 looks like the above. In the center there are two parallel stories being told, in an alternating form.
The format is this: (1) plant life is missing, (2) because it’s missing a prerequisite for life, so (3) here’s how that problem is solved.
In the case of wild plants, (1) no wild plant was yet on the land, because (2) wild plants need rain, which Yahweh hadn’t sent, so (3) so a water source of some kind arises, which waters the ground.
In the case of domestic plants, (1) crops had not grown yet, because (2) crops need humans to engage in agricultural labor, so (3) God makes a farmer, appropriately enough from the very dirt he will farm.
Unfortunately, I do not remember where I picked this up, so my apologies to whoever first explained this to me. If any reader should recognize in this outline somebody else’s work, let me know and I will make sure to give credit where it’s due. If I came up with it myself, then it’s also entirely possible the analysis is wrong because I’m missing something about the syntax of the passage.
It is possible that I got my understanding of verse 5 first by reading the notes to the NET translation (you can find those here) on Genesis 2:5 and that I then extended the same idea on my own to verses 6 and 7. I dunno.
Terms for Plants
For this analysis to be correct, a fairly uncommon word I’ve interpreted as “wild plants” (śyḥ, SI-aḥ) has to actually refer to wild plants, perhaps with a meaning like ‘weeds’ or ‘shrubs.’ Actually I’ve interpreted the whole phrase śiaḥ haśśadeh, literally, ‘śiaḥ of the field,’ as referring to wild plants.
We find siaḥ in three passages. First, here, of course. Second, in Genesis 21:15, Hagar ‘throws’ her (baby? teenager?) Ishmael underneath a siaḥ. This suggests that at the very least this particular siaḥ is a wild plant, because the setting is the wilderness (mdbr) of Beer-Sheva. Third, Job 30:4 and 7 pictures desperate people ‘fleeing into the wilderness’ and hanging out among the siaḥ plants. So there’s a good chance that siaḥ is used to Genesis 2 for wild as opposed to cultivated plants.
By contrast, ʿśb hśdh has to refer to domesticated plants. Genesis 1:29 assigns ‘every’ seed-bearing ʿśb to humans for food, and Genesis 3:18 curses mankind to painful agricultural labor in order to eat ʿśb hśdh. These and many other passages indicate that at least sometimes ʿśb is used to refer to agricultural produce.
A Tricky Water-Source
Verse 6 asserts that ʾd (pronounced ed) would come up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. This is tricky, because the word ed appears only here and in Job 36:27, a verse which I also have some trouble interpreting. However, the analysis given above of the structure of these verses is compatible with several different ideas about the ed, whether it be a mist, or springs, or floodwaters.
The Name Adam
And Yahweh God formed a human (adam) out of dust from the earth (adamah), and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human came to life.
The wordplay is clear in Hebrew. I don’t know of a satisfactory way to reproduce it in English. Where I have the human came to life, the Hebrew reads, literally, the human became a living being.