Genesis 2:6

6 but water would come up from beneath the surface and water 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Genesis 2:6 In-Context

4 And that is how the universe was created. When the Lord God made the universe,

5 there were no plants on the earth and no seeds had sprouted, because he had not sent any rain, and there was no one to cultivate the land;

6 but water would come up from beneath the surface and water the ground.

7 Then the Lord God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live.

8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he put the man he had formed.