Genesis 2:4

Summary

Genesis 2:4 marks a transition formula, opening with "these are the toledot" of heaven and earth, then restating their creation using an inverted word order (earth before heaven) and introducing the divine name YHWH Elohim for the first time in the narrative.

Key words

• tol.Dot ("accounts of / generations of", H8435) — feminine plural construct noun; grammatically it demands a following genitive ("of the heavens and the earth"), functioning as a heading that introduces a new textual unit rather than a simple narrative verb.
• hi.ba.re.'Am ("were created", H1254A) — Niphal infinitive construct with 3rd person plural suffix ("their being created"); the Niphal stem marks the verb as passive/reflexive, so no agent of creation is named in this clause, unlike verse 9 below.
• be.Yom ("in the day of", H3117G) — construct noun with preposition, forming a temporal clause ("on the day that...") rather than a literal 24-hour marker; it introduces the following infinitive clause.
• a.Sot ("made / in the making of", H6213H) — Qal infinitive construct; here the verb is active, and unlike the earlier Niphal hibbare'am, this form explicitly takes YHWH Elohim as its subject.
• Yah.weh 'E.lo.Him ("YHWH God", H3068G + H0430G) — the compound divine name-title, its first occurrence in the book, functioning as the grammatical subject of the active verb asot.

What the text says

The verse divides into two temporal clauses that both describe the same event from different grammatical angles. The first clause uses tol.Dot ha.sha.Ma.yim ve.ha.'A.retz be.hi.ba.re.'Am — "the accounts of the heavens and the earth, when they were created" — with the passive Niphal infinitive hibbare'am, which does not name an agent. The second clause, be.Yom a.Sot Yah.weh 'E.lo.Him 'E.retz ve.sha.Ma.yim, repeats the same content but with an active Qal infinitive (asot) whose subject is explicitly YHWH Elohim.

A further grammatical detail is the reversal of word order between the two halves: the first clause lists ha.sha.Ma.yim ("the heavens") before ha.'A.retz ("the earth"), both with definite articles, while the second clause lists 'E.retz ("earth") before sha.Ma.yim ("heaven"), both without articles. This chiastic inversion (heaven-earth / earth-heaven) is a feature of the Hebrew construction not necessarily preserved in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tol.Dot as βίβλος γενέσεως ("book of generation/genesis"), introducing the noun "book," which is absent from the Hebrew construct noun itself. The Vulgate's generationes aligns more closely with the plural sense of tol.Dot. The Hebrew's second clause names Yah.weh 'E.lo.Him as grammatical subject with articleless 'E.retz ve.sha.Ma.yim as object; the LXX (Κύριος ὁ θεὸς... τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν) and Vulgate (Dominus Deus... cælum et terram) both preserve the heaven-earth order in the second clause, differing from the earth-heaven order that appears in the Hebrew text at that point.