Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> > > 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.

> Maybe it does:

> 1. The context implies that whatever is meant by שיח השדה and  עשב השדה, 
> they require work from the man and water to grow.

Siah is universally shrub, wild plants, not cultivated.

> 2. Why are שיח and עשב qualified here when they need not be?
Elsewhere they appear alone, so it seems likely that adding השדה
modifies the meaning in some way.

Parallelism, a common occurence, is one explanation.
My reading, however, is that siah is "talk": "there was no [farmers'] talk 
in the field, and no plants grew".


Vadim Cherny