Genesis 2:6

6 but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground.

Genesis 2:6 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 2:6

But there went up a mist from the earth
After the waters had been drained off from it, and it was warmed by the body of light and heat created on the first day, which caused a vapour, which went up as a mist, and descended:

and watered the whole face of the ground;
or earth, and so supplied the place of rain, until that was given: though rather the words may be rendered disjunctively, "or there went up" ^F7; that is, before a mist went up, when as yet there was none; not so much as a mist to water the earth, and plants and herbs were made to grow; and so Saadiah reads them negatively, "nor did a mist go up"; there were no vapours exhaled to form clouds, and produce rain, and yet the whole earth on the third day was covered with plants and herbs; and this is approved of by Kimchi and Ben Melech.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F7 (hley daw) "aut vapor ascendens", Junius & Tremellius.

Genesis 2:6 In-Context

4 This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made earth and the heavens.

5 No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground,

6 but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground.

7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8 Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.