Mist

The umbrella collects two distant uses of mist — one literal, set in the primeval garden, and one figurative, set in apostolic warning. Together they show the word doing very different work: in Genesis it waters the earth at the start, and in 2 Peter it stands for empty teachers swept off in a storm.

Mist Watering the Ground

Before the rains, the earth is watered from below: "but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground" (Gen 2:6). The verse sits in the second creation account, just before the forming of Adam from the dust, and accounts for how the ground was kept fit for vegetation when "Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth" (Gen 2:5 context).

Mists Driven by a Storm

The figurative use is sharply negative. False teachers and their followers are described as substanceless — they promise water and have none, and what little vapor they raise is blown apart: "These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved" (2 Pet 2:17). The image pairs the dry spring with the storm-driven mist: both look like water, neither delivers it, and the verdict reserved for them is darkness.