What Does Genesis 5:2 Mean?
Male and female he created them, and blessed them, and called their name the ground-being, Adam, in the day when they were created.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.THE KEY
The name Adam is given to male and female together, so the verse places their shared humanity at the root of the generations that follow.
THE MEANING
You belong to a humanity this verse names together: male and female share the name Adam. The blessing rests on them as one community before the passage follows their generations.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that Adam names only the male: here the name belongs to both together.
THE ROOT
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
Humanity, linked in Genesis to אֲדָמָה (adamah), ground.
“the ground-being, Adam” in this verse is adam. Adam is not only an individual label here: it names male and female together. Its echo with אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground) carries an earth-linked sense into their shared human name.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
Its consonants and sound echo Adam; Genesis 2:7 makes the human-ground connection explicit.
adom: Red, reddish.
אָדֹם
The shared consonants carry a possible color echo associated with soil, adding material resonance without making color the name’s definition.
וַיְבָרֶךְ
vayvarekh
GROWS FROM
ברך
b-r-k
Bless; the related noun בֶּרֶךְ (berekh) means knee.
“blessed” in this verse is vayvarekh. The blessing reaches male and female together through the plural “them.” The related knee-word offers a bodily echo often associated with bending, while the verse’s plain emphasis is that both receive the blessing.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
This related form gives the blessing root an embodied resonance alongside the shared blessing in the verse.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This noun from the same root names what is bestowed on both male and female here.
THE PATTERN
A shared human identity holds across distinctions of sex, nation, and social standing.
And God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Genesis 5:2 gives אָדָם (adam, human) as the shared name of male and female; Genesis 2:7 places אָדָם (adam, human) beside אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground). The echo opens their shared name as earth-linked human nature, not a title limited to the male.
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