Genesis 2

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Completed' translates vayyekhullu (וַיְכֻלּוּ), from the root k-l-h ('to finish, to complete, to bring to an end'). This same root appears in the next verse. The creation account reaches its conclusion: everything is finished.
2. 'Host' translates tseva'am (צְבָאָם), meaning 'their army, their host, their array.' The word tsava can refer to a military force, a heavenly army (stars, angels), or an organized multitude. Here it encompasses everything that populates the heavens and the earth — celestial bodies, living creatures, and all that fills creation. The phrase 'LORD of hosts' (YHWH tseva'ot), a major divine title, draws on this same word.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The Hebrew states that God finished his work 'on the seventh day' (bayyom hashevi'i), which could imply that some completing work occurred on day 7. The Septuagint (Greek translation) changed this to 'on the sixth day,' apparently to avoid that implication. The Masoretic Hebrew text is rendered here as it stands. The completion may be understood as the act of ceasing itself: resting is the final act that completes the work.
2. 'Rested' translates vayyishbot (וַיִּשְׁבֹּת), from the root sh-b-t (שָׁבַת), meaning 'to cease, to stop, to rest.' This is the verbal root behind the noun Shabbat (שַׁבָּת, 'Sabbath'). The word primarily means 'to cease from activity' rather than 'to recuperate from exhaustion' — God does not rest from weariness but from completion.
3. 'Work' translates melakhah (מְלָאכָה), which denotes purposeful, skilled work — craftsmanship, labor, occupation. It is later used as the technical term for the work prohibited on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10). The same word describes the skilled work of constructing the tabernacle (Exodus 31:3–5), creating a parallel between God's creation of the world and Israel's construction of the sanctuary.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Made it holy' translates vayyeqaddesh (וַיְקַדֵּשׁ), from the root q-d-sh (קָדַשׁ), meaning 'to set apart, to consecrate, to make sacred.' This is the first occurrence of the concept of holiness in the Bible. Notably, the first thing declared holy is not a place or a person but a unit of time — the seventh day. The KJV's 'sanctified' is accurate but 'made it holy' is clearer in modern English.
2. God's blessing of the seventh day echoes his blessings of the living creatures (1:22) and humanity (1:28). The day itself receives the same kind of divine empowerment and favor bestowed upon living things.
3. The phrase 'created and made' (bara... la'asot) uses both key creation verbs — bara ('to create,' uniquely divine) and asah ('to make,' general production). The Hebrew literally reads 'which God created to make' or 'which God had created by making.' This may be a hendiadys (two words expressing one idea) meaning 'created and made,' or it may suggest that God created with the purpose of making — that is, creation was purposeful work. The rendering follows the hendiadys reading.
4. The seventh day is unique in the creation account: it has no evening-morning formula closing it. All six previous days end with 'there was evening and there was morning — the Nth day.' The absence of this closure for day 7 has been noted by commentators throughout history; some see it as suggesting the seventh day remains perpetually open.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Generations' translates toledot (תוֹלְדוֹת), one of the most important structural terms in Genesis. It means 'generations,' 'account,' 'history,' or 'origins.' The toledot formula ('These are the generations of...') appears ten times in Genesis (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 37:2), serving as a structuring device for the entire book. Whether the formula introduces what follows or summarizes what precedes is debated; here it appears to do both — summarizing the creation account while transitioning to the Eden narrative.
2. This verse marks the first appearance of the divine name YHWH (יהוה) in the Bible. From this point through the end of chapter 3, God is consistently referred to as 'the LORD God' (YHWH Elohim, יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים), combining the personal covenant name with the general title for God. This combined form is rare outside Genesis 2–3. Following established convention, YHWH is rendered as LORD (in small capitals) to distinguish it from Adonai ('Lord').
3. 'On the day' (beyom, בְּיוֹם) does not mean a literal 24-hour day here but 'at the time when' or 'when.' This is a common temporal use of yom in Hebrew.
4. The word order reverses between the two halves of the verse: 'heavens and earth' (hashamayim veha'arets) in the first half becomes 'earth and heavens' (erets veshamayim) in the second. The second pair also lacks the definite articles present in the first. This chiastic structure (A-B / B'-A') is a common Hebrew literary device and may signal the transition from the cosmic perspective of chapter 1 (heavens first) to the earthly perspective of chapter 2 (earth first).

