“All the shrubs of the field had yet to be in the earth, and no vegetation of the field had yet to sprout, because the Lord God did not cause it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground” (Genesis 2:5). “All the shrubs of the field had yet to be in the earth” – here it says: “All the shrubs of the field […and no vegetation],”1Implying that nothing grew from the ground before Adam was created. but later it says: “The Lord God grew from the ground [every tree]” (Genesis 2:9).2Referring to what happened before Adam’s creation.
Rabbi Ḥanina said: There it is referring to the Garden of Eden, and here it is referring to the development of [the rest of] the world. Rabbi Ḥiyya taught: Both these and those did not grow until rain fell on them.3And therefore verse 2:9 in fact does not mean that the trees grew before Adam’s creation.