Copyright © 1958 by Westminster
Theological Seminary, cited with permission.
BECAUSE IT HAD NOT RAINED
MEREDITH
G. KLINE
THERE
are no signs that the debate over the chronological
data of Genesis 1 is abating. Among those who hold
biblical views of the inspiration of the
Scriptures certain
interpretations of that chronology
have, indeed, long been
traditional. These may disagree as to the duration
of the
"days" of Genesis 1 but they have in common the opinion
that
the order of narration in that chapter coincides
with the actual
sequence of creation history. Although these
traditional inter-
pretations continue to be dominant
in orthodox circles there
also continues to be debate and its flames have
recently been
vigorously fanned by the bellows of the dissenters.1
At the heart of the issue, though its crucial character ap-
pears to be generally overlooked is the question of
whether
the modus operandi of divine providence was the
same during
the creation era as that of ordinary providence
now. This is
not to raise the question of whether Genesis 1
leaves the door
open for some sort of evolutionary reconstruction.
On the
contrary, it is assumed here that Genesis 1
contradicts the
idea that an undifferentiated world-stuff evolved
into the
present variegated universe by dint of intrinsic
potentialities
whether divinely "triggered" or
otherwise. According to
Genesis
1, the divine act of absolute beginning--or creation
in nihilum--was followed by a
succession of divine acts of
origination, both ex nihilo and intra aliquid.2 The present
1 Two discussions in particular
have evoked animated reactions among
evangelicals in this country: B. Ramm, The Christian
View of Science and
Scripture (Grand Rapids, 1954),
pp. 173 ff. and N. H. Ridderbos, Is There
A Conflict Between Genesis 1 and Natural Science? (Grand
Rapids, 1957).
2 In nihilum serves
to distinguish the initial creative act as alone having
had no setting of prior created reality. Intra aliquid has
the advantage
over ex materia (for
productions like that of Adam's body out of existent
dust) that it does not obscure the pure creativeness
of the divine act. There
should be no hesitation in classifying such works as
creation in the strict
sense. The opinion that Calvin refused to do so is
mistaken. (Cf. the
criticism of B. B. Warfield on this point by J.
Murray in "Calvin's Doctrine
146
BECAUSE IT HAD NOT
RAINED 147
world with the fulness
thereof is the net result of this succes-
sion of discrete creation
acts of God completed within the era
of the "six days" (Gen. 2:1-3).3
Though this closed era of the
"six days" was characteristic-
ally the era of creation, it was not exclusively so.
That is, the
works of creation were interlaced with the work of
providence
--in a manner analogous to the mingling of natural and super-
natural providence in the structure of
subsequent history.4
As
a matter of fact, one aspect of the creative acts themselves
(excepting the act of absolute beginning) may properly be
subsumed under the rubric of providence. They
were works of
providence in that they were part of the divine
government of
the world in so far as that world was already
existent before
each new creative act occurred. In the discussion
which
follows, however, predications made concerning
the modus
of Creation", WTJ XVII, 1954, pp. 29 ff.). Calvin does on occasion insist
that the word "create" be restricted to ex nihilo
fiat. Thus, in commenting
on the use of the word "create" in Gen.
1:21 for the origin of creatures of
sea and air, which Calvin interprets (mistakenly)
as having involved the
use of existent water, he accounts for this usage
solely on the ground that
the material employed belonged to the universal
matter created ex nihilo
on the first "day". However, in such a
passage it must be observed that
Calvin
is exclusively concerned with the precise meaning of the Hebrew
word xrABA not at all with the general theological use of
the word "create".
3 There have been acts of
creation since the creation of man which
terminated the era of the "six days";
cf., e. g., the origin of souls and such
miracles as the multiplying of the loaves and
fishes. None of these, however,
has added to the "kinds" originated
within the "six days".
4 Cf. B. B. Warfield,
"Christian Supernaturalism" in Studies
in Theology
(New York, 1932), pp. 37 ff. The likeness of
creation acts to subsequent
supernatural acts is profound. They
are alike highways to consummation.
It
is by the road of his successive creation acts that God has betaken him-
self to the Sabbath of the seventh "day".
In the sequel, it is by the way
of supernaturalism that God directs his
image-bearer to union with him
in his consummation rest. Adam wakes to the
supernatural voice and
it is to him from the very beginning a voice that
speaks to him out of
God's
Sabbath, challenging him with the invitation, "Come up hither"--
to consummation. And every supernatural word
thereafter issues from
and beckons covenant-man unto that same Sabbath
dwelling-place of
God,
while every supernatural work propels him towards it. The redemp-
tive principle becomes
necessary in the supernaturalism that conducts
fallen man to consummation rest and it is, therefore,
prominent in biblical
revelation; but it is nevertheless subordinate to
the eschatological thrust
that marks all supernaturalism.
