Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:25:53 +0300 "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
writes:
> >> 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 ??? would be understood to mean "to
> irrigate" when the hif of ??? is used here and elsewhere with 
> this
> meaning (e.g. Deut 11:10; Joel 4:18 [3:18]; Qoh 2:6) while ??? 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
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You seem to read selectively.  It not only states that there was no man
to till the ground but that YHWH had not caused it to rain on the earth. 
It would thus seem to exclude either source of moisture which would be
necessary for the growth of herbage:  

1. Rain
2. Irrigation

Our author has therefore covered all the bases.  W. Robertson Smith in
his _Religion_of_the_Semites_ notes that the Arabs distinguish two types
of growth: 

1.  That which God waters
2.  That which man irrigates

george
gfsomsel
___________