The Torah, or Pentateuch of Moses:
GENESIS
Chapter Two

St. Pachomius Library Translation of the Septuagint

1. And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the adornment of them. COMMENTARY
2. And on the sixth day God ended his works which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made. COMMENTARY
3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his works which God began to do. COMMENTARY
4. This is the book of the generations of heaven and earth when they came to be, in the day that the LORD God made the heaven and the earth, COMMENTARY
5. And every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and every herb of the field before it sprang up: for [the LORD] God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to dress it. COMMENTARY
6. But there went up a fountain from the earth, and watered the whole face of the land. COMMENTARY
7. And [the LORD] God formed man, dust from the ground, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul. COMMENTARY
8. And [the LORD] God planted a paradise eastward in Edem; and there he put the man whom he had formed. COMMENTARY
9. And out of the ground made [the LORD] God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of paradise, and the tree of learning that which is to be known of good and evil. COMMENTARY
10. And a river went out of Edem to water paradise; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11. The name of the first is Phison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold; COMMENTARY
12. And the gold of that land is good: there is carbuncle and the light-green stone. COMMENTARY
13. And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Aethiopia. COMMENTARY
14. And the name of the third river is Tigris: that is it which goeth over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. COMMENTARY
15. And the LORD God took the man whom he had formed, and put him in the paradise of delight to dress it and to keep it. COMMENTARY
16. And the LORD God commanded Adam, saying, Of every tree of paradise thou mayest freely eat: COMMENTARY
17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. COMMENTARY
18. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. COMMENTARY
19. And out of the earth [the LORD] God formed yet farther every beast of the field, and every bird of the heaven; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living soul, that was the name thereof.
20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to all the fowl of the heaven, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help like to him. COMMENTARY
21. And [the LORD] God caused a trance to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; COMMENTARY
22. And the rib, which [the LORD] God had taken from Adam, he built up into woman, and brought her unto Adam. COMMENTARY
23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of her Man. COMMENTARY
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25. And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.

• v. 1, "adornment": Gk. kosmos, with obvious associations. The word also means "orderly array".
• v. 2, "sixth": The Masoretic Text has "seventh".
• v. 3, "began to do": Gk. erxeto poiesai. The same phrase is used in Acts 1:1.
• v. 4, "the book of": Not in the Masoretic Text.
• v. 4, "LORD": The Masoretic text distinguishes between Adonai, "the Lord", and the Divine Name JHWH, which the translators of the King James Bible render as "LORD". In the LXX, both are translated as Kyrios. Our version follows the KJV convention whenever possible.
• v. 5, "green thing": The Masoretic Text has instead siach, "shrub".
• v. 5, "earth ... man": In Hebrew: adamah ... adam.
• v. 6, "fountain": Gk. pege, which can also mean "spring" or "stream". The Masoretic Text has the rare word ed, usually translated "mist" or "vapour", but considered by E. A. Speiser (BASOR 1409, 9 [1955]) to be a Sumerian loan-word meaning "flow".
• v. 7, "man, dust": Thus both LXX and MT, although "made from dust" is usually understood. "Man is earth in a suffering state, for the formation of Adam was from the face of the earth," [Barnabas 6:9]. St. Justin Martyr [De Resurr. vii] was among the first to use this verse against Platonising Gnostic "spirituality", saying: "It is evident, therefore, that man made in the image of God was of flesh. Is it not then absurd to say that the flesh made by God in His own image is contemptible?"
• v. 7, "face": Masoretic Text "nostrils", a typical example of the LXX tendency to use more abstract language.
• v. 8, "Edem": The Hebrew is of course Eden, meaning "delight".
• v. 9, "to the sight": Literally, "for seeing". The precise Greek words may have been chosen for their sound: oraion eis horasin.
• v. 11, "Phison": Hebrew Pishon. Some have suggested a connection with the Phasis, according to Herodotus (4, 37, 45) a river in the neighbourhood of Colchis.
• v. 11, "Evilat": Hebrew Chawilah.
• v. 12, "carbuncle": Gk. anthrax usually means coal or charcoal but occasionally refers to an unidentified dark red gemstone, possibly a ruby or garnet, known in Latin as a carbunculum, "little coal". Aristotle (De Meteor. iv 387(b)18) says that "carbuncle" is more resistant to fire than any other gemstone. The Masoretic Text has bdolach, the meaning of which is uncertain. It has often been suggested that bdolach is the aromatic tree-gum known to the classical world by the foreign name "bdellium"; if so, one must wonder why the LXX translators did not simply use that word.
• v. 12, "light green stone": Gk. lithos prasinos, perhaps meaning "emerald", although a specific word for emerald exists. The Masoretic Text has eben ha-shoham, translated "onyx" in the KJV but also more probably "emerald".
• v. 13, "Gehon": Hebrew Gichon.
• v. 13, "Aethiopia": Hebrew Kush. Those who wish to locate Eden in Mesopotamia often claim that Kush here is not African or Indian Cush, as understood by the LXX, but the land of the Cassites.
• v. 14, "Tigris": Hebrew Chidekel; both perhaps from the Akkadian Idiqlat, according to E. A. Speiser.
• v. 14, "Euphrates": Hebrew Phrath.
• v. 15, "of delight": Here the LXX translates eden rather than treating it as a place-name.
• v. 17, "surely die": Gk. thanato apothanetesthe, Hebrew muth tha-muth. Both mean literally something like "die of death", but with a greater intensity than the English phrase suggests.
• v. 18, "meet for him": Gk. kat' avton using kata in the sense of "according to, corresponding to". The Masoretic Text has ezer knegdo, "help of his like".
• v. 19, "yet farther": Presumably meant to clarify the problem that the animals have already been created. The word is absent in the Masoretic Text.
• v. 20, "gave names": Gk. ekalesen onomata, which could mean either "gave names" or "called by name" or even "called out the names".
• v. 21, "trance": Gk. ekstasin.
• v. 22, "built up": Gk. ojkodomesen, "built" [a house, etc.]. The same idea is conveyed in the Hebrew: banah.
• v. 23, "Woman ... Man": Hebrew ishah ... ish. In both the LXX and the Masoretic, this is the only verse in the chapter where the text uses the specifically male word for "man", also meaning "husband" in both languages.