Genesis 2:7

Genesis 2:7 . The Lord God formed man — Man being the chief of God’s works in this lower world, and being intended to be the lord of all other creatures, we have here a more full account of his creation. The word ייצר , jitzer, here rendered he formed, is not used concerning any other creature, and implies a gradual process in the work, with great accuracy and exactness. It is properly used of potters forming vessels on the wheel; and Rabbi D. Kimchi says, that, when used concerning the creation of man, it signifies the formation of his members. Of the dust of the ground — The Hebrew is, he formed man dust from the ground. We should remember that, however curiously our bodies, with their various members and senses, are wrought, we are but dust taken from the ground. He breathed into his nostrils — And thereby into his head and whole man; the breath of life — Hebrew, the soul of lives, that is, both natural and spiritual, both temporal and eternal life. It is sufficiently implied here that the soul of man is of a quite different nature and higher origin than the souls of beasts, which, together with their bodies, are said to be brought forth by the earth and waters, Genesis 1:24 .

(7) And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. —Literally, formed the man (adam) dust from the ground. In this section the prominent idea is not that of producing out of nothing, but of forming, that is, shaping and moulding. So in Genesis 2:19 Jehovah forms the animals, and in Genesis 2:8 He plants a garden. As Elohim is almighty power, so Jehovah is wisdom and skill, and His works are full of contrivance and design. As regards man’s body, Jehovah forms it dust from the ground: the adâmâh, or fruitful arable soil, so called from Adam, for whose use it was specially fitted, and by whom it was first tilled. But the main intention of the words is to point out man’s feebleness. He is made not from the rocks, nor from ores of metal, but from the light, shifting particles of the surface, blown about by every wind. Yet, frail as is man’s body, God— . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.—The life came not as the result of man’s bodily organisation, nor as derived by evolution from any other animal, but as a gift direct from God. And man became a living soul.—The word translated “soul” contains no idea of a spiritual existence. For in Genesis 1:20, “creature that hath life,” and in Genesis 1:24, “the living creature,” are literally, living soul. Really the word refers to the natural life of animals and men, maintained by breathing, or in some way extracting oxygen from the atmospheric air.

And whatever superiority over other animals may be possessed by man comes from the manner in which this living breath was bestowed upon him, and not from his being “a living soul;” for that is common to all alike. The whole of this second narrative is pre-eminently anthropomorphic. In the previous history Elohim commands, and it is done. Here He forms, and builds, and plants, and breathes into His work, and is the companion and friend of the creature He has made. It thus sets before us the love and tenderness of Jehovah, who provides for man a home, fashions for him a wife to be his partner and helpmate, rejoices in his intellect, and brings the lower world to him to see what he will call them, and even after the fall provides the poor outcasts with clothing. It is a picture fitted for the infancy of mankind, and speaking the language of primæval simplicity. But its lesson is for all times. For it proclaims the love of God to man, his special pre-eminence in the scale of being, and that Elohim, the Almighty Creator, is Jehovah-Elohim, the friend and counsellor of the creature whom He has endowed with reason and free-will.

7 . formed ] A different word from that used in Genesis 1:1 ; Genesis 1:27 , “created,” or in Genesis 1:26 , “made.” The metaphor is that of the potter shaping and moulding the clay, LXX ἔπλασεν , Lat. formavit . As applied to the Creator, the metaphor is a favourite one; cf. Isaiah 45:9 , Jeremiah 18:1-5 , Wis 15:7 , Romans 9:20-24 . See Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra , “Aye, note that Potter’s wheel, That metaphor, &c.” man ] Heb. âdâm . Man was popularly thought to be so called because taken from the adâmah , “the cultivated ground,” to which he is to return at death ( Genesis 3:19 ), and which he is to cultivate during life ( Genesis 3:23 ). It is impossible in English to give any equivalent to this play upon the names for “man” and “ground.” In this verse and elsewhere, where the Heb. âdâm (= man) occurs with the def. article ( hâ-âdâm ), there is no reference to the proper name “Adam.” See note on Genesis 2:16 . of the dust of the ground ] These words describe the Hebrew belief concerning the physical structure of man. It was seen that after death the bodily frame was reduced, by dissolution, into dust: it was, therefore, assumed that that frame had at the first been built up by God out of dust. For other passages illustrating this belief, cf. Genesis 3:19 ; Genesis 18:27 , Psalm 90:3 ; Psalm 104:29 , 1 Corinthians 15:47 .