Translator Notes

1. This verse describes a pre-agricultural landscape — a world before cultivated plants and before rain. Two reasons are given for the absence of vegetation: (1) God had not yet sent rain, and (2) there was no human to work the soil. This establishes the interdependence of divine provision (rain) and human labor (agriculture) as necessary for the flourishing of the land.
2. 'Shrub of the field' (siach hassadeh, שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה) and 'plant of the field' (esev hassadeh, עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה) are distinct from the vegetation of 1:11–12. The word sadeh ('field') suggests cultivated or open land rather than the whole earth. These may refer specifically to wild shrubs and cultivated crops — the flora that depends on rain and human cultivation.
3. 'Work' translates la'avod (לַעֲבֹד), from avad (עָבַד), meaning 'to work, to serve, to till.' This verb will reappear in verse 15 for the man's role in the garden. The human vocation of working the ground (adamah) is presented as integral to creation's design, not as a consequence of the fall.
4. The verse structure is complex, functioning as a temporal clause dependent on what follows (vv. 6–7): 'When no shrub... had yet appeared... and there was no man... then a mist went up... and the LORD God formed the man.' The rendering restructures for English clarity while preserving the sense.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Mist' translates ed (אֵד), a rare and difficult Hebrew word occurring only here and in Job 36:27. Its meaning is uncertain. Possible renderings include: (1) 'mist' or 'fog' (traditional); (2) 'stream' or 'spring' (based on a possible Akkadian cognate edû, meaning 'underground water source' or 'flood'); (3) 'flow' or 'surge' of underground water. The rendering retains the traditional 'mist' while acknowledging the uncertainty.
2. The verb forms ya'aleh (יַעֲלֶה, imperfect) and vehishqah (וְהִשְׁקָה, perfect with waw consecutive) indicate habitual or ongoing action — 'would rise... and would water.' This describes a recurring process, not a single event. The rendering captures this with 'would rise... and water.'

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Formed' translates vayyitser (וַיִּיצֶר), from yatsar (יָצַר), the verb used for a potter shaping clay (cf. Isaiah 29:16; 45:9; Jeremiah 18:4–6). The image is of God as a craftsman, hands-on, shaping the man from raw material. This is distinct from bara ('created,' 1:1) and asah ('made,' 1:7) — yatsar conveys intimate, artisanal forming.
2. The wordplay between adam (אָדָם, 'man/humanity') and adamah (אֲדָמָה, 'ground/soil') is one of the most significant puns in the Hebrew Bible. The man (adam) is formed from the ground (adamah) — his very name embeds his origin. This wordplay cannot be fully reproduced in English. An approximate equivalent would be 'earthling from earth' or 'human from humus' (both share a Latin root), but these are too informal for the text's register.
3. 'Dust' (aphar, עָפָר) emphasizes the humble, fragile nature of the man's physical constitution. The same word recurs in the curse of 3:19 ('to dust you shall return'), framing human existence between dust and dust.
4. 'Breath of life' translates nishmat chayyim (נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים). The word neshamah (נְשָׁמָה) is distinct from ruach ('spirit/wind/breath' in 1:2). Neshamah refers specifically to the breath that animates — the life-breath that makes a creature alive. God's direct, intimate breathing into the man is unique in the creation account; no animal receives life this way.
5. 'Living being' translates nephesh chayyah (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה), the same phrase used for the animals in 1:20–21, 24. The man shares this designation with the animals — he too is an animate, breathing creature. What distinguishes him is not a different category of being but the manner of his creation (formed by God's hands, animated by God's breath) and his commission (the image of God, 1:26–27). The KJV's 'living soul' reflects the later Greek philosophical reading of 'soul' (psychē); the Hebrew nephesh does not imply an immaterial substance separable from the body.

