Genesis 2:7

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,.... Not of dry dust, but, as Josephus (h) says, of red earth macerated, or mixed with water; the like notion Hesiod (i) has; or out of clay, as

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.

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, . 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 , , , , &c.

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Ver. 7. Formed man of the dust.] Not of the rocks of the earth, but dust, that is soon dispersed, to note our frailty, vility, and impurity. But why should so glorious a soul (called here Neshamah, of affinity to Shamajim, heaven, whence it came) dwell in this corruptible and contemptible body? For answer, besides God’ s will, and for order of the universe, Lombard saith, that by the conjunction of the soul with the body, so far its inferior, man might learn and believe a possibility of the union of man with God in glory, notwithstanding the vast distance of nature, and excellence; the infiniteness of both in God, the finiteness of both in man. And breathed into his nostrils.] The greatest man is but a little air and dust tempered together. What is man, saith one, but Nουςκαιχους, soul and soil, breath and body, a pile of dust the one, a puff of wind the other, no solidity in either? Man is nothing else but the son of the earth, the nephew of nothing, saith Augustine; or a piece of clay neatly made up, as Arian upon Epictetus hath it. And man became a living soul.] Dicaearchus doubted of the soul, whether there was such a thing in natural events. He could not have doubted of it without it; as man cannot prove logic to be unnecessary, but by logic. Zuinglius. Lomb., l. ii. dis. 1. Nazian. πηλοςκομφωςπεφυραμενος. Tusc. Quaest.

(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.

Verse 7. God formed man of the dust] In the most distinct manner God shows us that man is a compound being, having a body and soul distinctly, and separately created; the body out of the dust of the earth, the soul immediately breathed from God himself. Does not this strongly mark that the soul and body are not the same thing? The body derives its origin from the earth, or as עפר aphar implies, the dust; hence because it is earthly it is decomposable and perishable. Of the soul it is said, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; נשמת חיים nishmath chaiyim, the breath of LIVES, i.e., animal and intellectual. While this breath of God expanded the lungs and set them in play, his inspiration gave both spirit and understanding.

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. βdβm. Man was popularly thought to be so called because taken from the adβmah, “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. βdβm (= man) occurs with the def. article (hβ-βdβm), 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, Psalms 90:3; Psalms 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’shβmβh) of life (LXX πνοὴζωης: 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. Job 27:3, “The spirit (or breath) of God is in my nostrils.” We should compare the expression “breathed into” with the words in St John’s Gospel John 20:22.

7. Formed man — Here occurs for the first time the word ιφψ, to form. The production of man is here viewed not so much as a creation, but rather as a formation. Comp. note on Genesis 1:1.