GNV 2 God resteth the seventh day, and sanctifieth it.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and everything they contained; all creatures great and small[a].
2 And on the seventh day God finishedended his work which he had made; and he rested[a] on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed[a] the seventh day, and sanctified[b] it; becausefor on that day God rested from all Histhe work which GodHe had created and made[c].
4a These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.
4b In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5 before every plant of the field was in the earth, when not even the grass had yet sprung up (for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground);
6 at that time there came up a spring from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground,
7 and the LORD God formmed[a] man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life[b]; and man became a living soul[c].
8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 There the LORD God brought forth from the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was lost, and became the source of four different rivers:
11 The name of the first is Pishon, which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx[a] stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon, which flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel[b], which flows around to the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you will eat;”
17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you should not eat; for on the day[a] that you eat it, dying[b], you shall die[c].”
18 And the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a suitable helper.”
19 And the LORD God who had formed out of the ground every beast of the field, and every bird of the heavens, then brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a suitable helper.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in stead thereof:
22 And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam.
23 And Adam said, “Now[a] this one has the same[b] flesh and bones as I do; she shall be called Woman[c], because from[d] out of Man[e] she was taken.”
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
[2a] 'rest' also 'cease', even 'abstain' (Strongs, Stone, others). God's work was complete on the sixth day, and entering the Seventh day he ceased or abstained from all work. The meaning in ceased or abstained and also present in 'rested' is that the work was stopped, and will begin again later, but not during the seventh day. This also falls into the category of 'we shall know God from his actions'.
[3a] Ibn Ezra writes 'blessed' and 'sanctified' in that God blessed the seventh day with renewal and abundance; and he sanctified it in that no work was done on that day.
[3b] 'sanctified' vs. 'hallowed' because 'hallowed' has extraneous and shoehorned readings (such as the holiness of 'saints', or a reference to the apostles of jesus) that are considered antagonistic to the text.
[3c] made indicates that there was an ongoing process despite his rest, for he had created the world and the world was continuing to re-create itself (such as animals mating and giving birth). It does not say animals or even Man was necessarily aware of God's rest on the seventh day.
[4a] LORD God here; Hebrew usage is “Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hîm” which we will follow the KJV's use of 'God' for “’ĕ·lō·hîm” and 'LORD' for “Yah·weh” in all occurrences.
According to rashi this is the summary line of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3. Thus ends the first context of Genesis. You can see this in the language, as well as in the use of “Yah·weh” “’ĕ·lō·hîm” in this verse.
[7a] 'formmed' with two m's to indicate two yuds on the Hebrew word; see 2:7 “way·yî·y·ṣer” (וַיִּיצֶר֩) versus 2:19 “way·yî·ṣer” (וַיִּצֶר֩). Rashi indicates this refers to the spiritual nature of man.
[7b] This “niš·maṯ ḥay·yîm” is very similar to 'living creatures' (see 7b).
[7c] This “lə·ne·p̄eš ḥay·yāh” (living soul) here is the same word used for other living creatures in Genesis 1; it is not 5397 “neshamah” which would be assumed by the English used. What seems special here is that God did not speak Man into existence as he did with the fish, birds and animals; instead he took some of his existing creation and manually breathed life into it; in this manner we acquired a soul and are different from the animals; in this manner we were created in the image of God.
[8] God formed Adam outside of the garden so he could show him the world outside of the Garden of Eden, and witness the creation of the Garden of Eden. Thus Adam would know what the world outside the garden would be like if were he to disobey God's first commandment. See also the commentary for 2:15 which bears strongly on this.
[12a] Beryl.
[14b] Tigris.
[15] Again mentions put into the garden (see 2:8). After showing what the world outside the garden was like, and making the express point that the garden is self-watering, God put Adam into the garden 'to tend it and keep it'. Yet this immediately does not make sense since we have just been told the garden does not require such care. How then is Adam to fulfill his job to tend to the garden? Thus we see that to tend to the garden means to fufill God's positive commandments in that he shall eat of any tree as follows, and to guard it means to guard against the commission of the anti-commandment, thou shall not eat (as follows). This implies the purpose of Man in the garden is to serve God; for if he does so, his material needs will be satisfied – as Adam was in gan-eden – to think that only Adam's physical exertion would bring him sustenance is to discount God's role in the picture. In this way there was formed a relationship between God and Man.
