Genesis 2:6

6 and a mist goeth up from the earth, and hath watered the whole face 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 These [are] births of the heavens and of the earth in their being prepared, in the day of Jehovah God's making earth and heavens;
5 and no shrub of the field is yet in the earth, and no herb of the field yet sprouteth, for Jehovah God hath not rained upon the earth, and a man there is not to serve the ground,
6 and a mist goeth up from the earth, and hath watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And Jehovah God formeth the man -- dust from the ground, and breatheth into his nostrils breath of life, and the man becometh a living creature.
8 And Jehovah God planteth a garden in Eden, at the east, and He setteth there the man whom He hath formed;
Young's Literal Translation is in the public domain.