God's initial watering system

Gen. 2:5 "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. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."

Oftentimes people make the assumption that when God first created the heavens and the earth that everything is just like it is today. However, this is not the case. There were a few things that were different than the way things are today. Today, the earth is generally watered with rain from the clouds above us. This was not the way it was when God initially created the heavens and the earth. There was a mist that went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. Rain is not recorded in the bible until the days of the great flood in Noah's day. This was nearly two thousand years into man's history on the earth. This was nearly one-third of the earth's existence so far without rain.

This mist was not dew that we occasionally see on the grass when the temperature and atmospheric moisture conditions are right. This was enough moisture that rivers of water flowed. To understand how this mist came about we need to look back on creation itself in Chapter 1: 6 "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." The firmament was an atmospheric expanse that divided the waters which were above the firmament from the waters which were below the firmament. In the days of the great flood we read: Gen. 7:11 "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." During this cataclysmic flood water came from three sources: rain, fountains of the great deep, and windows of heaven.

Thus, it is safe to conclude there was a great body of water that surrounded the outer atmosphere of the earth before the great flood. This envelope of water would have acted as a greenhouse to the earth. Years ago I owned a greenhouse and grew tomatoes in that greenhouse. One of the things that I learned is that each morning there would be a mist that consisted of water that arose from the earth and fell back upon the earth. It was in this manner that the earth was watered before the great flood. This mist watering the earth under a greenhouse envelope of water in the outer atmosphere would have resulted in a uniform, consistent, and steady water supply to the plants and would have resulted in much greater plant growth yields than we generally have today. This outer atmospheric water envelope over the earth will explain several things that are given to us in the next few chapters of Genesis.