Genesis 2:5-6

No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground.

I wanted to take this post explain why I don’t agree with so many wonderful Bible teachers in regard to the idea that it didn’t rain before the flood of Noah’s day. This is a very minor issue in my understanding so I don’t intend to stir up any distrust against any other leaders who take this view. I stand with every Bible teacher who holds to the Bible as their ultimate standard. That being said, I would like to explain my position and why I hold it.

As you have probably realized if you have been reading my writing for a while, I am a pretty critical and logical thinker. When statements don’t seem to go together it bothers me enough to think about it for a long time. In the case of these verses, I had a logical issue that I believe God helped me to resolve.

I had assumed as I been taught, that it hadn’t rained before the flood of Noah’s day because of what these verses say. I had also been taught that Adam had probably passed this text down, either in written form or by oral tradition until Moses was told by God to write it down. What I realized, was that these two things don’t go together logically. The problem is that if Adam was responsible for these words, then why would he mention “rain” in the creation story. If rain didn’t fall until after Adam, how would Adam know to speak or write the word “rain?” To him there would have only been mist.

Then, I was reminded by Answers in Genesis (A wonderful Christian organization) that believers don’t necessarily believe that this meant that there was no rain before the flood.
This could easily have been referring to the period of time before man was created. When I looked at the text closer, it seemed to make even more sense that this is what was being communicated. The text suggests that we recognize logically that mankind would be needed to tend the earth and that rain would be needed to grow grass. In other words, the Bible appears to be telling us that it realizes that rain is required for hydrological cycle to properly water the ground for vegetation and mankind would do some work in the soil too.

I now believe that God is just telling us that, in the days before rain came, He was handling the situation with an irrigation system from the ground. This very easily could have been heated air from under the earth that was coming up out of the ground like small geysers. It was good enough to cover the whole ground. It must have been a spectacular natural sprinkler system. It is comforting to know how much God cares for every detail of His creation even for the few days before the rains started.