Genesis 2:6 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

There went up, from time to time, by God's appointment, a vapour, or cloud, which going up into the air, was turned into rain, and fell down again to the earth from whence it arose; whereby the earth was softened, and disposed both to the nourishment of those plants or trees that were created, and to the production of new plants in a natural and ordinary way. But these words may be otherwise understood, the copulative and, here rendered but, being put for the disjunctive or, as it is Exodus 21:15, Exodus 21:17, Job 6:22, Job 8:3, and in other places. Or, the negative particle not may be understood out of the foregoing clause, as it is usual in the Hebrew language, as Psalms 1:5, Psalms 9:17, Psalms 44:19, Psalms 50:8, Isaiah 28:27-28. And so these words may be joined with the foregoing, and both translated in this manner, There was no rain, nor a man to till the ground, or (or nor, for both come to one thing) so much as a mist which went up from the earth, and watered (as afterwards was usual and natural) the whole face of the ground.