148
operandi of divine providence
during the creation era will have
in view only the work of God other than his acts
of creation.
The traditionalist interpreter, as
he pursues his strictly
chronological way through the data of
Genesis 1, will be com-
pelled at one point or another
to assume that God in his
providential preservation of the
world during the "six days"
era did not operate through secondary means in the
manner
which men now daily observe and analyze as natural
law.
The
question, therefore, is whether the Scriptures justify
this traditional assumption of supernatural
providence for
the creation era or whether they contradict it--or
whether
possibly they leave it an open question. It will
be the central
contention of this article that a clear answer to
that question is
available in Gen. 2:5 and that that answer
constitutes a
decisive word against the traditional
interpretation.
GENESIS
2:5ff.
The major English versions exhibit
marked divergence in
the way they translate Gen. 2:5 and relate it
grammatically
to verses 4 and 6-7.
|
Authorized (4)
These are the genera- tions of the heavens and of
the earth when they were
created, in the day that
the LORD God made the
earth and the heavens, (5)
and every plant of the field
before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the
field before it grew: for
the LORD God had not caused
it to rain upon the earth,
and there was not a man to till the ground. (6)
But there went up a mist
from the earth, and watered
the whole face of the ground. (7) And the LORD
God formed man of the dust of the
ground ... |
American
Revised (4)
These are the genera- tions of the heavens and of
the earth when they were
created, in the day that
Jehovah God made earth and heaven. (5) And no
plant of the field was yet
in the earth, and no herb
of the field had yet sprung
up; for Jehovah God
had not caused it to rain
upon the earth: and there
was not a man to till the
ground; (6) but there went
up a mist from the earth,
and watered the whole face of the ground. (7)
And Jehovah God formed
man of the dust of
the ground ... |
Revised Standard (4) These are the genera- tions of the heavens and the
earth when they were created. In
the day that the LORD
God made the earth and the heavens, (5) when no plant of the field was yet in
the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had
not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the
ground; (6) but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole
face of the ground --(7)
then the LORD God formed
man of dust from the
ground ... |
BECAUSE IT HAD NOT RAINED 149
Of these versions the treatment of verse 5 in
the ARV is
alone acceptable. A Hebrew idiom for expressing an
emphatic
negative found in the original of this verse has
been muffed
by the AV with the result that it is obscure at
best. The RSV
like the ARV correctly renders the negative element
but has
other serious defects. It treats verse 5 as though it
were part
of an involved temporal section extending from 4b
through 6,
all subordinated to the action of verse 7. This is
an old inter-
pretation which Delitzsch properly rejected because it required
"a clumsy interpolated period" such as is "not to
be expected
in this simple narrative style".5
The RSV rendering would
also compel Genesis 2 to teach that man was created
before
vegetation, whereas the ARV permits the exegete to
regard the
arrangement of its contents as topical rather than chronolog-
ical. If the arrangement of
Genesis 2 were not topical it
would contradict the teaching of Genesis 1 (not to
mention
that of natural revelation) that vegetation preceded
man on
the earth.6
Set against the vast background of creation
history, these
verses serve to bring together man and the vegetable
world
in the foreground of attention. This prepares for
the central
role of certain objects of the vegetable kingdom, i. e., the
Garden
of God and especially the trees in the midst of it, in
the earliest history of man as recorded in the
immediately
following verses (cf. 2:8ff. and 3:1ff.).
Verse 5 itself
describes a time when the earth was without
vegetation. And the significant fact is a very
simple one. It
is the fact that an explanation--a perfectly
natural explana-
tion - is given for the
absence of vegetation at that time:
"for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the
earth".
The
Creator did not originate plant life on earth before he had
prepared an environment in which he might
preserve it
without by-passing secondary means and without
having
recourse to extraordinary means such as marvellous methods of
fertilization. The unargued presupposition of Gen. 2:5 is
clearly that the divine providence was operating
during the
5 New Commentary on Genesis (
Green,
The Unity of the Book of Genesis (New York,
1910), p. 25.
6 That much is deducible from
Gen. 1:26-30 whatever one's view of the
chronological character of the order
of narration in Genesis 1 as a whole.
