The Breath of Life

In Genesis 2:7, we read the account of the creation of man. A personal God created a personal man for personal fellowship with Himself. Here, it is Person to person. It is not an abstraction. It is not some mysterious force at work in the universe, but it is a Person creating another person in order to have fellowship with that person. To me, this so vividly brings out the fact that one main reason that God created man was to enjoy fellowship with him.

Picture the scene! The Lord kneeled down, took dust in His hands, mixed it with water, and molded it into the body of a man. But it was lifeless! Then, something marvelous happened. The Creator leaned forward, put His divine lips against the lips of clay, pressed His divine nostrils against the nostrils of clay, and breathed life into them. His breath penetrated the form of clay and transformed it into a living human being with every organ of its body functioning perfectly, and with all the marvelous spiritual, intellectual, and emotional responses of which a human being is capable. No other being has ever been created in such a way.

The words used to describe this miracle are particularly vivid. The Hebrew language is one in which the sounds of certain words relate directly to the action they name. The sound of the Hebrew word translated “breathed” can be rendered yip-pach. It consists of a tiny, internal “explosion,” followed by a forceful, ongoing release of air from the throat. Thus, it vividly represents the action it names.

As the Lord stooped down over those lips and nostrils of clay, He did not let out a languid sigh. He exhaled a forceful breath into that body of clay, which thus received a miraculous impartation of the very life of God.