Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> > Reading Genesis 2:5, "for there was no man to till the ground" is 
> > meaningless.

> Why is it meaningless?

Because, as I wrote, the text goes, "There was no shrub because there was no 
man to till the ground." Now, the writers didn't live in Manhattan, and knew 
that shrubs grow without human assistance.

> Gen 2:5 seems to describe the reasons why there were no cultivated

Cultivated? This is your imagination at work. The text says nothing of the 
sort.

> It also seems unlikely that עבד would be understood to mean "to
irrigate" when the hif of שקה is used here and elsewhere with this
meaning (e.g. Deut 11:10; Joel 4:18 [3:18]; Qoh 2:6) while עבד is
used as "to till" elsewhere with no real indication that it means "to
irrigate."

That I tend to agree with. The land became arid, and people left it; no man 
to work the land, and no shrubs grow in sun-dry land.

Vadim Cherny