Genesis 2

New Catholic Bible

Footnotes

1. Genesis 2:2 The model of a week that the Priestly account uses in describing the divine creation is meant to teach that the pattern of days of work followed by rest on the seventh day originates in the will of God himself.
2. Genesis 2:4 The preceding section (Gen 1:1—2:4a) is to be interpreted as a rethinking of certain aspects of creation and an integration, into a systematic and much broader vision, of what had already been set down in the following story, which is older. This Yahwist account of origins is a single piece that is subdivided into chapters 2, 3, and 4. In its literary form it follows the structure of Sumerian-Babylonian hymns that sing of the origins of civilization, but in its content it is truly religious and completely independent of those mythologies. It expresses, in popular language, a theology of the greatest richness and depth.
   God is here called by his proper name, Yahweh, the name under which he reveals himself to his people, Israel; he alone, and no one else, is the maker of the entire world.
   Man has need of a collaborator, and God provides this. Woman will be by her nature far superior to the animals, which however will provide help to her and the man. The man exercises dominion over them, while man and woman are made for each other and will achieve their purpose each through the other. This law that God has written into the nature of human beings is the basis for the unity of the couple in marriage, which establishes a single human entity that is no longer divisible into parts. Jesus will reaffirm this exigency (Mt 19:3-8) and St. Paul will remind Christian spouses that their union contributes to actuating in time an unsuspected spiritual reality, namely, the fruitful union of Christ and the Church, in which children of God are born (Eph 5:31-32).
   The story of creation is meant to say what kind of beings men and women are and what their origin is, but it does not go into detail on the way in which they were created; it does not specify whether God formed man and woman by direct action or through the cooperation of natural forces that took very long periods to accomplish their work. At the same time, the story emphasizes the fact that the material being is animated by a higher vital principle that is not a product of nature but is infused by God himself. Finally, in describing the unity of the couple formed by the Creator the story proclaims that the human species is one.
3. Genesis 2:7 Man, in Hebrew adam, is the common name of the human species; only beginning in Gen 4:25 and 5:1 will it be regarded as the proper name of the first male. Here and in 3:19, 23, the author connects it with Hebrew adama, “earth.” This is not a scientific etymology but a popular one, based on assonance. In fact, it seems that adam derives from Sumerian ada-mu, “my father.” His companion, too, is initially called “woman” and receives the proper name “Eve” only from Gen 3:20 on. It seems that this name, haua in Hebrew, derives from Sumerian ama, “mother.”
4. Genesis 2:8 Eden is derived from Sumerian edin, which means a level, steppe-like, desert region. The garden occupies an eastern section of it; this word, too, gan in Hebrew, is properly Sumerian and means a watered and cultivated piece of land. It was translated into Greek as paradeisos, “garden,” giving rise to the name “earthly paradise.”
5. Genesis 2:9 The tree of life symbolizes the possibility of becoming immortal that was granted as an unmerited gift to human beings, although these were by nature subject to death (Gen 3:22). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the attribute proper to the Creator, by reason of which God is the foundation of the moral order. The first couple attempt to usurp this attribute (Gen 3:5, 22), desiring to decide for themselves what is good and evil for them.
6. Genesis 2:11 The Pishon and the Gihon are completely unknown; if Gen 10:20 is taken into account, Havilah would be in Arabia.
7. Genesis 2:18 This is the only full account of the creation of woman in ancient Near Eastern literature.
8. Genesis 2:18 Not good . . . to be alone: without female companionship and a partner in reproduction, the man could not fully realize his humanity.
9. Genesis 2:19 Name them: this was the man’s first act of dominion over the creatures around him.
10. Genesis 2:23 Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: a common Semitic way of expressing consanguinity (Gen 29:14) or membership in the same tribe or even simply in the same people (2 Sam 5:1; 19:13-14) or the same city (Jdg 9:2). Here it means that the woman has the same nature as the man; she alone can make possible the love that characterizes the matrimonial bond. The words she shall be called woman, etc., can be understood only in light of the assonance in the original text: Hebrew, isha, “woman,” seems to be the feminine form of ish, “man” in the sense of “male” (adam refers to man as including both man and woman, i.e., possessing the nature common to all human beings).
11. Genesis 2:24 Leaves his father and his mother: instead of remaining under the protective custody of his parents, a man leaves them and, with his wife, establishes a new family unit. Joins . . . one flesh: the divine intention for husband and wife was monogamy. Together they were to form an inseparable union, of which “one flesh” is both a sign and an expression.