150
creation period through processes which any
reader would
recognize as normal in the natural world of his
day.
The last clause of verse 5 cites as a second
reason for the
lack of vegetation the absence of men. Though there
be no
rainfall, if man is present "to till the
ground" and, in partic-
ular, to construct a system
of artificial irrigation, he can make
the desert blossom as the rose.7 The
effect of this last clause
of Gen. 2:5 is to confirm and strengthen the
principle that
normal providential procedure characterized the creation
era.8
Verses 6 and 7 then correspond respectively to
the two
clauses in verse 5b and relate how the
environmental de-
ficiencies there cited were
remedied. First, "flooding waters9
7 This verse reflects conditions
in the East where irrigation is of the es-
sence of farming and distinct
terms are found to distinguish land that is
naturally irrigated from land that is artificially
irrigated. Cf. T. H. Gaster,
Thespis (New
York, 1950), pp. 123, 126.
8 If the view of some exegetes
were adopted that the sphere of Gen. 2:5
is limited to such cultivated plants as were found
in the Garden of Eden,
the concept of providential operations involved
would remain the same.
The
text would still affirm that at a point prior to the creation of man and,
therefore, within the creation era the absence of
certain natural products
was attributable to the absence of the natural
means for their providential
preservation. It may here be added
that this avoidance of unnecessary
supernaturalism in providence during
the "six days" accords well with the
analogy of subsequent divine providence for the
latter too is characterized
by a remarkable economy in its resort to the
supernatural.
9 The meaning of the Hebrew word dxe is uncertain. It probably denotes
subterranean waters which rise to
the surface and thence as gushing springs
or flooding rivers inundate the land. The watering
of the Garden of Eden
by a river in the immediate sequel (v. 10) may be
intended as a specific
localized instance of the dxe phenomena (v. 6). Note the similar advance
in the case of man, viewed in verse 5b as the
artificial irrigator, from the
general statement of verse 7 to the specific
assignment in the Garden
(vs. 8, 15). The word dxe appears elsewhere in the Old Testament only in
Job
36:27. That passage is also difficult; but Odxel; there seems to denote the
underground ore, as it were, from which the
raindrops are extracted and
refined, i. e., by the
process of evaporation in the cycle of cloud formation
and precipitation. (For the translation of the
preposition 5 as "from" see
C.
H. Gordon, Ugaritic Manual (
probably to be derived from the Akkadian edu, a Sumerian loanword
which denotes overflowing waters. (Cf. E. Speiser, Bulletin of
the American
Schools of Oriental
Research,
140 (1955), pp. 9-11). Other views are that
it comes from Akkadian id, "river", also a Sumerian
loanword (used in the
BECAUSE IT HAD NOT RAINED 151
began to rise from the earth and watered all the face
of the
ground" (v. 6). Here was a source of natural
irrigation to
compensate for the want of rain. The first verb is
a Hebrew
imperfect and the inceptive nuance--"began
to"--is legit-
imate for that form and is
required in this case if verse 6 is
not to neutralize the first clause in verse 5b. The
English
versions of verse 6 convey the impression that
there was an
ample watering of the earth during the very time
which
verse 5 describes. If that were so, the explanatory
statement
of verse 5, "for the Lord God had not caused
it to rain upon
the earth", would be stranded as an
irrelevance. Actually,
verse 6 reports the emergence of a new natural
phenomenon,
the necessary preliminary to the creation of the
florae de-
scribed in verse 5a.
Verse 7 then records the creation of man. With
adequate
natural irrigation already available, the mere
preservation of
vegetation does not require man's husbandry. But its full
horticultural exploitation does.
Besides, the mention of man
at this point need not be accounted for solely in
terms of his
services to the vegetable kingdom for he was not
made for it
but it for him.
GENESIS
2:5ff. AND THE INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 1
Embedded in Gen. 2:5ff. is
the principle that the modus
operandi of
the divine providence was the same during the
creation period as that of ordinary providence at
the present
time. It is now to be demonstrated that those who
adopt the
traditional approaches cannot successfully integrate
this
revelation with Genesis 1 as they interpret it.
In contradiction to Gen. 2:5, the
twenty-four-hour day
theory must presuppose that God employed other than
the
ordinary secondary means in executing his works
of provi-
dence. To take just one
example, it was the work of the
"third day" that the waters should be gathered together
into
Mari
texts as the name of the river god) or from Ida,
the name of a high
mountain in central
"Homer and Bible", Hebrew Union College Annual XXVI (1955),
pp.
62, 63).