Translator Notes

1. 'Planted' (vayyitta, וַיִּטַּע) — God is depicted as a gardener, planting a garden. This continues the portrayal of God as personally, physically involved in creation (a potter in v. 7, a gardener here). The anthropomorphic language is striking and deliberate.
2. 'Eden' (עֵדֶן) is both a place name and a word meaning 'delight,' 'pleasure,' or 'luxury.' The Septuagint translated it as paradeisos ('paradise'), which is the origin of the English word 'paradise.' The Hebrew text treats Eden as a geographical region within which the garden is planted — the garden is 'in Eden,' not identical with it.
3. 'In the east' translates miqqedem (מִקֶּדֶם), which can mean 'in the east,' 'from the east,' or 'in ancient times / from of old.' The primary meaning of qedem is 'east' (the direction one faces), but it also carries the temporal sense of 'before, formerly, long ago.' The spatial reading ('in the east') is followed here, but the temporal ambiguity is noted.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Pleasing to look at' translates nechmad lemar'eh (נֶחְמָד לְמַרְאֶה). The word nechmad ('desirable, delightful, coveted') from the root ch-m-d will recur in 3:6 when the woman sees that the tree of knowledge is 'desirable' (nechmad) — creating a deliberate verbal echo between God's provision (all the good trees) and the forbidden tree's allure.
2. Two named trees stand out from among all the trees of the garden: (1) the tree of life (ets hachayyim, עֵץ הַחַיִּים), and (2) the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (ets hadda'at tov vara, עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע). The grammatical relationship between these two trees and their placement is somewhat ambiguous — the text says the tree of life is 'in the middle of the garden' but does not explicitly state the location of the tree of knowledge (though 3:3 places the prohibited tree 'in the middle of the garden').
3. 'Knowledge of good and evil' (da'at tov vara) — what this knowledge entails is widely debated: (1) moral discernment (knowing right from wrong); (2) experiential knowledge (experiencing good and evil firsthand); (3) comprehensive knowledge (merism — 'good and evil' meaning 'everything'); (4) adult wisdom or sexual awareness. The ambiguity is preserved in the rendering. The text does not explain what the knowledge is; it only narrates its prohibition and consequences.

Translator Notes

1. 'Branches' translates rashim (רָאשִׁים), literally 'heads.' In a river context, rosh ('head') can mean 'headwater,' 'source,' or 'branch.' The image is of a single river emerging from Eden, watering the garden, and then splitting into four major waterways. Whether these are understood as four headwaters (tributaries flowing into Eden) or four branches (distributaries flowing out from Eden) is debated. The flow described — a river comes out of Eden, then divides — supports 'branches' (distributaries).
2. The geographical description in verses 10–14 anchors the garden in what appears to be real-world geography (Tigris, Euphrates) while including rivers (Pishon, Gihon) that cannot be identified with certainty. This blend of known and unknown geography has led to extensive debate about whether the passage is meant as literal cartography or as theological geography.

Translator Notes

1. 'Pishon' (פִּישׁוֹן) — this river has not been conclusively identified. Proposed identifications range from a dried-up Arabian river to a canal in Mesopotamia. The name may be related to the root p-w-sh ('to leap, to spring forth').
2. 'Winds through' translates hassovev (הַסֹּבֵב), from the root s-b-b ('to surround, to go around, to encircle'). The KJV's 'compasseth' is archaic for the same meaning.
3. 'Havilah' (חֲוִילָה) — a region associated with precious materials. It appears elsewhere in Genesis 10:7, 29; 25:18; 1 Samuel 15:7. Its exact location is uncertain; candidates include Arabia, East Africa, or India.

Translator Notes

1. 'Bdellium' translates bedolach (בְּדֹלַח), a word of uncertain meaning. It may refer to: (1) a fragrant resin or gum (bdellium); (2) a precious stone; (3) pearls. In Numbers 11:7, manna is compared to bedolach in appearance. The traditional rendering 'bdellium' is retained because no single modern equivalent captures the uncertain range.
2. 'Onyx' translates shoham (שֹׁהַם), a precious stone whose exact identification is uncertain. Candidates include onyx, carnelian, lapis lazuli, or beryl. Shoham stones are later used on the high priest's ephod (Exodus 25:7; 28:9, 20). 'Onyx' follows the traditional identification.
3. The detailed description of precious materials (gold, bdellium, onyx) in the land watered by Eden's river evokes abundance and divine generosity. These same materials later appear in the construction of the tabernacle, reinforcing the connection between Eden and sacred space.

Translator Notes

1. 'Gihon' (גִּיחוֹן) — the name may be related to the root g-y-ch ('to burst forth, to gush'). A spring named Gihon exists in Jerusalem (1 Kings 1:33, 38), but whether it is connected to this river is uncertain. Like the Pishon, this river has not been conclusively identified.
2. 'Cush' (כּוּשׁ) is rendered directly from the Hebrew rather than using the KJV's 'Ethiopia.' While Cush is often associated with the region south of Egypt (modern Sudan/Ethiopia/Eritrea), it can also refer to a Mesopotamian region (the Kassites were sometimes called Kushites). The identification depends on the overall geographical scheme, which remains disputed.

