Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/156

 4b-7.—The creation of man.—On the somewhat involved construction of the section, see the footnote.—4b. At the time when Yahwe Elohim made, etc.] The double name, which is all but peculiar to Gn. 2 f., is probably to be explained as a result of redactional operations (v.i.), rather than (with Reuss, Ayles, al.) as a feature of the isolated source from which these two chapters were taken.—earth and heaven] The unusual order (which is reversed by [E]GS) appears again only in Ps. 148$13$.—5. there was as yet no bush, etc.] Or (on Di.'s construction) while as yet there was no, etc. The rare word denotes elsewhere (21$15$ [E], Jb. 30$4. 7$) a desert shrub (so Syr., Arab.); but a wider sense is attested by Ass. and Phœn. It is difficult to say whether here it means wild as opposed

4b-7. The sudden change of style and language shows that the transition to the Yahwistic document takes place at the middle of v.$4$. The construction presents the same syntactic ambiguity as 1$1-3$ (see the note there); except, of course, that there can be no question of taking $4b$ as an independent sentence. We may also set aside the conjecture (We. Prol.$6$ 297 f.; KS. al.) that the clause is the conclusion of a lost sentence of J, as inconsistent with the natural position of the time determination in Heb. $4b$ must therefore be joined as prot. to what follows; and the question is whether the apod. commences at $5$ (Tu. Str. Dri. al.), or (with $5f.$ as a parenthesis) at $7$ (Di. Gu. al.). In syntax either view is admissible; but the first yields the better sense. The state of things described in $5f.$ evidently lasted some time; hence it is not correct to say that Yahwe made man at the time when He made heaven and earth: to connect $7$ directly with $4b$ is "to identify a period (v.$6$) with a point (v.$7$) of time" (Spurrell).—On the form of apod., see again Dri. T. § 78.—4. always emphasises contemporaneousness of two events (cf. 2$17$ 3$5$); the indefiniteness lies in the subst., which often covers a space of time (= 'when': Ex. 6$28$ 32$34$, Jer. 11$4$ etc.).—] in Hex. only Ex. 9$30$; elsewhere 2 Sa. 7$22. 25$, Jon. 4$6$, Ps. 72$18$ 84$9. 12$, 1 Ch. 17$16$, 2 Ch. 6$41$. G uses the expression frequently up to 9$12$, but its usage is not uniform even in chs. 2. 3. The double name has sometimes been explained by the supposition that an editor added to the original in order to smooth the transition from P to J, or as a hint to the Synagogue reader to substitute for ; but that is scarcely satisfactory. A more adequate solution is afforded by the theory of Bu. and Gu., on which see p. 53. Barton and Che. (TBAI, 99 f.) take it as a compound of the same type as Melek-Aštart, etc., an utterly improbable suggestion.—5. is probably the same as Ass. šiḫtu, from [root] = 'grow high' (Del. Hdwb.), and hence might include trees, as rendered by ST.—On, see on 1$11$. The gen., common