Mist or Steam?

And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

(Genesis 2:5-6) KJV

The context of the mist that went up is important. It’s part of the narrative of the week of creation when the fountains of the great deep had to be sealed after the deep had drained through them into the interior of the Earth.

Otherwise the waters of the great deep would up-well at each of the fountains rather than at Eden, where the four rivers originated. We know that the fountains were sealed because they had to be broken open at the time of Noah’s flood. We can speculate that lava or magma was used to seal the fountains, and this is what caused the mist to rise up. This is another application of predictive testable Hypothesis 22.

When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:

(Proverbs 8:28) KJV

If strengthening the fountains of the deep is when they were sealed shut with molten lava that could certainly cause the clouds to be established as steam billowed up from the earth. But you know, connecting the mist rising up with sealing the fountains of the great deep then speculating about lava or magma being the cause is the kind of thing that gets us accused of writing SciFi. The only way to deal with this is to search out the original Hebrew in case some meaning has been missed.

For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly.

(Job 36:27-28) ESV

In this case there isn’t much to go on. The Hebrew word translated as mist clearly demonstrates understanding of the evaporation and condensation aspects of a hydrological cycle, so it’s application to mist or steam is appropriate. We have to let our context show us which, the word isn’t specific.

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