to ascend · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
mist
וְאֵ֖דve.'Ed
H108
a fog · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular absolute
from
מִןmin-
H4480
properly · preposition
earth
הָאָ֑רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
watered
וְהִשְׁקָ֖הve.hish.Kah
H8248
to quaff · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
face
פְּנֵֽיpe.nei-
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct
ground
הָֽאֲדָמָֽהHa.'a.da.Mah
H127
soil (from its general redness) · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 2:4-7
In these verses, I. Here is a name given to the Creator which we have not yet met with, and that is Jehovah - the LORD, in capital letters, which are constantly used in our English translation to intimate that in the original it is Jehovah. All along, in the first chapter, he was called Elohim - a God of power; but now Jehovah Elohim - a God of power and perfection, a finishing God. As we find him known by his name Jehovah when he appeared to perform what he had promised (Exo 6:3), so now we have him known by that name, when he had perfected what he had begun. Jehovah is that great and incommunicable name of God which denotes his having his being of himself, and his giving being to all thing…
There went up a mist - This passage appears to have greatly embarrassed many commentators. The plain meaning seems to be this, that the aqueous vapours, ascending from the earth, and becoming condensed in the colder regions of the atmosphere, fell back upon the earth in the form of dews, and by this means an equal portion of moisture was distributed to the roots of plants, etc. As Moses had said, Gen 2:5, that the Lord had not caused it to rain upon the earth, he probably designed to teach us, in Gen 2:6, how rain is produced, viz., by the condensation of the aqueous vapors, which are generally through the heat of the sun and other causes raised to a considerable height in the atmosphere, wh…
But there went up a mist from the earth,.... After the waters had been drained off from it, and it was warmed by the body of light and heat created on the first day, which caused a vapour, which went up as a mist, and descended:
and watered the whole face of the ground; or earth, and so supplied the place of rain, until that was given: though rather the words may be rendered disjunctively, "or there went up" (g); that is, before a mist went up, when as yet there was none; not so much as a mist to water the earth, and plants and herbs were made to grow; and so Saadiah reads them negatively, "nor did a mist go up"; there were no vapours exhaled to form clouds, and produce rain, and yet the wh…
The Church Fathers
The gentle face of the earth, that is, the dignity of the earth, may be correctly viewed as the mother of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, who was watered by the Holy Spirit, who is signified in the Gospel by the term water.
Christ is that spring of which the prophet says, "It irrigates and waters the whole earth." But Christ irrigates the whole universe, both visible and invisible; with the spring of life he waters the substance of everything that exists. Yet insofar as he is life, he is Christ; insofar as he waters, he is the Holy Spirit; insofar as he is the power of vitality, he is Father and God; but the whole is one God.
For it says, "The trees were not in existence and the vegetation had not yet sprouted, seeing that the Lord had not caused rain to fall on the earth. A fountain went up from the earth to irrigate the surface of the earth." [ Gen2:5,2:6 ] Since everything was and is born through the interaction of water and earth, Scripture took care to indicate that trees and vegetation were not created at the same time as the earth, seeing that rain had not yet fallen. But after the great fountain of the great primordial deep had gone up and irrigated the entire surface of the earth, then, once the waters had been gathered together on the third day, the earth gave birth to all sorts of vegetation on the very same day. The waters over which the darkness had been spread on the first day are the same as those which issued from this fountain, covering, in a twinkling of an eye, the entire earth. This is the fountain which was opened up in the days of Noah, covering over all mountains on the earth. Now this fountain did not come up from under the earth, but from the earth, for it explicitly says "the fountain was coming up"--not from beneath the earth, but " from the earth." That these waters in the earth do not precede the earth in time is testified by the fact that the earth carries them in its womb. So "the fountain went up from the earth," as Scripture says, "and it irrigated the surface of the entire earth." [ Gen2:6 ] The earth then produced trees, vegetation and plants. It was not the case that God was unable to generate everything from the earth in any other way, but, because it was His will that the earth should give birth through the agency of water, He provided an initial beginning for this process, corresponding to the way in which it would be carried on until the end. Having spoken about what had been omitted and left untold on the first day, Scripture reverts to the description of Adam's fashioning as follows: "And Adam was not there to work on the earth." [ Gen. 2:5 ] Indeed he was not in existence during all the days prior to the sixth, because it was on the sixth day that he was created. [Gen. 1:26-7, 31]
Dictionary and topics
Fall of man — An expression probably borrowed from the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom, to express the fact of the revolt of our first parents from God, and the consequent sin and misery in which they and all their…
Media — Heb. Madai, which is rendered in the Authorized Version (1) “Madai,” Gen. 10:2; (2) “Medes,” 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11; (3) “Media,” Esther 1:3; 10:2; Isa. 21:2; Dan. 8:20; (4) “Mede,” only in Dan. 11:1.…
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil — Stood in the midst of the garden of Eden, beside the tree of life (Gen. 2, 3). Adam and Eve were forbidden to take of the fruit which grew upon it. But they disobeyed the divine injunction, and so…
Meteorology And Celestial Phenomena · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Mist · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Water · Necessary to vegetation — Necessary to vegetation
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And every plant This verse is connected with the preceding, and must be read in continuation with it; for he annexes the plants and herbs to the earth, as the garment with which the Lord has adorned it, lest its nakedness should appear as a deformity. The noun syh (sicah, [110] ) which we translate plant, sometimes signifies trees, as below, (Genesis 21:15 [111] ) Therefore, some in this place translate it shrub, to which I have no objection. Yet the word plant is not unsuitable; because in the former place, Moses seems to refer to the genus, and here to the species. [112] But although he has before related that the herbs were created on the third day, yet it is not without reason that here…
The account in vv. 5-25 is not a second, complete and independent history of the creation, nor does it contain mere appendices to the account in Gen 1; but it describes the commencement of the history of the human race. This commencement includes not only a complete account of the creation of the first human pair, but a description of the place which God prepared for their abode, the latter being of the highest importance in relation to the self-determination of man, with its momentous consequences to both earth and heaven. Even in the history of the creation man takes precedence of all other creatures, as being created in the image of God and appointed lord of all the earth, though he is si…
springs: The word refers to subterranean springs that rose to the surface of the ground.
Rashi on Genesis 2:6
ואד יעלה AND A MIST WENT UP — This has reference to the creation of Adam: viz., He caused the deep to rise and filled the clouds with water to moisten the dust, and man was created. It is like a kneader of bread who first pours in water and afterwards kneads the dough — similarly here: He first watered the ground and afterwards He formed man (Genesis Rabbah 14:1).