Genesis 2:6

6 But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth.

Genesis 2:6 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 2:6

But there went up a mist from the earth
After the waters had been drained off from it, and it was warmed by the body of light and heat created on the first day, which caused a vapour, which went up as a mist, and descended:

and watered the whole face of the ground;
or earth, and so supplied the place of rain, until that was given: though rather the words may be rendered disjunctively, "or there went up" F7; that is, before a mist went up, when as yet there was none; not so much as a mist to water the earth, and plants and herbs were made to grow; and so Saadiah reads them negatively, "nor did a mist go up"; there were no vapours exhaled to form clouds, and produce rain, and yet the whole earth on the third day was covered with plants and herbs; and this is approved of by Kimchi and Ben Melech.


FOOTNOTES:

F7 (hley daw) "aut vapor ascendens", Junius & Tremellius.

Genesis 2:6 In-Context

4 This the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made, in the day in which the Lord God made the heaven and the earth,
5 and every herb of the field before it was on the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, for God had not rained on the earth, and there was not a man to cultivate it.
6 But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth.
7 And God formed the man dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.
8 And God planted a garden eastward in Edem, and placed there the man whom he had formed.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.