Genesis 2:7: “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.”
I remember attending a rather boisterous prayer meeting where everyone was praying at once and out loud. There was one old boy who was really wailing and repeating over and over: “Oh, Lord, I am but dust…” I suppose he was implying that but dust meant he was nothing. Well, I will admit you can’t get any lower than but(t) dust. However, odds are he was not referring to but(t) as a noun, but to the Hebrew word ’aphar which is rendered as dust in Genesis 2:7 which would really be bragging. When we hear the word dust we usually think of very fine particles of skin, dead dust mites and/or fine dirt, etc. It is everything on earth that has been broken down to its lowest component.
What is thought provoking is that God fashioned man out of these dead broken down particles. If you check it out, you find that man is the only creature to be made from the ’aphar adamah (dust of the soil). Genesis 1:24 tells us he made the creatures of the earth from the ha’eres not from the aphar”(dust) or the adamah (soil).
In the creation story we have a reference to the ha’eres, which means land or soil, and the ha’adamah which also refers to the land or soil. ‘Adama is where we get the word for adam which is also a reference to land or soil. Then we have the word ‘aphar which we render as dust but could also mean land or soil. Yet, the Talmud teaches that in Classical Hebrew no two words can mean exactly the same thing, so all three of these words much carry some difference.
Looking at these words carefully we discover there is a major difference between man and animals. Animals were merely formed from the ha’eres which is a reference to everything in the land, rocks, sand, soil, etc. Man, however, was formed from the aphar” of the ha’adamah. As I indicated earlier ha’adamah comes from the root word adam and this is a reference to the fertile land, it is the life producing soil. Then we learn that God breathed a spirit (nephesh) into man and not into animals. We tend to think that it is this nephesh that sets us apart from the animal, however, we have other references in the Old Testament where animals are said to have a nephesh. So it cannot be the nephesh that sets a man apart from animals. Then what is that sets us apart from Gizmo the cat and us? It is the substance that we were created from that makes us different. Gizmo was made from the ha’eres, rocks, sand, soil etc. But we were made from the aphar or the dust of the ground.
So now we need to discover the distinction from aphar and ha’eres. Is aphar just fine particles ground down into microscopic size and blown in the wind? Is it just the molecules or atoms or the ha’adam (soil)? I have heard of Christians experiencing gold dust falling during worship services. Analysis of these particles show it is not real gold but just dust with a gold color. Maybe this is not gold dust but aphar. What was coming down was really the dust that God used to form man. Perhaps we got the wrong idea about this gold dust business. It is not sign of God’s prosperity or God showering this congregation with the best He has to offer. Maybe God was trying to show that during that worship service the saints who were intensely praising God had returned to the original state man was in before the fall, when man was in perfect harmony with God. Well, that is just some more of this dusty old professor’s musings.
Somewhere in the history of the church some scholars with the right credentials examined the Hebrew word ’aphar and declared aphar to mean dust in English. These scholars saw that such a rendering was good and therefore anyone to suggest anything more from the word ’aphar would be a heretic. So here I go again bucking tradition.
Yet, there appears to be something special about ‘aphar and perhaps dust is not our best English word to plug in here, although I have no clue as to what we could render it as. This word is spelled, Ayin, Pei and Resh. So right away I see the Ayin as the mind, the Pei as the body and the Resh as the Spirit. This dust that God used to create man somehow also gave man a connection with both the natural world and the Spiritual world which is something the animals do not have. The Ayin speaks of the mind, or deep insight. It implies the ability to reason and communicate. Now we know animals can communicate with each other and as a believer I believe they can communicate with God. However, no matter how developed an animal is in communicating, it cannot form a language with grammar and syntax to carry on a conversation. For man to have a free will, he must have a language. This is the one basic difference between an animal and man as an animal does not have a free will, it only acts on instincts.
Perhaps this ‘aphar dust which ends with a Resh representing the Spirit, really has a spiritual element, a light, something that forms a connection with the spiritual world and allows the Spirit of God to dwell in us. At the fall we lost this capacity but because of the death and resurrection of Jesus our bodies can now be the temple of God as it was intended to be. Until the redemptive work of Jesus, God could only dwell in an earthly temple, which contained the presence of God, the Shekinah, the fire of God, the Urim and Thumim and the Holy Spirit. The second temple did not contain these elements, but now, as both Jesus and Paul taught, our bodies are the temple of God. Through the redemptive work of God our bodies can contain what the animals cannot because they were not made of ‘aphar and in need of a redeemer. An animal’s body cannot be a temple of God as it was not formed from this mysterious aphar (dust).
I have noticed, like you may have noticed, that sometimes an animal will pause from his activity and look up at you. Perhaps that animal senses that presence of God, that Shekinah and/or the Holy Spirit that dwells in the redeemed. The animal kingdom longs to be close to its Creator. Perhaps that is why a squirrel pauses for a moment to stare at you. It is not you but his creator that he senses.
I don’t know what this mysterious ‘aphar is. Tracing this word through its Canaanite origins it means something that was the first particles that formed the natural world. I do not know what English word to put to it. But I am quite sure it is not dust as we know it, which is fine particles of dead skin or dead dust mites. It is not soil as the text would use the word ha’eres. It was something that came from the adama ground before God cursed the adama in Genesis 3:17. Maybe it is DNA?
Oddly the serpent was cursed to eat or consume the ‘aphar in Genesis 3:14, but it was not of the ‘aphar ha’adama. The very thing we were created out of, the serpent was to feed upon. Take that to bed with you tonight. Without the redemptive work of Jesus Christ we are just food for the enemy to feast upon. Ever feel like the enemy is feasting on you? Well, Jesus took care of that 2,000 years ago on cross so it is your own fault if you are the enemy’s blue plate special.
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