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About this book

Genesis

About this book

The Seventh Day

Chapter 2

1 The heavens and the earth were completed with everything that was in them.⁠ 2 By the seventh day God finished the work⁠ that he had been doing,⁠ and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.⁠ 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation.⁠

The Garden and the First Humans

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created—when the Lord God made the earth and heavens.⁠ 5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.⁠ 7 The Lord God formed the man⁠ from the soil of the ground⁠ and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,⁠ and the man became a living being.⁠ 8 The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden;⁠ and there he placed the man he had formed.⁠ 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food.⁠ (Now the tree of life⁠ and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil⁠ were in the middle of the orchard.)⁠ 10 Now a river flows from Eden⁠ to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams. 11 The name of the first is Pishon;⁠ it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is Gihon;⁠ it runs through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.⁠ 16 Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”⁠ 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.⁠ I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”⁠ 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air.⁠ He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field,⁠ but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found.⁠ 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man,⁠ and he brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;⁠ this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”⁠ 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife,⁠ and they become one family.⁠ 25 The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 2:7 and Job 4:9

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Genesis describes God forming man from the ground and breathing into him the breath of life. Job uses the same imagery of divine breath but inverts its meaning, presenting it as a force of destruction and the reversal of creation.

Passages

Genesis 2:7

Hebrew Bible
5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.)
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Job 4:9

Hebrew Bible
7 Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed? 8 Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same. 9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. 10 There is the roaring of the lion and the growling of the young lion, but the teeth of the young lions are broken. 11 The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

References

"... Job 4:9 belongs to known textual traditions that adopt the expression ‘breath of God’ as an instrument of destruction. Of course, here we have to reckon with the possibility that the authors of Job 4:9 could also have had the other texts of the Hebrew Bible that use this expression in view. On the other hand, the following few observations may indicate that the authors of Job 4:9 deliberately employed - although with entirely different meaning - the widely used motif of God’s breath as a life-giving entity ... Significantly, this creation background is in view even in the texts where these terms are used to report God’s destructive power (Psalm 18:16; Isaiah 40:7; Hosea 13:15). It is noteworthy that Job 33:4 clearly relates the breath of God to human life as it shows the authors were probably aware of the narrative of the creation of man as presented in Genesis 2:7. The difficulty with this argument is that the speeches of Elihu (Job 32–37) are a later addition to the dialogue section of the book of Job, and therefore they cannot be accepted as evidence to support the case for the connection between Job 4:9 and Genesis 2:7. Helpful in this regard is that Job 33.4 is not the only instance in the book in which the breath of God is depicted in this manner: another example, i.e., Job 27:3, explicitly recalls the creation imagery similar to that represented in Genesis 2:7. These references strongly suggest that the authors of the book of Job were aware of the notion of God’s breath as a life-giving instrument ..."
Yasir Saleem, “‘For a Man Is Born to Suffer’: Intertextuality between Job 4–5 and Gen. 2.4b–3.24,” JSOT 46.3 (2022): 388–407.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 2:7 and Job 4:9

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