Genesis 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. 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.
Genesis 2:5 describes a moment when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet grown, because the Lord had not yet caused rain to fall upon the earth and there was no man to till the ground. At that time a mist went up and watered the whole face of the ground, and then the Lord formed man from the dust and placed him in the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Tilling the earth was part of the original plan for humanity, for the first man was given a garden to cultivate, showing that balanced, useful employment of the mental and physical powers, especially cultivation of the land, was intended from the beginning.
From the beginning until the Flood rain never fell upon the earth; instead a mist or dew rose from the waters and fell or descended at night like dew, reviving vegetation and causing it to flourish. During that whole period rivers and brooks never passed their boundaries but carried their waters safely to the sea, with fixed decrees keeping the waters from overflowing their banks, while the laws of nature remained fixed for centuries and the seasons came and went in regular order. That fixed course of nature led men to feel secure, so that the warning of a flood that would deluge the world and turn nature out of her course looked impossible to human wisdom.
Because rain had never fallen and nature had never been broken up, men reasoned that God Himself would not or could not change the fixed laws of nature. The world before the Flood used the absence of rain to quiet conscience and reject Noah's daily warning given for 120 years, arguing that nature was above the God of nature. Eden was the home prepared by God for humanity, where Adam and Eve transgressed God's law and came under the power of Satan, from whom Jesus Christ paid the price to ransom them, a price that is known by searching the Scriptures and being placed in right relation to God. Return to that Eden home comes by not transgressing God's law as Adam and Eve did, but by being obedient to all God's requirements and overcoming as Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, and those bending their footsteps heavenward point others to that Eden home.