Genesis 2:7

Summary

Genesis 2:7 describes Yehovah Elohim forming the man from dust taken from the ground, then blowing into his nostrils "the breath of life," resulting in the man becoming a living creature. The verse uses three sequential verbs to narrate a single continuous action.

Key words

• yi.Tzer ("he formed", H3335G) — qal narrative verb, denotes shaping or fashioning, like a potter working material.
• 'a.Far ("dust", H6083) — masculine singular noun, indicates the raw material's substance, not the ground itself.
• 'a.da.Mah ("ground", H0127G) — feminine singular noun, the source from which the dust is taken, marked by the preposition min ("from", H4480A).
• nish.Mat ("[the] breath of", H5397) — feminine singular construct noun, grammatically bound to chai.Yim ("life", H2416E), forming the phrase "breath of life."
• Ne.fesh ("a creature", H5315K) — feminine singular noun, paired with the adjective chai.Yah ("living", H2416A) to describe the resulting state of the man.

What the text says

The verse is built on three narrative verbs joined by the vav consecutive (va, H9001), which chains the actions sequentially: yi.Tzer ("he formed"), yi.Pach ("he blew"), and y.Hi ("he became"). This construction presents the events as one continuous act rather than three separate episodes. The subject of the first two verbs is Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G), while the third verb shifts the grammatical subject to 'a.Dam ("man", H0120H) himself, marking the transition from divine action to the man's resulting state.

The phrase 'a.Far min-ha'adamah ("dust from the ground") distinguishes the material ('a.Far) from its source ('a.da.Mah), both connected by the preposition min ("from", H4480A). The construct chain nish.Mat chai.Yim ("breath of life") uses a construct noun (nish.Mat) bound to a plural noun (chai.Yim), a grammatical pattern that in Biblical Hebrew often intensifies or generalizes meaning rather than indicating numerical plurality. The final clause uses the preposition le ("into", H9005) before Ne.fesh ("a creature", H5315K), marking the result of the transformation — the man's becoming, not merely a change in location or state described statically.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'a.Far ("dust") with χοῦν and specifies ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ("from the earth"), using a general term for earth rather than distinguishing 'a.da.Mah ("ground") as a separate word for soil. The LXX also renders 'a.Pai ("his nostrils") as εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ("into his face"), broadening the anatomical reference found in the Hebrew. The Vulgate follows a similar pattern with in faciem ejus ("into his face") for the same phrase, diverging from the Hebrew's specific reference to nostrils.