Genesis Study: Week 8 - 1:11

The Earth Will Yield

Genesis 1:11 LSB

Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation…

“And God was saying, ‘The earth will sprout sprouts…”

Connecting the pieces from last week, we have the passive, causative “sprout” verb (dasa - root, tadese in the current form) being done to the earth (eretz). The earth is the dry land which “appeared” in the midst of “the lower waters” (the seas). The noun used for “vegetation” (dese) has the same root as the “sprout” verb which would effectively render this as “the earth will sprout sprouts!” where “sprouts” are the beginning shoots of most trees and plants and whatnot. The word for sprouts is also a singular noun indicating that “sprouts” is a kind of “class” of object rather than how we say “sprouts” more loosely.

I don’t quite know exactly how God enacted this, but what’s cool is God basically invokes the action “to sprout” seemingly at the same time as He commands the noun “sprouts” to effectively “do your thing!” To command sprouts which are a brand new kind of thing “to sprout” is just an interesting paradigm to dwell on. How/why is there a word for “sprouting” when there is nothing to sprout yet? Or does “to sprout” basically just mean “to do what sprouts do”?

Genesis 1:11 LSB

…plants yielding seed…

I believe that this portion of the sentence is an explanation of the “vegetation” noun which effectively renders this portion something like, “the earth will sprout sprouts which are a kind of plant yielding seed, which is distinct from the kind of tree we will talk about next.”

The word here for “plants” is “eseb” (עֵשֶׂב) which basically just means “green plants” and has a particular focus on the kinds of things that animals and people gravitate towards: seed bearing fruits, grass, herbs, etc. It is actually singular here, which is very interesting. This seems to imply that Genesis is directly using something akin to “the form of plant” that is universal, sort of how we use “wood” as a class of object, not one particular sub-class. The word for “seed” is “zera” (זֶרַע) which has a large range of meaning that basically still holds today even in English. It means “the kernel of a plant that propagates the species”, semen, children/offspring, family, race, etc. This is also a class-style singular noun.

The word for “seed” here is the same as in the curse and promises of Genesis 3:15.

— HAVE SOMEONE READ GENESIS 3:15 —

This word will be very important to track as we go throughout the book, and maybe the entire Bible, because the word directly pertains to the curse to Satan and the Promise to Eve. So making sure that we watch the use of this word or any of the words that might also be derived from it (family, semen, offspring, etc), especially throughout Genesis in particular, will be very important.

Genesis 1:11 LSB

…and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”…

I’m going to swap the way this is laid out because the actual flow in the Hebrew is quite different than regularly presented:

“…the kind of plant which yields seed, and the kind of tree of fruit which bear fruit after their kind with that seed in it on the earth…”

The word here for trees is also singular indicating a “class” of object as is “fruit”. This seems to be directly inline with the idea later in the verse of things basically following the design/plan for their whole “kind” or “class” of object to which they belong.

Now the word for “kind” is explicitly used for the first time which is “min” (מִין). This word means “kind”, “class”, “species” which are effectively categories that are collective but distinct from others which might share some other commonalities to this one.

The word for “bearing” in this usage means effectively: “to make”, “to do”, “to work”, “to be made”, or “to cause” which is interesting because “to bear” feels like more of a “birthing” connotation than a “thing which makes a thing like it”, although birth is similar this word does not seem to ever imply birth or birthing.

This pattern of “kind after kind” with the similar phrasing of something like, “the kind of plant with plant seed yield the kind of plant with plant seed and the kind of tree of fruit with tree of fruit seed yield the kind of tree of fruit with tree of fruit seed.” persists even into the description of the pattern that the animals will follow in future verses.

— HAVE SOMEONE READ GENESIS 1:21 —

Genesis 1:11 LSB

…and it was so.

“And what God was saying was being true to itself.”

The things that God has just done and declared are in their honest, right, correct, or “pertaining to the truth” state, just as they should be.