I mentioned before that Genesis 2:4 tells me that the order isn’t the point, so I’m comfortable with the order of Genesis 1 (plants before man) not being consistent with Genesis 2:5, where the plants do not seem to exist when God creates man. However, there is another approach.
when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because God יהוה had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth — God יהוה formed the Human from the soil’s humus, blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being.
Genesis 2:5-7 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)
The key is in the word “טֶרֶם” (terem). Some bibles translate it as “before,” but the Rabbis say that this word gives us a tension of “almost, but not quite,” like the way one waits for the green signs of life to break through the surface of the ground. There, but not yet.
טרם יהיה בארץ WAS NOT YET IN THE EARTH — Wherever טרם occurs in the Scriptures it means “not yet” and does not mean “before.” It cannot be made into a verbal form, saying הטרים as one says הקדים (verbal form of קדם) and this passage proves that this is the meaning and not “before” as well as another (Exodus 9:30), כי טרם תראון “that ye do not yet fear the Lord.” Therefore you must explain this verse also thus: “No plant of the field was yet in the earth” at the time when the creation of the world was completed on the sixth day before man was created, and וכל עשב השדה טרם יצמח means “and every herb of the field had not yet grown.”
Rashi on Genesis 2:5:1
In this reading, God “brings forth” plants in Genesis 1, which points to seeds breaking open below the surface, waiting until someone can till the ground in Genesis 2, or perhaps as early as day 6 of creation in Genesis 1. This view is perhaps helpful for anyone who needs reconciliation between the timelines of the two chapters. It seems to work.
