But a mist went up from the earth, and moistened the whole surface of the ground.
Read Full Chapter →Commentary for this Verse
Before there was rain, and before there was a farmer, God was already watering the ground. This short note describes the world just before man was formed, and its detail — water rising instead of falling — has drawn both wonder and criticism.
Why this detail appears here and not in chapter 1
The opening chapter told us that God created. From verse 4 the subject changes to the conditions of man's life.
In Genesis 1, and in chapter 2 down to the end of verse 3, we have the great fact that God created... Then a new subject begins, not a new account of creation. That is simply not the case. Creation is mentioned only briefly here, and only in connection with there being no man. What follows sets out the condition, nature, and moral position of man: where God put him, under what conditions, the place of the animals, and the woman.
Growth without rain and without a gardener
The verse before ours rules out two things we credit for a green earth: weather and farming. Verse 6 names what did the work.
Verse 5 stresses that plant life came straight from the hand of God. Natural causes such as rain did not produce it, and neither did man's skill in farming. Verse 6 shows what kept it alive: a mist that rose from the earth itself, with no water coming down from above. There were waters "above the expanse" (Genesis 1:7), but they had not yet fallen on the earth as showers. We do not read of rain until Genesis 7:4.
The direction of the water
The mist moves upward, not downward. That direction matches man's position in the chapter: he is on earth, and God does not yet live there.
Here everything stood in its own order as God's creatures on the earth. But man's work was not what made them grow and bear fruit. Nor did rain from heaven supply that 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 place before God was a special one. Man did not live in heaven; God did not live on earth. But God had formed a place of special blessing and delight for man to live in, and there He visited him.
A detail no one would have invented
Creation is more than a display of power, and the way this ground gets watered is not what a human author would have invented.
Creation did not come into being merely as a display of God's power. It came as a sphere in which God's tender interest in man is wonderfully clear... Then, even after He had brought in plant life, there was no rainfall. Instead a mist went up from the earth to water the face of the ground (v. 6). This is another evidence that God is the author of the Bible, because it is something man would never have imagined. Though there were "waters above," God did not use them as rain. How the earth produced the mist, we do not know.
How long the mist lasted
Commentators differ on whether this arrangement continued after Eden. One reading connects it with the rainbow God gave Noah (older translations: "I do set My bow in the cloud").
The words "I have set My bow in the cloud" imply that no one had ever seen a rainbow before. That supports the thought mentioned on Genesis 2:5-6: until the flood no rain had fallen on the earth, and a mist watered it instead.
Others treat the same idea as possible but unproven, and decline to build on it.
Some have claimed that there was no rain until the flood, and that these waters came down then. It may be so. I see no proof of it.
The charge of contradiction
The objection assumes that ground once separated from the sea must have stayed soaked.
Some say Genesis 2:5-6 does not fit with Genesis 1:9-10. If divine power separated the earth from the waters, why should the earth stay soaked? Genesis 1 says God called "the dry land" earth; the later verses say that no rain had yet fallen, but a mist went up. What can be more consistent?
Summary
- Setting, not repeating. From verse 4 a new subject begins. It is not a second creation account, but a look at man's conditions and moral position.
- Supply before need. No rain fell and no one worked the soil, yet the ground stayed watered. Growth came straight from God's hand, not from weather or work.
- Upward, not downward. The mist rose from the earth instead of falling from heaven. That matched a world where man did not live in heaven and God did not live on earth.
- Credible because unexpected. A mist instead of rainfall is a detail no human writer would have invented; how the earth produced it, we are not told.
- Held loosely. Commentators differ on whether this watering lasted until the flood. Some link it to the rainbow God gave Noah; others say the idea may be true but is unproven.