Translator Notes

1. 'Tigris' renders the Hebrew Chiddeqel (חִדֶּקֶל), the Hebrew name for the Tigris River. The more widely recognized name 'Tigris' is used for clarity. The KJV's 'Hiddekel' is a direct transliteration of the Hebrew. The Akkadian name is Idiqlat.
2. 'East of Assyria' translates qidmat Ashshur (קִדְמַת אַשּׁוּר). The Tigris does flow through and east of ancient Assyrian territory, consistent with known geography.
3. The Euphrates (Perat, פְּרָת) is mentioned without description, presumably because it was the best-known river to the original audience. The Euphrates and Tigris are the two great rivers of Mesopotamia, firmly grounding this passage in real-world geography — even as the Pishon and Gihon remain unidentified.
4. The mention of these four rivers has long been used to locate Eden in or near Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), though the Pishon and Gihon complicate any precise identification.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Placed' translates vayyannicheh (וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ), from the root n-w-ch (נוּחַ), meaning 'to rest, to settle, to place.' This is not the same verb as in verse 8 (vayyasem, 'he put/set'). The root nuach suggests that God settled or gave rest to the man in the garden — the garden is a place of rest as well as work.
2. 'To work it and to keep it' translates le'ovdah uleshomrah (לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ). These two verbs — avad ('to work, to serve') and shamar ('to keep, to guard, to watch over') — carry theological significance beyond gardening: (1) avad is the standard verb for serving God and for priestly service in the sanctuary (Numbers 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:7); (2) shamar is used for keeping/guarding God's commands (Genesis 17:9; Exodus 20:6) and for the Levites' guarding of the tabernacle (Numbers 1:53; 3:7–8). The pairing of avad and shamar appears together for tabernacle service in Numbers 3:7–8 and 18:7. This lexical overlap suggests the garden functions as a proto-sanctuary — a sacred space where the man serves and guards in a priestly role.
3. The KJV's 'dress it' (for avad) reflects archaic English usage where 'dress' meant 'to tend, to cultivate.' 'Work it' is the modern equivalent.

Translator Notes

1. 'You may freely eat' translates akhol tokhel (אָכֹל תֹּאכֵל), an infinitive absolute followed by a finite verb — a Hebrew construction that intensifies the verb. Literally 'eating you shall eat.' This emphatic permission stands in deliberate contrast to the emphatic prohibition in the next verse (mot tamut, 'dying you shall die'). The lavish permission precedes the single restriction.
2. The command is addressed to the man alone (singular 'you'), before the creation of the woman. This raises the question — later important in chapter 3 — of how the woman learned about the prohibition. The text does not address this directly.
3. God's speech continues into verse 17. The quotation remains open.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'You will certainly die' translates mot tamut (מוֹת תָּמוּת), another infinitive absolute construction: 'dying you shall die.' This mirrors the emphatic permission of verse 16 (akhol tokhel, 'eating you shall eat'). The symmetry is deliberate: emphatic freedom, emphatic boundary.
2. 'On the day you eat from it' (beyom akholkha, בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ) — this has generated much discussion, since Adam and Eve do not physically die on the day they eat (3:6–7). Interpretive options include: (1) 'day' is used loosely for 'when' (as in 2:4); (2) spiritual death or separation from God occurs immediately; (3) the process of dying (mortality) begins on that day; (4) 'you will certainly die' is a legal sentence ('you will be subject to death') rather than a prediction of immediate death. The rendering preserves the literal Hebrew without resolving the ambiguity.
3. This is the first prohibition in the Bible — a single negative command amid comprehensive freedom. The structure emphasizes the generosity of the permission (every tree) against the singularity of the restriction (one tree).

