Genesis 2:19

2:19 The Lord God formed ¹  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 ²  name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 3:17

3:17 But to Adam ³  he said,

“Because you obeyed ⁴  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ⁵  thanks to you; ⁶ 

in painful toil you will eat ⁷  of it all the days of your life.

Genesis 2:21

2:21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, ⁸  and while he was asleep, ⁹  he took part of the man’s side ¹⁰  and closed up the place with flesh. ¹¹ 

Genesis 2:23

2:23 Then the man said,

“This one at last ¹²  is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

this one will be called ¹³  ‘woman,’

for she was taken out of ¹⁴  man.” ¹⁵ 

Genesis 3:23

3:23 So the Lord God expelled him ¹⁶  from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

Genesis 5:2

5:2 He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind.” ¹⁷ 

[2:19]  ¹ tn Or “fashioned.” To harmonize the order of events with the chronology of chapter one, some translate the prefixed verb form with vav (ו) consecutive as a past perfect (“had formed,” cf. NIV) here. (In chapter one the creation of the animals preceded the creation of man; here the animals are created after the man.) However, it is unlikely that the Hebrew construction can be translated in this way in the middle of this pericope, for the criteria for unmarked temporal overlay are not present here. See S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 84-88, and especially R. Buth, “Methodological Collision between Source Criticism and Discourse Analysis,” Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, 138-54. For a contrary viewpoint see IBHS 552-53 §33.2.3 and C. J. Collins, “The Wayyiqtol as ‘Pluperfect’: When and Why,” TynBul 46 (1995): 117-40.

[2:19]  ² tn The imperfect verb form is future from the perspective of the past time narrative.

[3:17]  ³ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

[3:17]  ⁴ tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

[3:17]  ⁵ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

[3:17]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

[3:17]  ⁷ sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

[2:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man.”

[2:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he slept.” In the sequence the verb may be subordinated to the following verb to indicate a temporal clause (“while…”).

[2:21]  ⁷ tn Traditionally translated “rib,” the Hebrew word actually means “side.” The Hebrew text reads, “and he took one from his sides,” which could be rendered “part of his sides.” That idea may fit better the explanation by the man that the woman is his flesh and bone.

[2:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “closed up the flesh under it.”

[2:23]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term הַפַּעַם (happa’am) means “the [this] time, this place,” or “now, finally, at last.” The expression conveys the futility of the man while naming the animals and finding no one who corresponded to him.

[2:23]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text is very precise, stating: “of this one it will be said, ‘woman’.” The text is not necessarily saying that the man named his wife – that comes after the fall (Gen 3:20).

[2:23]  ⁹ tn Or “from” (but see v. 22).

[2:23]  ¹⁰ sn This poetic section expresses the correspondence between the man and the woman. She is bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh. Note the wordplay (paronomasia) between “woman” (אִשָּׁה, ’ishah) and “man” (אִישׁ, ’ish). On the surface it appears that the word for woman is the feminine form of the word for man. But the two words are not etymologically related. The sound and the sense give that impression, however, and make for a more effective wordplay.

[3:23]  ⁹ tn The verb is the Piel preterite of שָׁלַח (shalakh), forming a wordplay with the use of the same verb (in the Qal stem) in v. 22: To prevent the man’s “sending out” his hand, the Lord “sends him out.”

[5:2]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew word used here is אָדָם (’adam).