Genesis 2:9

Summary

The verse describes Yehovah Elohim causing every tree to sprout from the ground — trees desirable in appearance and good for food — and locates two specific trees in the middle of the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Key words

• yatzmach ("he made sprout", H6779) — hiphil (causative) verb: the subject does not simply grow but causes the growth of something else, here the trees from the ground.
• nechmad ("desirable", H2530A) — niphal participle: a passive/reflexive form describing the tree as "being desired" rather than actively desiring, i.e. the quality is received/perceived by an observer.
• ets ("tree of", H6086H) — appears repeatedly in construct form ("X of..."), binding it grammatically to chayim ("life", H2416E) and to da'at ("knowledge", H1847), producing the fixed phrases "tree of life" and "tree of knowledge."
• da'at ("knowledge", H1847) — feminine singular construct noun, governing the following pair tov ("good", H2896B) and ra' ("evil", H7451B), joined by the conjunction va ("and", H9002).
• tokh ("middle of", H8432) — construct noun meaning the center or interior point, here specifying the location of the tree of life within ha-gan ("the garden", H1588M).

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav attached to yatzmach, marking this as a continuation of the sequence of actions performed by YHWH Elohim. The hiphil stem of yatzmach signals that the subject is the causer of the sprouting, not the thing sprouting itself — the ground (ha-adamah, H0127G) is the source ("from the ground," min-ha-adamah) but the divine subject is grammatically the agent of growth.

The object of this causation is kol-'etz ("every tree", construct chain), qualified by two parallel descriptions: nechmad le-mar'eh ("desirable to appearance") and tov le-ma'akhal ("good for food"). The first uses a niphal participle (nechmad), which frames desirability as a quality perceived from outside, while the second uses a plain adjective (tov), a more direct predication of goodness. Both descriptions are linked to purpose-nouns via the preposition le ("to/for"): mar'eh ("appearance") and ma'akhal ("food").

The final clause shifts to a locative construction: be-tokh ha-gan ("in the middle of the garden") situates two singular trees — 'etz ha-chayim ("tree of life") and 'etz ha-da'at tov va-ra' ("tree of the knowledge of good and evil") — the latter formed by a construct noun (da'at) governing two adjectives joined by va ("and"), rather than by a second construct link.

Differences between versions

The LXX reads ἔτι ("still/yet") where the Hebrew has no equivalent term at that position, and it renders nechmad ("desirable", niphal participle) as ὡραῖον ("beautiful"), a straightforward adjective rather than a passive-form description. The Vulgate's pulchrum visu ("beautiful to see") and suave ("pleasant") similarly render the Hebrew's niphal participial nuance with plain adjectives, without preserving the passive/perceived quality marked by the niphal stem in Hebrew.