We find the same idea in the Babylonian myth, where man is made out of earth mingled with the blood of the God Marduk1[3], and in the Greek myth of Prometheus and Pandora. [3] See Appendix A (Book Comments). breathed … life ] The preceding clause having explained man’s bodily structure, the present one explains the origin of his life. His life is not the product of his body, but the gift of God’s breath or spirit. At death the breath ( ruaḥ ) left man’s body; hence it was assumed, that, at the first, the mystery of life had been imparted to man by the breath ( ruaḥ ) of God Himself. Through life, man became “a living soul,” ( nephesh ), and, as “a living soul,” shared his life with the animals. But man alone received his life from “the breath of God.” It is this breathing ( n’shâmâh ) of life (LXX πνοὴ ζωης : Lat. spiraculum vitae ) which imparts to man that which is distinctive of his higher principle of being, as compared with the existence of the animals, cf. Genesis 2:19 . It would seem from Job 34:14-15 that one phase of Hebrew belief was (1) that at death the flesh of man turned again unto dust; (2) that God took back unto Himself His breath ( ruaḥ ) which He had given; (3) that the nephesh , or soul, departed into the Sheol , the region of the dead. For the picture here given of vitality imparted to man by the breath breathed by God into man’s nostrils, cf.

Into his nostrils, and by that door into the head and whole man. This is an emphatical phrase, sufficiently implying that the soul of man was of a quite differing nature and higher extraction and original than the souls of beasts, which together with their bodies are said to be brought forth by the earth, Genesis 1:24 . The breath of life, Heb. of lives; either to show the continuance of this breath or soul, both in this life and in the life to come; or to note the various degrees or kinds of life which this one breath worketh in us; the life of plants, in growth and nourishment; the life of beasts, in sense and motion; and the life of a man, in reason and understanding. Man, who before this was but a dull lump of clay, or a comely statue, became a living soul, i.e. a living man: the soul being oft put for the whole man, as Genesis 12:5, Genesis 12:13, Genesis 46:15 Genesis 46:18, 1 Peter 3:20 , &c.

7. Here the sacred writer supplies a few more particulars about the first pair. formed—had FORMED MAN OUT OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND. Science has proved that the substance of his flesh, sinews, and bones, consists of the very same elements as the soil which forms the crust of the earth and the limestone that lies embedded in its bowels. But from that mean material what an admirable structure has been reared in the human body (Ps 139:14). the breath of life—literally, of lives, not only animal but spiritual life. If the body is so admirable, how much more the soul with all its varied faculties. breathed into his nostrils the breath of life—not that the Creator literally performed this act, but respiration being the medium and sign of life, this phrase is used to show that man's life originated in a different way from his body—being implanted directly by God (Ec 12:7), and hence in the new creation of the soul Christ breathed on His disciples (Joh 20:22).

Verse 7. - And the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) formed man of the dust of the ground. Literally, dust from the ground. Here, again, Bleek, Kalisch, and the theologians of their school discover contrariety between this account of man's creation and that which has been given in the preceding chapter. In that man is represented as having been created by the Divine word, in the Divine image, and male and female simultaneously; whereas in this his creation is exhibited as a painful process of elaboration from the clay by the hand of God, who works it like a potter ( asah ; LXX., πλάσσω ), and, after having first constructed man, by a subsequent operation forms woman. But the first account does not assert that Adam and Eve were created together, and gives no details of the formation of either. These are supplied by the present narrative, which, beginning with the construction of his body from the fine dust of the ground, designedly represents it as an evolution or development of the material universe, and ends by setting it before us as animated by the breath of God, reserving for later treatment the mode of Eve's production, when the circumstances that led to it have been described. And (the Lord God) breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

Literally, the breath of lives. "The formation of man from the dust and the breathing of the breath of life must not be understood in a mechanical sense, as if God first of all constructed a human figure from the dust" (still less does it admit of the idea that man's physical nature was evolved from the lower animals), "and then, by breathing his breath of life into the clod of earth which he had shaped into the form of a man, made it into a living being. The words are to be understood θεοπρεπῶς . By an act of Divine omnipotence man arose from the dust; and in the same moment in which the dust, by virtue of creative omnipotence, shaped itself into a human form, it was pervaded by the Divine breath of life, and created a living being, so that we cannot say the body was earlier than the soul" (Delitzsch). And man became a living soul . Nephesh chayyah , in Genesis 1:21 , 80, is employed to designate the lower animals. Describing a being animated by a ψυχή or life principle, it does not necessarily imply that the basis of the life principle in man and the inferior animals is the same. The distinction between the two appears from the difference in the mode of their creations.