1. Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis. Chapters 1-17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990),153.
2. We use First Man here rather than first man to describe the man God made, and referred to otherwise as Adam so as not to prejudge on the discussion on the origin of humans, i.e., whether these individuals were the very first members of the human race. Traditionally, Adam and Eve are assumed to be the first humans. The modern discussion, however, has gotten a great deal more complex. We use the monikers First Man, First Woman, and First Couple so that it is clear it is to Adam and Eve that we are talking about, quite apart from whether they were the first human couple.
3. William P. Brown, "Manifest Diversity: The Presence of God in Genesis," in Genesis and Christian Theology, ed. by N. MacDonald, M. W. Elliot, and G. Macaskill (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 23.
4. Cited on p25 in 3. above.
5. Job 36:27 (NIV): "[How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.] He draws up the drops of water, which distil as rain to the streams; . . ."
6. G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15. WBC 1; Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 58.
7. One suggestion is that rain is referenced here because the author was pointing towards Israel's neighbour whose cultures were centered on the great rivers—the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia and the Nile in Egypt—and canals that issue from them. Rain and dew, though they trace some sort of seasons, are never predictable or reliable. Deut 11:10-12 pointedly reminds the Israelites that the land flowing with milk and honey they were going to possess was unlike Egypt "where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden." It was "a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven . . . a land the Lord your God cares for." In declaring that the land was barren because Yahweh had not yet cause rain to fall upon it, the author of Genesis was taking a dig at his neighbours: it was Yahweh, not their pagan deities, who held the power of life and welfare in His hands.
8. There is an old Chinese expression for a worthless or imcompetent person selected for an important post—but usually used when the person had failed miserably—as "'bad clay' (i.e., dust) that will not hold up as a wall." Even mud walls used in ancient Chinese peasant houses must be of mud, not 'apar.