4b-7.—The creation of man.—On the somewhat involved
construction of the section, see the footnote.—4b.
At the time when Yahwe Elohim made, etc.] The double
name (
Hebrew characters), which is all but peculiar to Gn. 2 f., is
probably to be explained as a result of redactional operations
(v.i.), rather than (with Reuss, Ayles, al.) as a feature of
the isolated source from which these two chapters were
taken.—earth and heaven] The unusual order (which is
reversed by [E]GS) appears again only in Ps. 14813.—5.
there was as yet no bush, etc.] Or (on Di.'s construction)
while as yet there was no, etc. The rare word (Hebrew characters) denotes
elsewhere (2115 [E], Jb. 304. 7) a desert shrub (so Syr.,
Arab.); but a wider sense is attested by Ass. and Phœn.
It is difficult to say whether here it means wild as opposed
4b-7. The sudden change of style and language shows that the
transition to the Yahwistic document takes place at the middle of v.4.
The construction presents the same syntactic ambiguity as 11-3 (see the
note there); except, of course, that there can be no question of taking 4b
as an independent sentence. We may also set aside the conjecture
(We. Prol.6 297 f.; KS. al.) that the clause is the conclusion of a lost
sentence of J, as inconsistent with the natural position of the time
determination in Heb. 4b must therefore be joined as prot. to what
follows; and the question is whether the apod. commences at 5 (Tu.
Str. Dri. al.), or (with 5f. as a parenthesis) at 7 (Di. Gu. al.). In
syntax either view is admissible; but the first yields the better sense.
The state of things described in 5f. evidently lasted some time; hence
it is not correct to say that Yahwe made man at the time when He made
heaven and earth: to connect 7 directly with 4b is "to identify a period
(v.6) with a point (v.7) of time" (Spurrell).—On the form of apod., see
again Dri. T. § 78.—4. (Hebrew characters) always emphasises contemporaneousness of
two events (cf. 217 35); the indefiniteness lies in the subst., which often
covers a space of time (= 'when': Ex. 628 3234, Jer. 114 etc.).—(Hebrew characters)]
in Hex. only Ex. 930; elsewhere 2 Sa. 722. 25, Jon. 46, Ps. 7218 849. 12,
1 Ch. 1716, 2 Ch. 641. G uses the expression frequently up to 912, but its
usage is not uniform even in chs. 2. 3. The double name has sometimes
been explained by the supposition that an editor added (Hebrew characters) to the
original (Hebrew characters) in order to smooth the transition from P to J, or as a hint
to the Synagogue reader to substitute (Hebrew characters) for (Hebrew characters); but that is scarcely
satisfactory. A more adequate solution is afforded by the theory
of Bu. and Gu., on which see p. 53. Barton and Che. (TBAI, 99 f.)
take it as a compound of the same type as Melek-Aštart, etc., an
utterly improbable suggestion.—5. (Hebrew characters) is probably the same as Ass.
šiḫtu, from [root] = 'grow high' (Del. Hdwb.), and hence might include
trees, as rendered by ST.—On (Hebrew characters), see on 111. The gen. (Hebrew characters), common
