These are the histories of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens,
Genesis opens a new section here, with a heading that shapes the whole book and a name for God not used before. It raises three questions: is this a second account of creation, why does "God" become "the LORD God," and what does "in the day" mean after six days?
The verse sums up chapter 1 and opens something new. It does not tell the creation story a second time.
This verse opens a new section of the book. The rest of Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 use the divine names in a very special way. This verse also sums up the main facts of Genesis 1. What went before gave creation completely. The new section does not speak of the creation of the heavens and earth. It is not a second account, and still less a different or contradictory one. It is the added revelation of man set in moral responsibility, tested by Jehovah Elohim.
The first chapter says nothing about Eden. This new section names it, because man's trial needed a place.
From Genesis 2:4 we see the subject from another point of view. This is not a repetition of the account of creation. It is something even more necessary to bring before us here: the place of relationship in which God set the creation He had formed — not only among themselves, but above all towards Himself. That is why Eden is first spoken of here. We would not have known anything of paradise from the first chapter. The reason is clear. Eden was to be the scene of the moral trial of man.
The word for "generations" is rare, and here it means origin, not family line.
The word translated "generations" occurs only sparingly in the Old Testament... and it seems to have the force of "births" or "origins." If this is so, "the generations of the heavens and the earth" would mean their origins. The generations of Adam, Noah and others would mean those who by birth found their origin in these fathers.
The same heading returns later in the book. This first one covers the time while man was still unfallen.
"The generations of the heavens and of the earth" (Gen. 2:4) include Adam unfallen. Next, man was tested with no restraint up to the flood, and "the book of the generations of Adam" [fallen] (Gen. 5:1) brings us up to the flood and Noah.
The verse ends by naming the earth before the heavens, the reverse of chapter 1's order. The change looks deliberate.
I doubt that the order in verse 4, eretz v'shamayim (earth and heavens), is changed without design. Here we have come down to the present ordering of the earth and the heavens around it — yet it still hangs on the original creation.
Chapter 1 counts six days. This verse gathers them into one "day." Scripture uses the word in more than one sense, and the context decides.
No one can honestly deny that Scripture, like other speech, uses "day" in a general or figurative sense where needed. That sense may cover a long stretch of time. But this need never trouble a careful reader: as always, the context gives the clue.
From here on the text says "the LORD God" — Jehovah Elohim. Jehovah is the name He uses in relationship with people.
Jehovah is His personal name, "The Name." He bears it in relationship with man on earth, and above all with His people. He is the Self-existent and Eternal One. This is always the proper name of the true God for those on earth. In time it became the name by which He made Himself known as the covenant God of Israel.
Once that name appears, the chapter unfolds as a series of ties.
"Jehovah" is His title of relationship. It is wonderful that He should stoop to enter into relationship with His lowly creature man. So all through Genesis 2, from verse 4, we read "the LORD God," that is, "Jehovah Elohim." Note the various relationships in that chapter: vv. 4-6, the heavens and the earth in relation to Him. He created them... vv. 7-15, man in relation to Him. The special inbreathing. vv. 16-20, man in relation to the lower orders. Their lord. vv. 21-25, man in relation to woman. Her head.
Some argue that the change of names proves two writers were stitched together. Kelly answers that one inspired writer could not have written it any other way.
Suppose there was only one writer of the book of Genesis, as I am persuaded there was. Then the book would not have borne the stamp of a divine communication if he had used the name Jehovah-Elohim in 1–2:3, or the name "Elohim" only in 2:4-25. The change of name springs from distinct truths. It does not come from different storytellers, or from a poor compiler who could not even blend them.
- Heading. "These are the generations" is a title, and it means origins. It is the first of the headings that divide Genesis.
- Hinge. Chapter 1 gave the making of things. From this verse on, Genesis gives the relationships.
- Name. Because relationship now begins, the Creator is called the LORD God — Jehovah Elohim, His name of relationship with man.
- Scope. Under this one heading fall Eden, man's tie to God, his rule over the animals, and the woman — the setting of man's trial.
- Answer. The changed name is design, not a seam between two documents. The difference of subject accounts for it.
and every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.
The verse pauses the story. It describes a world with plants but no rain and no farmer, and it points to God as the cause. Two questions follow. Why does Genesis go back over ground already covered in chapter 1? And why does it matter that the field grew without rain or human hands?
People often ask why Genesis seems to tell the creation story twice. One writer answers that the two passages have different aims. The first records how things came to be. The second shows how they stand toward God.
It is wrong to say that the second account brings the whole present world into being at once. The creation history runs from Genesis 1 to Genesis 2:3. From verse 4 to the end of Genesis 2 we have not so much a history of creation as a statement of the relations of creation, and especially of man, its centre and head. Genesis 2 assumes Genesis 1, but adds moral elements of the utmost importance and interest.
From this verse on, the text calls Him "the LORD God," not simply "God." Older translations render that name "Jehovah." The change of name goes with a change of subject.
Here we meet the solemn truth that God is Jehovah-God: He is not merely a Creator, but sets the creature, man, in relationship with Himself. So He is not only the Absolute One; the One who is absolute chooses to form relationships between the creature and Himself.
Two ordinary causes of growth are missing from the verse: rain and human work.
Verse 5 stresses that the plant world came straight from the hand of God. Natural causes such as rain did not produce it, and neither did man's skill at cultivating. Verse 6 shows that a mist rising from the earth itself kept it alive, with no water coming down from above. Some think that the watering of the earth by mist and not rain lasted until the time of the flood. It may have been so.
Those first plants also began life unlike any plant since.
This describes the plants and herbs produced on the third day, before man, the head of creation, appeared. Like man, they were full-grown, and not from seed as ever since. The account names them as the food the living creatures would need when God called them into existence on earth; and there they were, in suitable maturity, by God's ordering — in contrast with everything since.
No human writer would invent a world watered this way. One commentator takes that as a mark of where the book came from.
This is another evidence of God's authorship of the Bible, for it is something that man would never have imagined. Though there were "waters above," God did not use them as rainfall. How the earth produced the mist we do not know.
Some claim this contradicts chapter 1, where God gathered the waters and dry land appeared. One writer answers the objection simply:
If divine power separated the earth from the waters, why should the earth stay soaked? Genesis 1 says God called the dry land Earth. These verses say that though no rain had yet fallen, a mist went up. What could be more consistent?
Growth came neither from human work below nor from rain above. One writer draws out what that means for man's place.
All things were here in their own order as creatures of God, connected with the earth. But man's work was not what made them grow and bear fruit. Nor did rain from heaven supply fruitfulness from above. The mist that watered the ground rose from the earth, drawn up by power and blessing, but not coming down. Yet man's own place was a special one in relation to God.
If no one yet worked the ground, did work come later as a punishment? One answer separates work from toil.
Scripture does not say that there was no "work" before his fall. God placed man in the garden "to work it and keep it," which shows that it was not God's will for His creature to be idle. But there was no "toil" or "sorrow" in that occupation. Now thorns and thistles would appear, and man would eat bread by the sweat of his face.
- Relations — From verse 4 on, Genesis stops retelling how the world came to be. It sets out how creation, with man at its centre, stands in relation to God.
- Name — Here God is "the LORD God." He is not only the Creator. He sets the creature in relationship with Himself.
- Source — The field grew before rain fell and before anyone farmed it. The plants came straight from God's hand, full-grown, not from seed.
- Supply — A mist rose from below to water the ground. Nothing fell from above. No human author would have invented that.
- Result — Man was never meant to be idle. Work belonged to Eden. Sin turned that work into sweat, thorns and sorrow.