Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/157

Rh to cultivated plants (Hupf. Gu.), or perennials as opposed to annuals (Ho.).—For the earth's barrenness two reasons are assigned: (1) the absence of rain, and (2) the lack of cultivation. In the East, however, the essence of husbandry is irrigation; hence the two conditions of fertility correspond broadly to the Arabian (and Talmudic) contrast between land watered by the Baal and that watered by human labour (Rob. Sm. RS$2$, 96 ff.).—to till the ground] This, therefore, is man's original destiny, though afterwards it is imposed on him as a curse,—an indication of the fusion of variant traditions. , both here and v.$6$, has probably the restricted sense of 'soil,' 'arable land' (cf. 4$14$).—6. but a flood (or mist, v.i.) used to come up (periodically)] "The idea of the author appears to be that the ground was rendered capable of cultivation by the overflow of some great river" (Ayles).

It is certainly difficult to imagine any other purpose to be served by the 'flood' than to induce fertility, for we can hardly attribute to the writer the trivial idea that it had simply the effect of moistening the soil for the formation of man, etc. (Ra. al., cf. Gu. Che. TBAI, 87). But this appears to neutralise $5bα$, since rain is no longer an indispensable condition of vegetation. Ho., accordingly, proposes to remove $6$ and to treat it as a variant of $10-14$. The meaning might be, however, that the flood, when supplemented by human labour, was sufficient to fertilise the ʾădāmāh, but had, of course, no effect on the steppes, which were dependent on rain. The difficulty is not removed if we render 'mist'; and the brevity of the narrative leaves other questions unanswered; such as, When was rain first sent on the earth? At what stage are we to place the creation of the cereals? etc.

to both, denotes open country, as opposed sometimes to cities or houses, sometimes to enclosed cultivated land (De. 96).—On with impf. see G-K. § 107 c; Dri. T. § 27 β. The rendering 'before' (G [one of the deviations mentioned in Mechilta—see on 1$1$] V) would imply, and is wrong.—6. ] G 🇬🇷 Aq. 🇬🇷, V fons, S, T$O$. Che. conj. ; others (after Vns.). The word has no etymol. in Heb., and the only other occurrence (Jb. 36$27$) is even more obscure than this. 'Cloud' (T) or 'mist' is a natural guess, and it is doubtful if it be anything better. The meaning 'flood' comes from Ass. edû, applied to the annual overflow of a river (Del. Hdwb.),—note the freq. impf. Gu. thinks it a technical semi-mythological term of the same order as Tĕhôm, with which Ra. seems to connect it; while IEz. interprets 'cloud,' but confounds the word with, 'calamity' (Zeph. 1$15$); so Aq., who renders the latter by 🇬🇷 in Pr. 1$26$, Jb. 30$12$ (see Ber. R. § 13).—On the tenses,