FOR REFERENCE, GARY'S EXPANDED CONCLUSION:
On the day God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit of God hovered over the chaotic waters of the abyss with no place to perch. By fiat God separated the light from the darkness, created an expanse, separated the waters below the expanse from the waters above the expanse, gathered the waters together and dry land, vegetation, fruit, two luminaries, and living creatures appeared. As the climax of creation, God created mankind.
God created the first human being from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and he became a nephesh, a whole being. God provided him with an environment pleasing to the eye, which gave an abundance of water and food for both animals and mankind. The only prohibition was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, trusting in God's wisdom.
The only thing wrong with this whole paradise is that the first member of humanity was alone, humanity did not have a plural aspect. God built another human being, opposite the first, to work in the garden together. The two of them were one flesh, one intimate family.
Paradoxically, God created mankind from dust and bone to be His image, and to represent His presence on earth, subduing the earth and reigning over it by cultivating and protecting creation. Humanity, the image of God, is God's dwelling place, made after God's likeness and was to reflect certain aspects of God's character, such as, for example, the united plurality.
Looking at His creation God pointed to it and declared it to be "very good!" and on the seventh day God stopped His work and settled down in His new home with mankind, in a safe and beautiful paradise with an abundance of resources to meet mankind's needs, physical, mental, emotional, relational, giving him a meaningful and purposeful life. God provided humanity with an ideal home. God stopped his work and settled in humanity's home to live in harmony with humanity. To live in peace. This is ideal and integral human welfare. This is shalom. There is no welfare apart from God YHWA elohim.
Brueggemann dice:
Those who reject Yahweh’s rule and order are consigned to a life of weariness, restlessness and chaos. The text claims that rest, i.e. well-being, is found only in the rule of Yahweh. No other option is open (1972, p. 32)