Bible Strands
Genesis 2:7
Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Narrative, not speech. The LORD God acts alone, between the watering of the ground (2:6) and the planting of Eden (2:8), with no human witness present.
The words — יצר (yatsar, "formed") is the potter's verb, the same word used when God is called a potter shaping clay (Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:6). The name אדם (adam, "man") is etymologically bound to אדמה (adamah, "ground"), marking the man as made of the ground.
The thread — 1 Corinthians 15:45 quotes this verse directly ("the first man Adam became a living being") and sets it against "the last Adam." Ecclesiastes 12:7 reverses the sequence: dust returns to the ground, the spirit returns to God. Job 33:4 echoes the breath-of-God language.
Why it lands — Man is neither purely dust nor purely spirit but a composite held together by a divine act; the reader is asked to hold both halves without collapsing one into the other.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 12:7 before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
- 1 Corinthians 15:45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
- Isaiah 64:8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
- Acts 17:25 Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
- 1 Corinthians 15:47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.
- Job 27:3 as long as my breath is still within me and the breath of God remains in my nostrils,
- Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
- Genesis 7:22 Of all that was on dry land, everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
- Psalms 103:14 For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.