to cultivated plants (Hupf. Gu.), or perennials as opposed
to annuals (Ho.).—For the earth's barrenness two reasons
are assigned: (1) the absence of rain, and (2) the lack of
cultivation. In the East, however, the essence of husbandry
is irrigation; hence the two conditions of fertility correspond
broadly to the Arabian (and Talmudic) contrast
between land watered by the Baal and that watered by
human labour (Rob. Sm. RS2, 96 ff.).—to till the ground]
This, therefore, is man's original destiny, though afterwards
it is imposed on him as a curse,—an indication of the
fusion of variant traditions. (
Hebrew characters), both here and v.6, has
probably the restricted sense of 'soil,' 'arable land' (cf. 414).—6.
but a flood (or mist, v.i.) used to come up (periodically)]
"The idea of the author appears to be that the ground
was rendered capable of cultivation by the overflow of some
great river" (Ayles).
It is certainly difficult to imagine any other purpose to be served by
the 'flood' than to induce fertility, for we can hardly attribute to the
writer the trivial idea that it had simply the effect of moistening the soil
for the formation of man, etc. (Ra. al., cf. Gu. Che. TBAI, 87). But this
appears to neutralise 5bæ?], since rain is no longer an indispensable condition
of vegetation. Ho., accordingly, proposes to remove 6 and to treat
it as a variant of 10-14. The meaning might be, however, that the flood,
when supplemented by human labour, was sufficient to fertilise the
'ădāmāh, but had, of course, no effect on the steppes, which were dependent
on rain. The difficulty is not removed if we render 'mist'; and
the brevity of the narrative leaves other questions unanswered; such as,
When was rain first sent on the earth? At what stage are we to place
the creation of the cereals? etc.
to both, denotes open country, as opposed sometimes to cities or houses,
sometimes to enclosed cultivated land (De. 96).—On (Hebrew characters) with impf. see
G-K. § 107 c; Dri. T. § 27 [Greek: b]. The rendering 'before' (G [one of the
deviations mentioned in Mechilta—see on 11] V) would imply (Hebrew characters), and
is wrong.—6. (Hebrew characters)] G (Greek characters) Aq. (Greek characters), V fons, S (Syriac characters), TO (Hebrew characters).
Che. conj. (Hebrew characters); others (Hebrew characters) (after Vns.). The word has no etymol. in
Heb., and the only other occurrence (Jb. 3627) is even more obscure than
this. 'Cloud' (T) or 'mist' is a natural guess, and it is doubtful if it
be anything better. The meaning 'flood' comes from Ass. edû, applied
to the annual overflow of a river (Del. Hdwb.),—note the freq. impf. Gu.
thinks it a technical semi-mythological term of the same order as Tĕhôm,
with which Ra. seems to connect it; while IEz. interprets 'cloud,' but
confounds the word with (Hebrew characters), 'calamity' (Zeph. 115); so Aq., who renders
the latter by (Greek characters) in Pr. 126, Jb. 3012 (see Ber. R. § 13).—On the tenses,