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Not good' (lo-tov, לֹא־טוֹב) stands in sharp contrast to the repeated 'good' (tov) and 'very good' (tov meod) evaluations throughout chapter 1. After a series of affirmations that creation is good, this is the first declaration that something is 'not good.' The man's solitude is an incomplete state that requires remedy.
2. 'Helper corresponding to him' translates ezer kenegdo (עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ). This phrase is crucial and frequently misunderstood: (1) ezer (עֵזֶר, 'helper') does not imply subordination. The same word is used of God as Israel's 'helper' (Psalm 33:20; 70:5; 115:9–11; Exodus 18:4; Deuteronomy 33:7, 26, 29). It denotes one who provides strength, aid, or rescue — one who supplies what is lacking. (2) kenegdo (כְּנֶגְדּוֹ) means 'corresponding to him,' 'matching him,' 'suitable for him,' literally 'as opposite him' or 'as in front of him.' The sense is of a counterpart, a matching complement — not a subordinate assistant but a partner of equal nature who corresponds to and completes the man.
3. The KJV's 'help meet' uses 'meet' as an adjective meaning 'suitable' or 'fitting' (archaic English). Over time, 'help meet' was misread as a compound noun 'helpmeet' or 'helpmate,' obscuring both the strength of ezer and the meaning of kenegdo.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyitser (וַיִּצֶר, 'formed') is the same potter's verb used for the man's formation in verse 7. The animals share with the man the origin of being formed from the ground (adamah), though they do not receive the divine breath.
2. 'Had formed' — the wayyiqtol form vayyitser could be rendered as simple past ('formed') or as pluperfect ('had formed'). The pluperfect reading ('had formed') is adopted here, understanding this verse as referring back to the animal creation already described in chapter 1, not as narrating a new creative act. This avoids an apparent contradiction with the sequence in chapter 1 where animals are created before humans. However, the Hebrew verb form itself does not make this distinction; 'formed' is equally valid grammatically.
3. 'To see what he would call them' — God brings the animals to the man with genuine interest in the outcome. The naming is not dictated by God but left to human judgment. In the ancient Near East, naming implies authority over what is named; the man exercises a delegated sovereignty over the animal kingdom.
4. 'Whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name' — the man's naming is authoritative and ratified. God does not correct or override the names. This reflects the human role as God's image-bearer exercising real (not merely ceremonial) authority in creation.

Translator Notes

1. The animal categories here — livestock (behemah), birds of the sky (oph hashamayim), and wild animals of the field (chayyat hassadeh) — are consistent with the categories established in chapter 1 (1:24–25). 'Livestock' for behemah maintains consistency with chapter 1.
2. The naming process serves a narrative purpose beyond taxonomy: it demonstrates that no animal is a suitable counterpart for the man. The search through the entire animal kingdom and the verdict — 'no helper corresponding to him was found' — sets up the creation of the woman as the answer to a need that the animals cannot fill. The man's aloneness is not resolved by the presence of animals, however numerous or varied.
3. 'For the man' translates ule'adam (וּלְאָדָם). The KJV renders this as 'for Adam,' treating adam as a proper name. At this stage in the narrative, the word still functions primarily as 'the man' (with and without the article). The transition from common noun to proper name is gradual in Genesis 2–5 and cannot be pinpointed to a single verse.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Deep sleep' translates tardemah (תַּרְדֵּמָה), a divinely induced unconsciousness, not ordinary sleep. The same word describes the deep sleep God brings upon Abraham during the covenant ceremony in Genesis 15:12, and upon Saul's camp in 1 Samuel 26:12. It is a sleep brought about by God for a specific divine purpose — the man is passive while God works.
2. 'Side' translates tsela (צֵלָע), traditionally rendered 'rib.' However, tsela in the Hebrew Bible most commonly means 'side' — the side of the ark (Exodus 25:12), the side of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:20, 26–27), the side chambers of the temple (1 Kings 6:5–6), or the side of a hill (2 Samuel 16:13). It does not elsewhere mean 'rib.' The traditional rendering 'rib' has a very long history (the Septuagint uses pleura, 'side/rib'), but 'side' better represents the Hebrew word's normal meaning. The implication may be that the woman is taken from the man's side — she is his lateral counterpart, not a small or peripheral part of him.
3. 'Closed up the flesh in its place' — God acts as a surgeon, opening the man's body, removing material, and closing the wound. The intimacy and physicality of this act is remarkable. God personally and skillfully works with flesh, just as he earlier shaped dust (v. 7) and planted a garden (v. 8).