[17a] this 'beyowm' is not unknown; see 2:4, 5:1, 5:2 and many other verses. It is the definite proposition 'when'. It is not an if-clause. I've left it 'on the day' because it also reads that and it doesn't affect the meaning. You would need to be taught this meaning in context anyway, so it's fine. I changed it to 'on the day' vs. 'in the day' to reflect there is more here.
[17b] 'dying' This dying refers to the death of one nature of man and the birth of another (see 17c). I.e. 'dying' to the nature of Good and the abstract notion of sin, without desire to do it, and thus eventually one will die (see 17c).
[17c] When the knowledge of good and evil enters the mind and one becomes subject to evil impulses, jealousy, hatred, honor, and so forth, it becomes impossible to achieve the goal of spirituality (as long as you are still on earth). In Adam's case (see 3:10) he became ashamed to remain in God's presence. Thus, in a sub-optimal spiritual state, eternal life would eventually become an unbearable burden (See commentary for 3:10). Thus, one becomes subject to death. However, we also note that nowhere does it say man was created immortal, and he certainly did not first eat from the tree of life, before eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam lived to 930, the implication being that he would have lived longer had he not sinned.
[18] lit. 'opposite' him or 'to oppose' him (see: strongs, Stone edition commentary, Rashi, etc). Connected but different. This indicates the purpose of the wife is not merely to follow her husband's orders like a slave, but to contribute equally and at times oppose him if he is acting rashly, for instance.
[19,20] There is nothing to indicate this is not entirely in parentheses – as an explanation for why God then made a helper. It could also be taken as a lesson to man; there is no mate for man among the animals. For man was created with free will; and had not yet been commanded to reproduce after his kind.
Nevertheless I have chosen to translate this using the pluperfect, reading it as 'God showed to Adam all of the creatures he had created' and not 'God created and then showed'. This is emphasized by the exact specification of the time of the event in Genesis 2:5, and the idea that this chapter does not reiterate the events of creation but expresses 'more to the story' i.e. the second account is the story of the creation of man. The story here is not about the order of Creation (for that, see Genesis 1), but to show the same story from the perspective of the creation of Man. This statement of elaboration vs. a different story of creation has support from Stone edition and other sources.
The idea of Man being taught some sort of lesson with the parade of animals also has support; God wanted to show Adam that no animal was suitable; “but no suitable helper was found” by Adam, who was examining the Animals. Thus Adam would desire from God for a suitable partner and would repsect her vs. taking her for granted as if she was created all along just for him (And the woman, also, indebted to the man, shall not take him for granted).
Rashi states, all creatures incl. male and female. Adam would notice these all had a mate, and none of them did not have a mate (or were wildly unsuitable anyways). Immediately a deep sleep fell upon him; and this story illustrates the special nature of the creation of Man and Woman, their uniqueness among all other creatures; for they are even special to each other beyond what is found in the animal kingdom.
[23a] “ap-pa-‘am,” (i.e. now or finally) is missing from most translations which indicates Adam's approval of this woman over all other creatures.
[23b] 'bone of my bones', 'flesh of my flesh' means that her bones and flesh were of the same stock as Adam's.
[23c,e] “’iš-šāh,” and “’îš” respectively. This play on words was made by Adam in gan-eden, therefore we know that Hebrew is the Holy language of creation.
[23d] “mê-’îš lu-qo-ḥāh-” i.e. from out of man was taken (her).
[1-3] This passage strikes me as odd because it really belongs at the end of Genesis 1. This is not my view alone;
The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has received criticism from some traditionalists and modern scholars. Critics state that the text is often divided in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context. Nevertheless, the chapter and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_and_verses_of_the_Bible “Christian Versions”
Thus no theological point may be derived from this split (coherent or not) other than to counter a possible ulterior motive; the first account of creation belongs together with itself, and not as part of the second account (with which it has become associated by proximity). Why? because should the 7th day be associated with the sixth, and God rested from all his work and accomplishments, it would imply ever so more strongly that it was God's intent that Adam and Eve would eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil! The fact is, that should these two stories be in harmony as we expect, the events which unfold from this point on in the text are in the same timeline as prior; and that at the end of the sixth day things were very good and on the seventh day God had finished the work of creation – which would include all of the events of Genesis 2:4-25 and including all of Genesis 3!
Especially note we still read “’ĕ·lō·hîm” in 2:2 and 2:3, versus in 2:4, which shows when this context comes to an end.
[4] No verse shows the point behind [1-3] mores than [4], which I have decided here to split across sections in order to illustrate the point.