Genesis 2:4 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, we meet a new name for the Creator, one we have not seen before, Jehovah, the LORD, shown in capital letters in our English Bible to match the Hebrew name. In chapter 1, he was called Elohim, a God of power. Now he is called Jehovah Elohim, a God of power and perfection, a God who brings his work to completion. We find him known by the name Jehovah when he came to keep his promises (Exodus 6:3), and here that name fits, because he has finished what he began. Jehovah is God’s special, personal name, which shows that he has life in himself and gives life to all things. It is fitting that he is called by that name now that heaven and earth are complete.

We are also told more about the making of plants and herbs, because they were created to be food for man (Genesis 2:5, Genesis 2:6). The earth did not produce them by any power of its own, but only by the almighty power of God, who made every plant and herb before it grew in the ground. In the same way, grace in the soul, that honored plant, does not grow by nature’s own soil. It is the work of God’s own hand. Rain is also God’s gift. It did not come until the Lord God caused it to rain. If rain is needed, God withholds it. If it falls in season, God sends it. If it comes to one city and not another, God is the one who sends it there (Amos 4:7).

Though God usually works through means, he is not bound to them. When he chooses, he can do his work without them. The plants were made before the sun was created, and before there was rain to water the earth or man to work it. So we must not test God by neglecting the means he gives us, but we must trust him when means are lacking. In some way, God will care for the plants he has planted. Though there was no rain yet, he made a mist to water the whole ground. He chose to carry out his purpose through the weakest means, so that the power would clearly be his. Divine grace comes like a mist, or a quiet dew, and waters the church without noise (Deuteronomy 32:2).

We next get a fuller account of the creation of man (Genesis 2:7). Man is a little world, made up of heaven and earth, soul and body. Here we see where both came from, and how they were joined together. We should think about this seriously and join the psalmist in praise: “We are fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Elihu, in the time of the patriarchs, refers to this history when he says, “I also am formed out of clay” (Job 33:6), and “The breath of the Almighty has given me life” (Job 33:4), and “There is a spirit in man” (Job 32:8).

First, consider the lowly beginning, and yet the wonderful structure, of the human body. The material was plain and lowly. Man was made from the dust of the ground, a very unlikely thing to make a man from. But the same infinite power that made the world from nothing made man, the crown of creation, from almost nothing. He was made from the dust, the fine dust on the surface of the earth. It was likely not dry dust, but dust made damp by the mist that rose up (Genesis 2:6). He was not made from gold dust, pearl dust, or diamond dust, but from ordinary dust, dust of the ground. That is why he is called earthy, dusty (1 Corinthians 15:47). We also are of the earth, for we are his offspring and made from the same kind of material. Our link with the earth is so close that our mother’s womb, from which we were born, is called the earth (Psalm 139:15), and the earth, where we are buried, is called our mother’s womb (Job 1:21). Our foundation is in the earth (Job 4:19). Our body is earthly, shaped like a clay vessel (Job 10:9). Our food comes from the earth (Job 28:5). Our life is tied to the earth (Job 17:14). Our fathers are in the earth, and we too are heading there in the end. So what room is there for pride?

Yet the Maker was great, and the workmanship was excellent. The Lord God, the great source of being and power, formed man. The other creatures are said to have been created and made, but man is said to have been formed. That word points to a careful, gradual work, done with skill and precision. To describe this new work, Scripture uses a new word, one some think was borrowed from a potter shaping clay on the wheel. We are the clay, and God is the potter (Isaiah 64:8). The body of man is wonderfully made (Psalm 139:15, Psalm 139:16). The work was greater than the materials. Let us present our bodies to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), as living temples (1 Corinthians 6:19). Then these weak bodies will soon be changed to be like Christ’s glorious body (Philippians 3:21).

Second, consider the high origin and great usefulness of the soul of man. It comes from the breath of heaven and is produced by it. It was not made from the earth, like the body. That should make us sorry if our souls cling to the earth and care only for earthly things. The soul came directly from God. He gave it to be placed in the body (Ecclesiastes 12:7), just as later he gave the stone tablets he himself wrote to be placed in the ark, and the breastplate with the Urim that he himself designed. So God is not only the maker, but the Father of spirits. Let the soul God has breathed into us breathe after him, and live for him, since it came from him. Let us commit our spirits into his hands, for from his hands we received them.

The soul also lives in a house of clay and gives life and strength to the body. By the soul, man becomes a living soul, that is, a living person. The soul is what makes the man what he is. Without it, the body would be useless, ugly, and dead. We must soon give God an account of these souls, how we have used them, directed them, and cared for them. If it is found that we lost our souls, even if we gained the whole world, we will be ruined forever. Since the soul comes from such a noble source, and its powers are so excellent, let us not be fools who despise their own souls by valuing the body more than the soul (Proverbs 15:32). When our Lord Jesus anointed the blind man’s eyes with clay, he may have been showing that he was the one who first formed man from clay. And when he breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he may have been showing that he was the one who first breathed the breath of life into man. The one who made the soul is the only one who can make it new again.