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Built' translates vayyiven (וַיִּבֶן), from banah (בָּנָה), meaning 'to build, to construct.' This is a striking verb choice. God does not 'form' (yatsar) the woman as he formed the man from dust, nor does he 'create' (bara) or 'make' (asah) her. He 'builds' her — the same verb used for constructing buildings, cities, and altars. Some scholars see this as elevating the woman's creation: she is architecturally constructed, carefully built up from existing material rather than shaped from raw earth.
2. 'Brought her to the man' — God personally presents the woman to the man, acting in a role that later tradition compared to that of a father escorting a bride. The verb 'brought' (vayyevi'eha) is simple and profound: God brings together what he has made for each other.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. This is the first human speech in the Bible, and it is poetry. The man's response to seeing the woman is not a clinical observation but a poetic exclamation — structured verse with parallelism and wordplay. The poetic form is preserved in the rendering with line breaks and indentation.
2. 'This one, at last' translates zot happa'am (זֹאת הַפַּעַם), literally 'this one, this time.' After reviewing all the animals and finding no suitable counterpart (vv. 19–20), the man's exclamation expresses recognition, delight, and relief. 'At last' captures the sense of arrival after searching.
3. 'Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' (etsem me'atsamai uvasar mibbesari) is an expression of kinship and identity. The same formula appears in other kinship contexts (Genesis 29:14; Judges 9:2; 2 Samuel 5:1; 19:12–13). The woman is not a stranger or a different kind of creature — she shares the man's very substance.
4. The wordplay between ishah (אִשָּׁה, 'woman') and ish (אִישׁ, 'man') is a folk etymology — a meaningful wordplay rather than a strict linguistic derivation. Linguistically, ishah likely derives from a different root than ish (ishah from '-n-sh, ish from '-y-sh), but the text presents a deliberate sound-correspondence: she is ishah because she was taken from ish. The English 'woman' / 'man' (or historically 'wo-man' from 'wif-man') offers a partial parallel. No English rendering can fully reproduce the Hebrew wordplay.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. This verse shifts from narrative to a general principle — it is the narrator's comment (or possibly God's pronouncement) drawing a universal conclusion from the particular event. The shift from past-tense narrative to future-tense principle ('a man will leave') is marked by 'for this reason' (al-ken, עַל־כֵּן), which connects the institution of marriage to the creation of woman from man.
2. 'Hold fast' translates davaq (דָּבַק), meaning 'to cling, to cleave, to stick to, to adhere.' This is a strong verb of attachment and loyalty. It is used elsewhere for clinging to God in covenant faithfulness (Deuteronomy 10:20; 11:22; 13:5; 30:20; Joshua 22:5; 23:8). The word implies permanent, tenacious bonding — not merely living together but becoming inseparable. The KJV's 'cleave' captures the strength but is archaic.
3. 'One flesh' (basar echad, בָּשָׂר אֶחָד) describes the union of husband and wife. The phrase encompasses physical union (sexual intimacy), but its meaning is broader — a comprehensive merging of life, identity, and purpose. The two become a single social and relational unit. The same word basar ('flesh') was used in verse 23 ('flesh of my flesh'), connecting the one-flesh union to the woman's origin from the man's own flesh.
4. This verse is quoted by Jesus in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7–8, and by Paul in Ephesians 5:31, as foundational to the theology of marriage.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Naked' translates arummim (עֲרוּמִּים), the plural of arom (עָרוֹם). This word sets up one of the most important wordplays in Genesis: the next verse (3:1) introduces the serpent as arum (עָרוּם, 'crafty' or 'shrewd'). The near-homophony between arummim ('naked') and arum ('crafty') creates a literary bridge between the innocence of chapter 2 and the deception of chapter 3. The connection is audible in Hebrew but invisible in English translation.
2. 'Felt no shame' translates velo yitboshashu (וְלֹא יִתְבֹּשָׁשׁוּ), from the root b-w-sh (בּוֹשׁ, 'to be ashamed'). The hitpael form (reflexive/reciprocal) suggests 'they were not ashamed before each other' — there was no self-consciousness, no need for concealment or protection in their mutual vulnerability. This state of unashamed nakedness represents the original condition of human relationship — complete transparency and trust. The loss of this condition is narrated in 3:7–10.
3. This verse concludes chapter 2 and functions as a narrative hinge: it simultaneously describes the final state of innocence and foreshadows its loss. The chapter ends in a state of wholeness — harmonious relationship with God, with each other, and with creation — that chapter 3 will disrupt.