Previous posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
We are still attending to the creation stories in Genesis for so much of the biblical vision is contained in these narratives. They are a profound witness to God’s work and purpose in the world and the life to which humanity is called. The previous posts in the series emphasize our author’s declaration of the goodness of the world in the face of the desolation the people of Judah and Jerusalem suffered as their world was destroyed and they were taken captive to Babylon in 587/6 BCE. It dismisses the notion of other gods and declares that humans bear the image of God as caretakers of one another and the earth, sharing in God’s ongoing work of creating a good and just world. And with the second chapter of Genesis we are presented not only with the majesty of God, but God’s intimate presence with us and for us, and in this chapter is the profound truth that we are created for connection, for community.
then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
We have to go back and touch again upon the creation of the first human in Genesis 2. We have talked about the majesty of God’s creative act in Genesis 1 and the intimacy of God’s presence and work expressed here. Now we should note it is the breath of God that gives life.
The Hebrew word translated here as “formed”, “God formed” the man from the dust of the ground, is the word for a potter. We hear it in Isaiah:
Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8)
And God sends Jeremiah down to the house of the potter to witness the potter reshaping a lump of clay and says:
Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. (Jeremiah 18:6)
So, in Genesis 2, God is the potter working the dry earth into the form of a human and then breathing into it the breath of life. It is with that breath that the human figure becomes a living being.
The human creature is not a body plus a soul; it is a body brought to life. We are living dust. We are a miraculous combination of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and other elements that wondrously is a living thing. We breathe. We move. We learn. We dance. We wonder at the stars. We ponder the creation around us and the dust whereof we are made. All this is a gift of God. The divine potter fashions us and we are breathed into life by God’s own breath.
This wondrous, precious breath of life is gift. Our livingness belongs to God. It is given freely, lovingly, and for it we owe God our thanks, praise, and faithfulness.
And it means we should honor the life we’ve been given. We should honor the life given in others. The breath of God abides in them. And it abides in us.
There will come a day when it must be given back. But for now, it is given for us to live and love and tend God’s garden.
Breath of Life,
Eternal Companion,
walk with us
as we walk with one another.
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New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org© David K Bonde, 2021, All rights reserved