1. Translations of these verses raise frequent questions. Some believe that Genesis 2:5–6 contradicts Genesis 1. They dismiss Genesis as inaccurate or conclude that there are two creation accounts, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Item 3, on page 537, clarifies that confusion.
Other misunderstandings include the following: Genesis 1:11–12 describes the creation of vegetation, but Genesis 2:5 says there was no vegetation. Man was created in Genesis 1:27, yet Genesis 2:5–6 says ‘there was no man to cultivate the ground,” but man must be present before cultivated plants could grow, and in Genesis 1, plants came before man.”
These misunderstandings disappear when one realizes that “vegetation” in Genesis 1:11–12 is the Hebrew word deshe, meaning the plant kingdom. In Genesis 2:5, “shrub” (siach) and “plant” (eseb) are special kinds of cultivated plants. Following the latter two words with “ of the field” implies cultivation or farming of specific plants—not vegetation in general. Likewise, “beasts of the field” (Genesis 2:19–20, II Samuel 21:10, Psalm 8:7) are domestic animals, while “beasts of the earth” (Genesis 1:24–25) are wild animals. “Plants of the field” (cultivated plants) were probably not eaten until after the fall (Genesis 3:18).
My understanding of Genesis 2:5–6 is:
Crops were not yet growing on the newly created Earth. The Lord God had not sent rain, and man did not yet toil for food. [Hard labor came after the fall.] Heavy fog—a mist that rose up from the earth—watered the earth.
2. Earth’s preflood radius was about 180 miles larger than today, giving the Earth’s surface about 18 million additional square miles. [See “Shrinking Earth” on page 164.]
3. Some authorities say the Hebrew word for ‘in the midst of” means to bisect. [See “In the Midst of” on page 522.]
4. Had there been no variation in the raqia’s thickness or density, portions of the raqia would not have settled to the chamber floor and established the foundation of the Earth. Because those foundations were established in one day, the differences in the raqia’s thickness and density were considerable.
5. The seven references in the Bible to the “foundation of the Earth” are: Psalm 104:5, Proverbs 8:29, Isaiah 24:18, 40:21, 51:13, Jeremiah 31:37, and Micah 6:2
6. This analysis assumes that all the crust’s potential energy heated the subterranean water. Some of that energy would have heated the crust instead.
7. Oceans and other large bodies of water change temperature more slowly than land. Today, large temperature contrasts between the two generate strong wind systems. With less surface water before the flood, these temperature contrasts, and the wind they generated, would have been weaker.
8. Douglas Fox, “The Clouds are Alive,” Discover, April 2012, pp. 38–44.
9. The amount of rain runoff, depends on the soil, ground cover characteristics, slope of the land, rate of rainfall, and how dry or wet the soil is beforehand.
10. See Endnote11 on page 506.