5. And every plant This verse is connected with the preceding, and must be read in continuation with it; for he annexes the plants and herbs to the earth, as the garment with which the Lord has adorned it, lest its nakedness should appear as a deformity. The noun שיה ( sicah, (110)) which we translate plant, sometimes signifies trees, as below, (Genesis 21:15 (111)) Therefore, some in this place translate it shrub, to which I have no objection. Yet the word plant is not unsuitable; because in the former place, Moses seems to refer to the genus, and here to the species. (112) But although he has before related that the herbs were created on the third day, yet it is not without reason that here again mention is made of them, in order that we may know that they were then produced, preserved, and propagated, in a manner different from that which we perceive at the present day. For herbs and trees are produced from seed; or grafts are taken from another roots or they grow by putting forth shoots: in all this the industry and the hand of man are engaged. But, at that time, the method was different: God clothed the earth, not in the same manner as now, (for there was no seed, no root, no plant, which might germinate,) but each suddenly sprung into existence at the command of God, and by the power of his word. They possessed durable vigor, so that they might stand by the force of their own nature, and not by that quickening influence which is now perceived, not by the help of rain, not by the irrigation or culture of man; but by the vapor with which God watered the earth. For he excludes these two things, the rain whence the earth derives moisture, that it may retain its native sap; and human culture, which is the assistant of nature. When he says, that God had ‘not yet caused it to rain,’ he at the same time intimates that it is God who opens and shuts the cataracts of heaven, and that rain and drought are in his hand.
(110) שיח Frutex, stirps; a shrub — “ cujus pulluli in summa tellure expatiantur,” — “whose shoots are spread abroad over the surface of the earth.” — Robertson’s Clavis Pentateuch. — Ed
(111) “And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.” — English version.
(112) It seems remarkable that Calvin should himself translate the word “ virgultum,” and then reason, in his commentary, as if he preferred the word “ planta.” — Ed.