Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> Well, I see two (well, in fact about 6 continuing into verse 9) successive 
> clauses with WAYYIQTOL verbs, which is what I mean by a chain of 
> WAYYIQTOLs. There is no evidence for a break in the chain in the middle of 
> verse 7.

Only if we assume the correct orthography. But suppose the pause after 
ha-adam (comma) is the break?

> Anyway, the object which was breathed in this middle clause is not dust, 
> but the breath of life.

Only in VSO pattern. Imagine, however, "dust of the earth blew in his face, 
[the face of] the living being. And the man existed for a living soul." That 
is, he existed to irrigate.
I mean, Peter, I don't defend that translation 100%. But I don't believe 
that narrators of the Torah were so stupid as to insert two contradictory 
accounts of creation in two adjacent chapters. So I am inclinded to read 
Gen2:7 not as creation, but as sending the man forward to a task, and that 
task seems to be irrigation. With that exegetical need in mind, I try to 
read Gen2:5-7.
Making a man ou of dust, breathing life into his nostrils, and putting two 
contradiction creations nearby seems to make no less tortured reading.

Vadim Cherny