Trees (Gen 2:9)

Into and Out of the Garden

⁹ YHWH God caused to sprout from the ground וַיַּצְמַ֞ח יְ׳הוָ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ מִן־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה

We now resume our regularly scheduled program. We zoomed out last time for a look at Eden from a very different angle, and with a very different central character. Today, we are back in Genesis 2 and once more with a very narrow focus.

As you remember, the background information we were given to start this version of the story told us in v. 5 that plants were “yet to sprout.” I translated Gen 1:11 to say that God thought Let the earth sprout greenery, so ought to have explained when we got to 2:5 that “one of these sprouts is not like the other.”

Gen 1:11 uses the verb תַּֽדְשֵׁ֤א, from the root דשׁא, which I translated “greenery” there. Our verse uses a much more common root, צמח. I’ll just point out for the sake of Hebrew learners a subtle difference between v. 5 and v. 9. V. 5 uses the intransitive יִצְמָח yItzmaḥ, the Qal form, while v. 9 has transitive יַצְמַח yAtzmaḥ, the Hiphil form.

The biblical punctuation tells me to stop here, before the object of this transitive verb, but as we’ll see in a moment, it is “trees.” Because וַיַּצְמַ֞ח is that story-telling verb form that moves the action forward, we understand that these trees only sprout from the ground after the earthling has been placed there.

That leaves us with a question: When God planted the garden (in v. 8), what exactly did he plant? What did the garden look like before these trees grew in it? Was there a reason the trees were to sprout only now? This is the kind of detail that is easy to overlook, even for those who assume that the Bible is “inerrant.” In this case, most of the traditional Jewish commentators — at least the major ones whom I included in the Commentators’ Bible — did not even bother to comment on it.

One of them did, though. He is R. Levi ben Gershom, the 14^th-c. Provençal scholar known as Gersonides. He undoubtedly was thinking ahead to a particular one of these trees when he wrote:

In this story, a “tree” is metaphorical for comprehension, as in Prov. 3:18, where comprehension of Torah is described as “a tree of life to those who grasp her.”

It is no secret that “comprehension” in general will be part of the upcoming story. I tend to approach the text from a writer’s perspective rather than a philosopher’s, and I am guessing that the trees are planted now — onscreen, so to speak — because they are going to be a plot point before too long. If a gun on the wall in Act One is inevitably going to go off in Act Three, the converse is also true — you want the gun’s presence explained before the audience sees it go off. These trees, I think, are playing the role of Chekhov’s gun.

⁹ … every tree desirable for seeing or good for eating כָּל־עֵ֛ץ נֶחְמָ֥ד לְמַרְאֶ֖ה וְט֣וֹב לְמַאֲכָ֑ל

Before we dive deeper into the meaning of neḥmad, a quick word on the two phrases that describe the trees.