152
seas and that the dry land should appear and be
covered with
vegetation (Gen. 1:9-13). All this according to the
theory in
question transpired within twenty-four hours. But
continents
just emerged from under the seas do not become
thirsty land
as fast as that by the ordinary process of
evaporation. And yet
according to the principle revealed in Gen. 2:5
the process of
evaporation in operation at that time was the
ordinary one.
The results, indeed, approach the ludicrous when
it is
attempted to synchronize Gen. 2:5 with Genesis 1
interpreted
in terms of a week of twenty-four-hour days. On
that inter-
pretation, vegetation was created
on what we may call
"Tuesday". Therefore, the vegetationless situation described
in Gen. 2:5 cannot be located later than
"Tuesday" morning.
Neither
can it be located earlier than that for Gen. 2:5 as-
sumes the existence of dry
land which does not appear until
the "third day". Besides, would it not
have been droll to
attribute the lack of vegetation to the lack of
water either on
"Sunday"
when the earth itself was quite unfashioned or on
"Monday"
when there was nothing but water to be seen?
Hence
the twenty-four-hour day theorist must think of the
Almighty
as hesitant to put in the plants on "Tuesday"
morning because it would not rain until later in
the day! (It
must of course be supposed that it did rain, or at
least that
some supply of water was provided, before
"Tuesday" was
over, for by the end of the day the earth was abounding
with
that vegetation which according to Gen. 2:5 had
hitherto
been lacking for want of water.)
How can a serious exegete fail to see that such
a recon-
struction of a "Tuesday
morning" in a literal creation week is
completely foreign to the historical perspectives
of Gen. 2:5?
It
is a strange blindness that questions the orthodoxy of all
who reject the traditional twenty-four-hour day
theory when
the truth is that endorsement of that theory is
incompatible
with belief in the self-consistency of the
Scriptures.
But any strictly chronological interpretation of
Genesis 1,
even if the "days" are regarded as ages,
forces the exegete
inescapably into conflict with the principle
disclosed in Gen.
2:5.
The traditional day-age theorist must, for example,
imagine that during the creation era plants and
trees flourished
on the face of an earth spinning alone through a
sunless,
BECAUSE IT HAD NOT RAINED 153
moonless, starless void. Now it will be
recognized that that
is not ordinary botanical procedure - and yet Gen.
2:5 takes
for granted ordinary botanical procedure.
In the vain attempt to avoid such a
reconstruction, accord-
ing to which vegetation
(product of the "third day") thrives
without benefit of the sun (product of the
"fourth day"),
the most unwarranted notions of the work of the
"fourth day"
have been substituted for the straightforward
statements of
the text. Gen. 1:14-19 declares that the heavenly
bodies were
on the "fourth day" created and set in
their familiar positions.
Moses
is certainly not suggesting merely that hitherto hidden
heavenly bodies now became visible on earth. He
knew how
to express such an idea in Hebrew if that had been
his intent
(cf.
his account of the appearance of the continents from
under the seas, v. 9). The very least that transpired
on the
"day" in question is that the sun was brought into a
radically
new relationship to the earth wherein it began to
govern
earth's times and seasons and in general to
affect life on earth
as men now observe it to do. But the strictly
chronological
view of Genesis 1, even with such a minimizing
exegesis of
the "fourth day", must still suppose that
prior to this re-
ordering of the universe on the "fourth
day", plant life had
flourished on the earth contrary to present natural
law.
On this traditional reconstruction it is
impossible to make
sense of Gen. 2:5. Surely if vegetation could have
flourished
without the sun it could have survived without
rain. Laws
quite unlike any we know would then have prevailed. For
that matter, God could have preserved forests in
space without
so much as roots in a dry earth. It would then,
however, be
completely irrelevant for Gen. 2:5 to assign
natural reasons
for the absence of vegetation. Indeed, the very
fact that it
offered a perfectly natural explanation would
bring Gen. 2:5
into principial
contradiction to Genesis 1.
To the divisive higher critic this might mean
only that there
is another item to add to his list of alleged
contradictions
between the two variant creation accounts he
supposes he has
discovered in Genesis 1 and 2. But the orthodox
exegete,
having been confronted with the evidence of ordinary provi-
dential procedure in Genesis
2:5 will be bound to reject the
rigidly chronological interpretations of Genesis
1 for the reason
154
that they necessarily presuppose radically different
provi-
dential operations for the
creation period.
