Genesis 2:7

‘And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.'

The word for ‘formed' is, among other uses, used of the potter shaping his material, and the writer, who by a quick reading of the rest of the narrative is shown to be a master of presenting his content in folksy fashion, is using it anthropomorphically to depict God's creative work as skilful and creative. But he carefully avoids making the thought too literal. There is no detailed description of how God did it. His language is illustrative not literal. His aim is rather to show the twofold side to man's creation, the aspect which ties him firmly to earth and the aspect which brings him in touch with heaven. In one sense man is of the earth, earthy. He is of the dust of the ground, made up of the same constituents as the animals. In the other his life is inbreathed by the breath of God. He has life from God.

Man (adam) is made ‘of the dust of the ground (adamah)'. He is outwardly made of earthly materials. His name Adam will ever remind us of his earthly (adamah) source. He is made of common materials, like the rest of the world, of the ‘adamah'. But where he is unique is in receiving the breath of God in the way that he does. How this ‘forming' took place then is not described or limited. It merely tells us that there was man and his final origin was the dust of the ground. It is the end product that concerns the writer, not the process.

The fact that this is breathed ‘into his nostrils' warns us against seeing this as an imparting of the divine spark, but the fact that God breathes into him at all, something that He does not do with the animals, demonstrates that this new life is intended to be seen as something unique, a ‘something other', that makes him distinctive from the rest of creation. He is not just an animal, he possesses something extra, something that comes directly from God. This confirms what Genesis 1:26 means by ‘the image of God'. He has received ‘spirit' (neshamah - breath, spirit). Compare Isaiah 42:5 where both neshamah and ruach (spirit) are used in parallel when connected with man; and see also Job 27:3. He is uniquely a ‘living being' in a sense that no other is.

Later the animals are said to be made ‘out of the ground (adamah)', thus the writer possibly introduces the term ‘the dust' here to keep some form of distinction between man and animals and to warn against too close a connection between ‘adam' and ‘adamah'. It is a reminder that while man is a receiver from the ground he is also a receiver of the divine breath. He is not quite so closely identified with ‘the ground' as the rest of creation. Or it may simply be in preparation for the fact that dust he is and to dust he will return (Genesis 3:19).

While it is true that in Genesis 7:22 neshamah is used of animal life and they also are described as ‘living beings' (nephesh chayyah - Genesis 1:24), here the use contrasts with the forming of the animals in Genesis 3:19 and is thus distinctive, and nowhere is it said that God directly breathed into the animals (the use of ‘breath' in Ecclesiastes 3:19 is totally different. The emphasis there is on earthly life). In one sense the relationship between man and animals is close, in another it is distinctive.

“The Lord God” (Yahweh Elohim). This use of the dual name is rare outside Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, and is only found elsewhere in the Pentateuch in Exodus 9:30 where it is connected with Yahweh as creator. The combining of divine names for a god is not unusual in ancient literature (see above). The writer wishes to stress that the Elohim of creation is Yahweh (‘the one who is', or ‘the one who causes to be' - see Exodus 3:14). No other is involved. It has also been suggested that here we have the combination of the God of creation (Elohim) with the God of history (Yahweh) as creation moves into ‘history'. See for this Psalms 100:3 where Yahweh is Elohim, Who has made us (creation) and is our shepherd (history).