What Does Genesis 2:3 Mean?

The second creation account opens with a summary of what Genesis 1 narrated, God made the earth and the heavens, and immediately introduces the conditions that preceded the specific act of the garden's creation. No bush of the field was yet in the land, no small plant had yet sprung up. The shift from "heavens and earth" (Genesis 1:1) to "earth and heavens" signals a shift in emphasis: Genesis 2 is interested in the earth's surface, the human figure, the garden environment. The created gives way to the local.

Two reasons are given for the absence of vegetation: no rain and no man to work the ground. These two absences correspond to two provisions that Genesis 2 will supply: God provides water from below (2:6) and places a man in the garden to cultivate it (2:15). The pre-creation state is defined by what is lacking; the creation act supplies what is needed. God responds to the not-yet with the gift of what the not-yet was waiting for.

The shift in divine name from "God" (Elohim) in Genesis 1 to "the LORD God" (Yahweh Elohim) throughout Genesis 2-3 signals a new mode of presentation. The covenant name of God, the name revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14), appears alongside the title of Creator. The God who made the cosmos is now the God who enters into personal relationship with the man he forms. The combination of names signals the combination of transcendence and intimacy that characterizes the garden account.