If Gen. 2:5 obviates certain traditional
interpretations of
Genesis
1, by the same token it validates the not so traditional
interpretation which regards the
chronological framework of
Genesis
1 as a figurative representation of the time span of
creation and judges that within that figurative
framework the
data of creation history have been arranged
according to
other than strictly chronological considerations.
To be sure, certain features are found in their
proper relative
positions chronologically. But where that is so it
must be
determined by factors other than the order of
narration. It is
perfectly obvious, for example, that the rest of
the "seventh
day", expressive of the divine joy in creation
consummated,
must follow chronologically the creation labors
themselves.
Again,
the implications of man's position as lord of creation,
the scope of the cultural mandate, and other
considerations
require that the creation of man concluded the
creative acts of
God
in the actual historical sequence as well as in the order of
narration.
Nevertheless, Genesis 2:5 forbids the conclusion
that the
order of narration is exclusively chronological. The
rationale
of the arrangement involves other factors. To some
extent
a topical approach informs the account. As has
been fre-
quently observed, a succession
of correspondences emerges
when the contents of "days" one to three
are laid alongside
the contents of "days" four to six.
Another literary interest
at work within this parallelism is that of
achieving climax, as
is done, for example, in introducing men after all
other
creatures as their king.
Of greater significance for the life of man than
these merely
literary devices is the Sabbathic
pattern of the over-all
structure of Gen. 1:1-2:3. For the Creator's way
in the day
that he made the earth and the heavens must be the
way, of
his image-bearer also. The precise ratio of man's
work to his
rest is a matter of following the chronological
structure of the
revelation in which God was pleased to record his
creation
triumph. The aeons of
creation history could have been
divided into other than six periods. For
temporally the
"days" are not of equal length (cf., e. g., the seventh "day"
BECAUSE IT HAD NOT RAINED 155
which is everlasting), and logically the infinitely
diversified
creative works were susceptible of analysis into
other than six
divisions. But the Creator in his wisdom, adapting
the pro-
portions of the ordinance, it would seem, to the
constitutional
needs of man, chose to reveal his creative acts in
terms of
six "days" of work followed by a seventh
"day" of rest.
The divine demand for human imitation inherent
in the
Sabbathic pattern of that revelation becomes
articulate in the
fourth word of the decalogue.
The comparison there drawn
between the divine original and the human copy
is fully satis-
fied by the facts that in
each case there is the Sabbathic prin-
ciple and the six-one ratio.
The argument that Genesis 1
must be strictly chronological because man's six
days of
labor follow one another in chronological succession
forces the
analogy unnecessarily. The logic of such
argument would
not allow one to stop short of the conclusion that
the creation
"days" must all have been of equal duration and
twenty-four
hours at that.
THE LITERARY GENRE OF GENESIS 1
Quite apart from the evidence of Gen. 2:5 the
figurative
framework interpretation of Genesis 1 which it
demands
would commend itself to us above the traditional interpreta-
tions. Only brief mention
will be made here of other lines of
evidence since it is the main burden of this
article to center
attention on Gen. 2:5 whose decisive import for
the Genesis 1
problem has (to the writer's knowledge) been
hitherto un-
appreciated.
The literary character of Gen. 1:1-2:3 prepares
the exegete
for the presence there of a stronger figurative
element than
might be expected were it ordinary prose. This
passage is
not, of course, full-fledged Semitic poetry. But
neither is it
ordinary prose. Its structure is strophic and
throughout the
strophes many refrains echo and re-echo.
Instances occur of
other poetic features like parallelism (1:27; 2:2)
and allitera-
tion (1:1). In general then
the literary treatment of the
creation in Genesis 1 is in the epic tradition.
Having made such an observation concerning the
literary
156
genre of the creation record, it is imperative
(especially in the
present theological scene) that one convinced of
the genuinely
historical nature of the events recorded in the
opening chap-
ters of Genesis promptly add
that the disregard for historical
truth associated with the usual epic is not imported
along
with the formal literary aspects of the epic style
into the
divine revelation. Such importation was no more
inevitable
than that the polytheism of pre-biblical psalmody,
for example,
must have been carried over with the religious lyric
form into
the biblical Psalter. Though Genesis 1 be epic in
literary style,
its contents are not legendary or mythical in
either a Liberal
or Barthian sense. The
semi-poetic style, however, should
lead the exegete to anticipate the figurative strand
in this
genuinely historical record of the origins of the
universe.
It also needs considerable emphasis, even among
orthodox
exegetes, that specific evidence is required for
identifying
particular elements in the early chapters of
Genesis as literary