The creation of hā’adām
explicitly associates him with hā’ādāmā (“the soil,” as with his
“absence” in 2:5). The repetitions of these words create a Leitwort
effect in the story. The words echo each other (and are probably etymologically
related by the root ‘dm, which has a basic meaning of “red,” although
this is not significant in the narrative). From this likeness comes many
aspects of human nature. The most tangible sense is that humans are physical
creatures, made of soil. This earthy, fleshy quality of humans distinguishes
them from Yahweh, who is a nonmaterial being, dwelling in heaven (e.g., 11:5,
“Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower”). By Yahweh forming the human
from the earth’s soil, he defines humans as categorially different from gods.
This difference—and the human desire to overcome it—is the focal point for the
transgression, transformation, and punishment in the story.
The resolution of
this crisis in the finitude of life outside of Eden is foreshadowed in the
human’s earth nature, as Yahweh God articulates in his judgment, “You are dust,
and to dust you shall return” (3:19). This earth’s soil is the human’s origins
and destiny. The woman is included in this destiny, since she is implied in the
concept of hā’adām, both because of the word’s collective meaning and
because of her origins as “bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh” (2:23).
All humans must die. Further, the man must work the soil in pain, by the sweat
of his brow (3:17-19). Once again, hā’adām oscillates between its
collective and its singular (and gendered) meanings. In the complex
relationship between hā’adām and hā’ādāmā , we see a
philosophy of life is the ancient agricultural society, a painful realism in
its understanding of human origins and destiny. (Ronald Hendel, Genesis
1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 1A; New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2024], 160-61)
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