What Does Genesis 1:20 Mean?

The LORD God forms man from the dust of the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, the man becomes a living creature. The switch from "God" (Elohim) in Genesis 1 to "the LORD God" (Yahweh Elohim) throughout Genesis 2 signals a new mode of narration: the covenant name of God appears alongside his title as Creator. The God who made the cosmos is the same God who forms a particular man with the intimacy of a craftsman's hands and the breath of his own self.

The forming from dust echoes the material of the earth: the man is made from what the earth is made of, returning humanity to the ground from which it came in a way no other creature is described. The word "formed" (Hebrew: yatsar) is used of a potter shaping clay. The image is one of intimate, hands-on work, the Creator directly handling the material of creation to shape the creature who will Bear his image. The distance of "let there be" gives way to the closeness of forming.

The breath of life, God's own breath into the man's nostrils, is what makes the formed dust into a living being. The man does not simply begin to function biologically; he receives the animating breath of God himself. This direct divine animation is described for no other creature in Genesis. The human life is uniquely breathed into being by the God who made it, a particular intimacy that the creation of land and sea animals (made by command) does not share.