Bible Study Genesis Part 26-A Mist Watered the Earth

Genesis 2 sounds simple until you actually slow down and let the words land. We read the passage straight, then wrestle with what it implies: the repeated name “Lord God” (Jehovah Elohim), a garden called Eden, and a Creator who prepares a home for humanity before we ever take our first breath. If the word "Eden" really carries the sense of pleasure and “jubilant living,” it reframes the ache so many of us feel. Life in the wilderness is not what we were made for, and that tension becomes a signpost pointing back to God’s design and God’s rescue. 

We also talk plainly about the modern reflex to treat Genesis like a fairy tale. Cultural groupthink does not usually argue with Scripture line by line, it just trains us to feel embarrassed for believing it. I share why I still say, without qualification, that I believe Genesis and I believe the Bible, even when I do not understand every detail and even when doubt tries to grind me down. Faith is not the absence of questions; it is choosing to trust God’s character and keep walking. 

Then we zoom in on a single controversial detail: “mist.” Some interpreters want to change it to “streams” to make the text sound more acceptable to scientific sensibilities. We push back hard on that and make a case for careful study followed by honest submission to what the text actually says. Subscribe for the rest of this Genesis series, share this with a friend who struggles with doubt, and leave a review.

Transcript

Why Scripture Comes First

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Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold. And we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Reading Genesis 2 Aloud

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Alright, so we are back in the book of Genesis. We've been here for a few months. We were just talking about how long it's taken us to just to get to the first few verses of chapter two. And I'm doing it purposely. We have to take our time going through these things, I think, because we've been gypped. We've been cheated in our normal religious education, if you want to call it that. As far as I know, whenever I was in church, I never heard anything about the book of Genesis. We finished the letter to the Ephesians. I may have heard maybe 5% of that when I was in church. And these things we need to know. God gave us this book for a reason. All right, tonight I'm going to do something that we don't normally do. I'm going to read ahead because there is a lot to talk about here. I'll have uh specific comments about each verse a little later, probably starting next week, but for now, let's just read. We'll start again at verse four. We've covered verse four a few times, but we're going to start at verse four and read all the way down. Hopefully, you have your Bible open to Genesis chapter two. If you don't, you can look at the screen. Catherine takes a lot of time to put up all of our notes. So if you want to follow along on the screen, she has the King James Version. That's my preferred version. It's okay if you read some other version, English standard, NIV, doesn't matter to me as long as you have a Bible with you. Here we go. By the way, this isn't going to take very long. It looks like a lot on the screen, but it isn't really going to take that long because there's really not a whole lot in this chapter as far as words are concerned. Here we go. There's a lot of content though. These are the generations. We're starting at verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Pay attention to how many times they used the word Lord God. As you remember, that's Jehovah Elohim. There's something special in that name. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God, Jehovah Elohim, formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into him into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Verse

Eden And God’s Intended Joy

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8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. Now the root of the original word means soft or pleasure. And get this. It also means to use something jubilantly to the full. That's what the complete word study dictionary says. That is the name God gave to the home he prepared for mankind. Now remember, names are important to God. The name he gives to something characterizes what's being named. And the name he gave to the place he was going to put mankind in is Eden. And that name invokes the image of a life of pleasantness, a life of joy, a life of jubilant living. I love that word jubilant. That's what that word means. Listen to me. God all along intended that our lives would be pleasurable. We were never meant, we were never supposed to be in a wilderness struggling for survival. Why do you tell us these things, John? Are you trying to make us feel bad? I'm trying to get you to see what sin has done to mankind. Originally, mankind was supposed to live in a place that was called jubilant living, a pleasure place. He didn't design us for the wilderness that we now live in. Why do you think life is so miserable for all of us? Because we were never meant to be out here. And that is why he's trying so intently to get us back to where we belong. We don't belong here. A true child of God is never comfortable outside the garden. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 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 the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Verse 10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pishon or Pisan, that is which compasseth the whole land of Havila, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. There is Bedelium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon. The same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. Verse 14. And the third name, and the name of the third river is Hedekal, that is, which goeth east toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. I don't know about you, but I only caught one of those. We'll talk about those later. Verse 15. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, 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. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him and help meat for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. Remember what we said before? Those in authority are allowed to name. God brought the animals to Adam so that he could name them. That tells us Adam was in charge. And whatsoever Adam called every living being, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord caused, and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from a man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Skepticism And The Cost Of Belief

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Now, let me start out by saying what I've said more than a few times since we started this part of the Bible. I believe everything the book of Genesis says. To me, it's all truth. Wait, what? You couldn't. It's nothing but a bunch of nonsense. John, you're an educated, modern man with a well, I guess it appears to be only slightly below average intelligence. Surely you can't look at this drivel and give it the least bit of credibility. But you see, I do. And by the way, that is a real conversation I've had with people. People have said those things to me. They have said, you can't possibly believe the Bible. I know you. You went to college, you have college degrees. You can't possibly believe that stuff in the Bible. But I do. Let me state it again. I believe everything in the book of Genesis. In fact, I believe everything in the Bible. Now I didn't say I understood it all. I likewise didn't say it was easy to believe at times, but what's new? My wife says she loves me, and I don't understand that. And I certainly find it hard to believe someone as wonderful as she is is my wife. But I trust her. You know, we seem to willingly give lots of people the benefit of the doubt when they say something that seems too incredible, but God gets no such consideration from most modern human beings. In fact, it seems to have become a matter of conditioning. The way the world treats any sort of religious thought is with, well, I guess I wouldn't say disdain so much. Maybe contempt is a bit softer and a little more accurate. I've told you before, in my experience, most modern Christian or modern critics of all things spiritual are usually polite with their opposition. I'll give them that. Normally you don't find outright vitriol of any sort toward religion. That of course does exist, but it's rare. Nonetheless, the critics will make believers feel well embarrassed for their position on the unseen. You will be treated like an outsider if you declare that you believe in God and in what he says. And with the rise of the scourge of groupthink in our society, that can have real impact. The desire to fit in is very strong in the 21st century. Descent from the accepted norm is met with great criticism. A lack of willingness, listen to me, a lack of willingness to embrace the popular narrative, whatever that may be, is your ticket to Shunsville. And right now, saying you believe in the Bible and saying you believe in God and you accept Jesus as your savior will only get you in society jail. In fact, you'll likely be labeled a racist or a colonist or a bigot or just hateful. I mean, isn't that incredible? Bible-believing Christians are often accused of hating people. The Christian ethic is now considered odious. Now, why am I bringing this up? Well, because I'm fairly certain that for at least a couple of you, I have no one in mind, but probably a couple of you, that when I was reading those verses from Genesis 2, it aroused a bit of internalized automatic skepticism. You heard me mention how God watered the whole earth with the mist to make the seeds grow, and that made you perhaps subconsciously, perhaps not, roll your eyes in disapproval of my simplistic ignorance. He wanted to pat me on the head. Say, you poor, poor thing. You may have heard me read about the Garden of Eden, and in the back of your mind, you switched off your fact analysis and switched on your fairy tale defense mechanism. And I'm almost positive that some of you even recoiled when I read that section that describes how Eve was made. Though nothing was visible to me, I believe probably one of one or two of you did a private little disapproving head shake. If not only mentally. What we just read is not a popular portion of scripture in modern society, and I hate to tell you, it's not all that popular in church either. Almost this entire book is disregarded as myth because it does not seem to jibe with our modern sensibilities. And the book of Genesis is probably the biggest offender. Now, most will listen politely, but in the end, they'll give it no further thought because, well, they outright reject what's being said. Well, let me make my personal declaration again. I believe God. He's never lied to me, and he's never been proven wrong. Listen, I know there are more than a few statements in this small section that seem to go against several prevailing scientific positions. And there are a few other things that go against our current cultural mindset. Nonetheless, I choose to believe God and ignore the world. But come on, John. I mean, is it actually possible that you don't have even a little trepidation about some of that stuff? Listen, being a Christian does not require living doubt free. In fact, being a Christian largely means going on with God despite nagging doubts. I mean, the biggest example that I can think of is the fact that almost daily I doubt that God could love a sinner like me. But I take him at his word when he says he does. Believe me, the devil is going to assail you with doubts every chance he gets. I bring this up in the book of Genesis because this is where we lose most people. This is where we lose the world. They may believe the next 65 books, but they're not going to believe Genesis. That's why I keep bringing this up. Because I want you to understand. The guy you're listening to believes every single word, and you should too. The devil is going to try to get you to not believe. He's going to try to convince you this isn't what God said. And we're going to find out in the next chapter that he's been doing that as long as mankind has existed. But the mark of Christianity, the thing that separates us from all other human beings is our faith, our willingness to believe despite not knowing. So with those general comments, let's go on to some specifics.

Genesis 2 As A Detailed Retelling

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Now, this is not going to be easy, but it will be fascinating and uplifting if you hang in there. Back to verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that God made the earth and the heavens. I think we covered that enough. Verse 5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. Now, just a quick reminder. This entire section is in part a summary of what God has already done. So don't get confused and think, wait, didn't we already cover creation? We did. This is just a summary. This is a wrap-up. Here the author of the book of Genesis, as you remember, the person who wrote this book and the next four books was none other than Moses. Though people continue to argue against that, I believe it was Moses. Chapter two, at least this part of it, is Moses retelling with a little more detail what happened at creation. And this, by the way, is very common in the Old Testament. Many of the authors of these ancient books do the same thing, and we're glad for it. They say something and then go back and fill in the details. You're going to find that out as we go through all these old books. That's what's happening here. But with one important difference. Here, God is having Moses key in on the preparation and the activation of the creation of mankind. He sort of just kind of quickly glances over all the other stuff he's made, and then he's going to key in on the stuff he's done for man. Should give you an idea of what we've been saying all along. This creation was meant for mankind. The Bible has the very important backdrop of the relationship God has with us humans. It's the theme throughout. And that starts to emerge right here. Truly, chapter two of Genesis is one of the most important sections of the entire Bible. John, you say that all the time. It's true, I do. Back to verse 5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. Here is one of the clues we've been given as to the purpose of this creation. At the outset, listen to me, God put all manner of vegetation in the earth that would be useful to mankind. This verse reads as if God placed in a vault of sorts, a place of storage. The earth was created by God and in part used as a cabinet to store the things human beings were going to need to grow and thrive. It was all there just sitting waiting for mankind's arrival.

Creation Prepared For Human Need

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Our daughter Samantha is grown and lives with her husband a good bit away from us. Every once in a while, they'll let us know that they want to come for a visit. And we say, Of course, come on. She'll tell us what day. They expect to arrive. And then Catherine goes about making sure that they'll have the things that they're going to need to make their visit enjoyable. Maybe I'll even ask Carter, hey, Carter, can you help me put up the fence and back? Okay, sure, I'll help you out when I get there. So Catherine will make sure there are fresh towels in the linen closet. She'll be sure there's creamy peanut butter in the cupboard. Catherine and I like crunchy. Sam won't touch the stuff. Little things like that are done all through the house. New soap in the bathrooms, clean sheets on the bed. What's your point? Since we know she's coming, we prepare. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. The creation described thus far, I've said it a million times already. The creation so far looks like it's purposeful. And right here, God lets us in on the secret. This was not a mistake. This was not just a random act of God. God wasn't just bored, he did something purposely, and this is part of the clue. He stored away before he came, before mankind came, God stored away what he would need when he got here. He was going to need plants for medicinal and other purposes, housing, clothing, all the things we use plants for. Man's going to need fuel, he's going to need food, he's going to require shelter. God knew all of that. I mean, after all, mankind is the work of his own hands and mind. And so at the creation, and this is what this verse is telling us, at the creation, God stored away seeds and herbs and vegetables in anticipation of the arrival of man. When Sam gets here, we don't want to be running around trying to find the stuff she is going to need. So we put them in special designated places that we can get to when we have to break out what she's needing when she needs it. It's just good planning. When you're responsible, listen to me, when you're responsible for someone, when you love someone, you should think ahead, especially if you're going to need something specific from your guest when they arrive. When Carter gets here, I have all the tools laid out. I have the shovels we're going to need. I have the cement, the rocks, everything is sitting there waiting because I'm anticipating his coming. I'm prepared. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. Now, if I make the mistake of pulling out one of those towels to dry my flowing locks before say, honey, you don't have to laugh that hard before Sam gets here. Catherine stops me. Hey, don't bring out the provisions until they're needed. God saw no sense in having plants grow and trees grow and vegetables grow until the person for whom they were prepared arrives. Why would he? That's all this is telling us. All the plants and the herbs, by the way, the original word for plants and herbs, the original word infers vegetation used for sustenance. I'm telling you, God's ideal for us is to be vegan. That's what we're designed for. And that's not why Catherine and I switched to being vegans. It just happens to be healthier. Now I know it's healthier because that's what God created it for, anyways. Well, I saw you eating chicken at Christmas time. I did eat chicken once in a while. I'll eat chicken. It's good. Catherine makes a mean fried chicken. Everyone that knows that says amen. According to the Bible record, by the way, no one ate meat until after the flood. Check for yourself. No record of anyone eating any meat until after the flood. Discussion for another day. All the plants and herbs were in their seed form, just waiting for God to create the consumers thereof. His plan was to leave it that way until the time was right. So

Mist Or Streams Let It Stand

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no need for rain. But as the dawn of man approached, God took his creative plan to the next level, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. You know, you cannot go more than one or two verses in this book without something remarkable poking through. That's why it's taking us so long. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. At precisely the right time, God did something extraordinary. He caused a vapor cloud to rise up, and from it water flowed, fresh water, water necessary for the production of the types of fruits and vegetables and seeds man was going to need. That kind of water followed the rising up of this, what the King James calls a mist, a water flowed from this mist. Now, this is what I mean about Bible scholars. For reasons unclear to me, some don't want to accept scripture on face value. Believe it or not, this verse bothers some people. Some want to say that the word shouldn't be mist, but instead it should read streams. Why? Again, I don't know. The original word doesn't mean streams. It's used one other time in the Bible. It's found in the book of Job. Do you want to know what it's translated to there? Vapor. Vapors and mists are the same thing. Vapors and mists are not streams. But for some reason, that doesn't stop some from wanting to squeeze in here an interpretation that uses the word streams. It baffles me. The only thing I can come up with is that they think that scientifically it's not possible to water the entire earth with a mist. Human intellect says, no way that can happen. It has to mean something else. So to avoid the possibility of being criticized by scientists, large numbers of biblical scholars spend energy and time and resources and stretch the truth to make the scoffers less scoffy, I guess. So many theologians try desperately to make the Bible fit mainstream sensibility. So many preachers try to get you to accept that those that wrote the Bible just weren't smart enough to use the right words. Moses must not have known that mists can't water the whole earth. He should have said streams. He must have meant streams. But he was just too dumb to realize it. If he was smart like us, he would have written streams. You know, it seems as if Bible expositors are well embarrassed by the Genesis account. Of course, they don't want to completely reject the Bible. That wouldn't sit well with their soul. But so much of what's contained here, especially in these first few chapters, but really throughout Genesis, makes them uncomfortable. They think they have to apologize for God's lack of scientific understanding. They appear to judge God as just some old senile fuddy-duddy who's babbling about things in a nonsensical way. God seems to be making a fool of himself, and they figured they'd better step in and come to his rescue, you know, save his dignity or something. Screw that. God said a mist watered the earth. You know what that means? It means a mist watered the earth. Leave it alone. Let the Bible speak for itself. Yes, study it, verify it, make sure the translation is correct. But once you've done that, let the Bible be the word of God. I'm gonna stay on this soapbox through the rest of this Bible study. Yes, I went to college. I have a master's degree. That doesn't change anything. If nothing, my education taught me how much I don't know. God's word is true. It doesn't, the truth of it doesn't depend on me verifying it. Take it for what it says. That's what we're here for. That's why we're doing this. To get you to have confidence in the one who made the universe, that he is smart enough, strong enough, and God enough to make sure his word is true. I guess that's enough for now. We'll start tackling verse 7 next time. See you then.

Next Time And Ministry Updates

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We hope this study has blessed you. God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption. It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners. Please join us again soon. New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.