Genesis 2:4

4. These are the generations This verse is the heading to Genesis 2:4 to Genesis 4:26, and, of course, refers to what follows, not to what precedes. In every other passage of the Pentateuch where this formula occurs, it serves as a heading to what follows, and never as a summary of what precedes. Compare Genesis 5:1; Genesis 6:9; Genesis 10:1; Genesis 11:10; Genesis 11:27; Genesis 25:12; Genesis 25:19; Genesis 36:1; Genesis 36:9; Genesis 37:2; Numbers 3:1. “This would never have been disputed,” says Keil, “had not preconceived opinions as to the composition of Genesis obscured the vision of commentators . … Just as the generations of Noah, (Genesis 6:9,) for example, do not mention his birth, but contain his history and the birth of his sons; so the generations of the heavens and the land do not describe the origin of the universe, but what happened to the heavens and the land after their creation.” He further observes, that “the word תולדות , generations, which is used only in the plural, and never occurs except in the construct state, or with suffixes, is a Hiphil noun, (from הוליד , Hiphil of ילד ) and signifies, literally, the generation or posterity of any one, then the development of these generations or of his descendants; in other words, the history of those who are begotten, or the account of what happened to them and what they performed. In no instance whatever is it the history of the birth or origin of the person named in the genitive, but always the account of his family and life.”

Accordingly, it should be particularly noted that what follows is not the generations of Adam, though Adam and his immediate progeny are the subject of this section. The generations of Adam are given at Genesis 5:1, ff., and consist of his outgrowth and development through Seth; but vegetable growths, and the forming of Adam and Eve and paradise, and the narrative of the temptation and fall and expulsion from the garden, and of Cain and Abel and the progeny of Cain, are all treated as generations of the heavens and the land.

When they were created Hebrews, בהבראם , in their being created . That is, in their condition as having been created; or, upon their being created. To define this more fully we have the following immediately added:

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens That is, the historical terminus a quo of the following generations is the day in which JEHOVAH-GOD made land and heavens. The word day is not to be taken here as denoting the whole period of the creative week, as most commentators have supposed. Such a construction of the word misses the great controlling idea of this whole section. It grows out of the notion that the word generations refers back to what precedes, and so controls the exegesis of some writers who deny such reference of the word. We understand the word day here to denote the day in which God completed the land and the heavens, planted the garden of Eden, and formed Adam and Eve. The land and the heavens were not fully made until that day the sixth day of the preceding narrative. Here comes out the great distinction between ברא and עשׁה . This making עשׂות of the land and the heavens by Jehovah-Elohim is a different conception from the creation ( ברא ) of the heavens and the land by Elohim in Genesis 1:1. It points rather to a purpose for which the land and heavens were made . It denotes not so much their origin as their subsequent moulding into definite forms, and putting to definite uses . Compare note on Genesis 2:3 above, where both words occur together . Then note that the word land here precedes heavens, and, having the more emphatic position in the sentence, denotes that it now becomes the prominent scene of events . We are now to be told of generations, processes of birth, growth, and development, and the word ברא does not occur in this whole section . Accordingly, the terminus a quo of this section is the sixth day of the creative week, and so, according to the uniform usage of the Book of Genesis, the narrative here laps back upon the preceding section, and takes its start from the day in which God is conceived of as having made (completed) the land and heavens. We must notice, too, that land and heavens are here mentioned without the article, as being in themselves less definite than the idea of their being made by Jehovah-Elohim. Creation, so to speak, began with the Almighty and Pluripotent God, Elohim; its completion was wrought by Jehovah, the Personal God of revelation, of moral law, and of love. But these are not two different Beings. “In this section the combination Jehovah-Elohim is expressive of the fact that Jehovah is God, or one with Elohim. Hence, Elohim is placed after Jehovah. For the constant use of the double name is not intended to teach that Elohim who created the world was Jehovah, but that Jehovah who visited man in paradise, who punished him for the transgression of his command, but gave him a promise of victory over the tempter, was Elohim, the same God who created the heavens and the earth.” Keil.