Frymer-Kensky again, commending on the third day of the creation week: “on the very same day that the earth is created, God also creates the plants and trees. This double creation on the third day emphasizes the significance of the fact that on the very same day God creates the earth, God makes the earth fertile. There never was, not even for one day, a time that the earth was barren.” (Supplement at the origin!)

She draws from this the striking conclusion that “Just as people do not have to think about helping the sun to rise, because God created it to rise and set, so too they do not have to think about helping the earth to be fertile, for this is the way it was created.” Human beings can pollute the land by evil actions, and when they do there is no ritual purification available: “the pollution builds up until it reaches a critical mass, when the earth explodes or the land of Israel vomits out its inhabitants.” But, “in the absence of such disastrous pollution, the earth is an inherently fertile constant.”