Genesis 2:7

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; 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 Marduk 1 [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. 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. There the symbolical act of our Lord derives significance from this verse. Christ who is "the New Man," Himself imparts the life-giving Spirit; "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit."