"He blew into his nostrils" (Gen 2:7)

Into and Out of the Garden

⁷ … He blew into his nostrils וַיִּפַּ֥ח בְּאַפָּ֖יו

“He blew into his nostrils” is va-yippaḥ be’appav. If you want to say there is a certain onomatopoeia to that expression, a certain sound of blowing in the word napaḥ and in the two double p sounds, I won’t argue with you. What’s hidden in those two pp sounds, by the way, in both cases, is really an -np- combination. For those who are learning Hebrew, or polishing up their Biblical Hebrew, we interrupt this close reading of the Bible for a paragraph or so on “the assimilation of n.”

The n sound — in any language — loves to assimilate to other sounds. Depending on what your mouth is about to do, it can change or even seem to vanish. English words that have the prefix in-, meaning “not,” are clear examples of this:

• You can be effective, or ineffective.

• You can be precise, or imprecise. Because of the P sound your mouth’s about to make, the N changes to an M.

• You can be legal, or illegal. There aren’t even two different sounds any more — just an L sound. But because we are representing the N of in- as well as the L of “legal,” we spell it and even pronounce it with a double L. We linger on that L longer than we would on a single L. That’s exactly what the dagesh — the dot inside the פּ of וַיִּפַּ֥ח and of בְּאַפָּ֖יו — does in Hebrew. (Learn more about all this from me in my Biblical Hebrew course. You will not be disappointed!)

In both cases, these are words that certainly weren’t created for the purposes of this statement. אַף af in particular occurs hundreds of times, since it means not only “nose” but (for reasons we’ll discuss when we get to Gen 27:45) “anger.” And these are the words you want to use to say what needs to be said here.

Nonetheless, the sound of the words is amplifying the sense, just as happens to a much greater degree in poetry. We saw the same thing in v. 5 with terem and himtir. I don’t think Genesis 2 is intent on being “literature”; these words are not (I don’t think) conveying extra meaning. That doesn’t mean these sounds are coincidental. A good writer is telling this story in language richer than simple prose.

Back to בְּאַפָּ֖יו for just a moment. I said that af means “nose,” but in the plural form used here it can also mean “face.” Exactly this word is used when someone falls to the ground, literally אַפַּ֖יִם אָֽרְצָה appayim artzah ‘face to the ground’. (Forgive me if this expression always makes me think of the Roches’ song “Face Down at Folk City.”) Technically appayim is not plural but dual — the unique Hebrew form used for pairs of things — like eyes and ears, hands and feet, and, when the nose is involved … nostrils.

The verb נפח n-p-ḥ is an interesting one. It does not occur anywhere else in the Torah nor in the Former Prophets. You will find it just another dozen times in the Bible — three of them in Job, but this time the meaning of the verb is quite clear. It is used several times in connection with blowing a metalsmith’s fire and once, amazingly enough, in Ezek 37:9, in the story of the dry bones: