Chuck Larsen

After bringing Adam home, God rang the dinner bell. It’s interesting that the first thing discussed with Adam upon coming home, turning a physical house, into a home in which man will dwell with God, is dinner. Food is often associated with fellowship with each other but also fellowship with God. So God presented Adam with the menu. Genesis 2:16 says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.’” The UBS (United Bible Society) handbook for translators is worried some translators may misunderstand this verse. “In some languages a literal translation of eat of every tree may suggest eating part of the tree. In other languages there may be no general word for fruit, and so it may be necessary to say, for example, ‘You may eat anything you gather from the trees’ or ‘You may eat whatever you pick from the trees.’”^[1]

When growing up in North Omaha, there was an older widow who used to babysit for us when my Mom wanted to go shopping. In my early elementary years that seemed to happen a lot in the summer. Butch (my best friend) and I would have the run of the neighborhood even as young as 7 or 8 years old. Mrs. Ewing, our babysitter, had a gorgeous granny smith apple tree in her back yard. She would let us pick up apples that would fall from the tree but wouldn’t let us pick any ourselves. Well, when she came to our house to babysit me, my sister and little brother, Butch and I would know where she was and go help ourselves from the fruit still hanging on the trees! There is a huge difference between fruit you pick from the tree and fruit you pick up from the ground. God tells Adam and Eve to “pick” all the fruit you want!

Can you imagine the delicacies that must have been in the Garden of Eden, Paradise? According to one article on the web, the Garden had pomegranates, almonds, olives, grapes, apples, pears, cherries, carrots, corn, apricots and honey just to name a few. I’m sure there were the less desirable fare as well like broccoli, Brussel sprouts, rutabaga (My mom taught me to love rutabaga, but my boys won’t eat it!) and cauliflower! What a balanced diet!! So as Butler says, “Before one gets critical of God and says His commandments restrict pleasure, take a good look at the positive in the statutes for Eden. They were liberal and blessed. God’s laws are not to kill joy but to provide for it and protect it. And the positive compensates for any negative statute that is given.”^[2]  With all that low hanging, beautiful and delicious food, it’s hard to understand how the one and only forbidden tree was so appealing to Eve and Adam. Boice quotes Calvin’s commentary on Genesis, “For not only was there an abundant supply of food, but with it was added sweetness for the gratification of the palate, and beauty to feast the eyes. Therefore, from such benignant indulgence, it is more than sufficiently evident, how inexplicable had been the cupidity (lust for the forbidden tree)  of man.’”^[3] Well, I hate to bring Eve and Adam down to my level but when Mrs. Ewing told me and Butch we couldn’t pick the apples you know exactly what we had to do!

^[1] Reyburn, William David, and Euan McG. Fry. 1998. A Handbook on Genesis. UBS Handbook Series. New York: United Bible Societies.

^[2] Butler, John G. 2008. Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis. Clinton, IA: LBC Publications.

^[3] Boice, James Montgomery. 1998. Genesis: An Expositional Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Now that the Garden of Eden, the house that God has turned into a home where he will dwell with man, has food and is well watered, God brings man and welcomes him to his new home where they will live together. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” When we think of paradise we often think of a perfect retirement village! Anyway, that’s the way I sometimes think of it. Everything is done for you. You have leisure and no expectations on you and no responsibility whatsoever. But that’s not what we read in this verse. Adam is to “work and keep” the garden. Ryle says, “Notice, that the garden requires to be dressed and kept; it is not a place of spontaneous perfection. Man in the garden is to work, to take trouble, to practise forethought, to exercise solicitude and sympathy for the objects of his toil. “Paradise” is not a place for indolence and self-indulgence.”^[1]

Back in Genesis 2:5, we learned that there was “no man to till the ground.” It seems as if work was not something that entered into the world because of man’s sin. It was something that God had gifted man with from the very beginning. After the fall it became harder and less productive with much frustration and some failure as the thorns and thistles grew up in place of cultivated crops. Work in and of itself is a good thing. Leisure, as I’ve discovered after retirement is not such a good thing. It’s OK for a little while, but sooner or later you need to feel like you’re contributing something. Editors of the commentary by ancient writers attributes the following to Augustine of Hippo sometime in the 4^th century: “Is it really possible that the Lord wanted the first man to till the ground? Or is it plausible that he condemned him to labor before sin? We would certainly think so unless we considered those who till the ground with so much delight that it is a great punishment for them to be called off to any other thing. Whatever joy working the soil has had, therefore, the delight was even greater when no disaster had happened, either in the earth or in the heaven.”^[2]

After each day of creation in chapter 1, God looked back at his work and said it is good. Then after creating man, he said it was “very good.” Then we read that on the seventh day God rested from all the “work” that he did. It’s not that God got tired, it’s simply that his work was done and he looked back it at and declared it good. He finished it all. I’ve used my garage as an illustration of how it feels good to finish work. In the spring time, I’ll take my leaf blower and get rid of all the leaves and cob webs that have collected in my garage over the year. I’ll even pull the house out to clean up the mud that our cars have drug into our garage in the winter along with the salt the city puts down on the streets. When I finish, it feels good! I stop and look back and think, “what a nice job I did and how nice it is to have a clean garage.” In creating us in his own image, God shared this blessing of work. It’s only because of our rebellion to God at the fall that work became “work” so to speak. But when Jesus hung on the cross he said it is “finished.” The work that the father had given him was done, once and for all and he could then commend his spirit to the Father. One day, work will no longer be “work.” God will set up his kingdom on earth which will be built by the finished work of Jesus. He will say to all those who did the “work” God called us to, believing in whom he has sent, Jesus! Well done, good and faithful servant. Welcome home! And work for us will again be the joy of our days! That’s one thing we’ll find in paradise.

^[1] Ryle, Herbert E. 1921. The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version with Introduction and Notes. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

^[2] Severian of Gabala and Bede the Venerable. 2010. Commentaries on Genesis 1–3: Homilies on Creation and Fall and Commentary on Genesis: Book I. Edited by Michael Glerup, Thomas C. Oden, and Gerald L. Bray. Translated by Robert C. Hill and Carmen S. Hardin. Ancient Christian Texts. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press.

Working on the geography of the Garden of Eden, we read about the four rivers. Genesis 2:11-12 goes on to identify the first one. It reads, “The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.” According to the Handbook for translators prepared by the United Bible Society, the name Pishon is related to the verb “to gush.”^[1] And Munday adds, “The word itself may mean “the gusher” or “to cascade” or “dispersive” (from a root meaning “to spread”).^[2]

Nobody really knows where this river was and there are too many speculations about it to choose one. It is described as flowing around Havilah and having good gold and some precious stones. Scholars have tried to identify it by these descriptions. I think Barton has the best understanding of it. He writes, “Genesis 2:10–14 clearly places Eden in southern Babylonia. It is there said that the river Pishon ‘compasseth the whole land of Havilah,’ i.c., Arabia. By the Pishon, then, the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and Red Sea are meant. Ezekiel seems to have called southern Babylonia Eden. In Ezekiel 27:22-23 we read, “The traders of Sheba and Raamah traded with you; they exchanged for your wares the best of all kinds of spices and all precious stones and gold. Haran, Canneh, Eden, traders of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad traded with you. He places Eden in the series exactly where southern Babylonia lies.”^[3] I just can’t see the Pishon “river” being the oceans referred to above. The Arabian Peninsula seems correct but I agree the article in the Biblical Archeological Review that suggests another alternative. It reads, “The ancient Bible scholar, Philo, writes, ‘Bible scholars have identified Havilah with the Arabian Peninsula because it is rich with bdellium (fragrant resins) and precious stones, but they have been unable to pinpoint the location of the river in this arid region. The recent discovery of the Kuwait River adjacent to the Cradle of Gold, the only Arabian source for such good gold,’” has led James Sauer to suggest that this dry riverbed may be the Pishon.”^[4]

Coming out of the Garden of Eden, the Pishon gushed out, cascading over the land, bringing fertility along with beauty, precious metals, fragrant aromas and gorgeous gems which were used to decorate the tabernacle. Ancient Hebrew literature compares the good things flowing in the Pishon from the Garden of Eden with the good things that come to the lives of those who live according to God’s instructions. The Wisdom of Sirach 24:23-25 uses the Pishon as a picture of how wisdom, gushes or overflows the lands.  It says, “All this is no other than the Book of the Covenant of the Most High God, the Law that Moses enjoined on us, an inheritance for the communities of Jacob. This is what makes wisdom brim over like the Pishon…” Solomon was the wisest man in the world and yet “failed to live according to the wisdom God gave him.” I really like Newheiser’s approach in his commentary of the book of Proverbs. He writes, “Jesus is Wisdom personified (8:22–31; 1 Cor. 1:24, 30; Col. 2:3). It is in relation to Jesus Christ that we are able to live according to the wisdom about which Solomon writes. One of the objectives of this commentary is to take the reader beyond mere moralistic or pragmatic principles so that Christ can be seen on every page of the book of Proverbs.”^[5] Jesus is the river flowing from Eden bringing all good things. When pierced by the soldiers spear, out of his side gushed a river of living water. Whoever drinks from the water that gushes from Jesus shall never die!

^[1] Reyburn, William David, and Euan McG. Fry. 1998. A Handbook on Genesis. UBS Handbook Series. New York: United Bible Societies.

^[2] Munday, John C. Jr. 1996. “Eden’s Geography Erodes Flood Geology.” Westminster Theological Journal 58, no. 1: 137–38.

^[3] Barton, George A. 1925. Archaeology and the Bible. Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union.

^[4] BAR. 1996, 1996.

^[5] Newheiser, Jim. 2008. Opening up Proverbs. Opening Up Commentary. Leominster: Day One Publications.

The mention of the River that flows out of the Garden of Eden has raised a lot of interest in identifying its location. Genesis 2:10 tells us, “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” One commentator makes this observation about the location of the Garden of Eden. He writes, “The Garden, however, is more than a symbol. The narrator spent a large amount of narrative time (Gen. 2:10–14) stating the location of the Garden with respect to four rivers and three countries. Paradise was on this earth. Two of the rivers are not known today but mention of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in verse 14 indicates that the location of the Garden was in Mesopotamia, perhaps present-day Turkey or Iraq.”^[1] Munday says, “The geography of Eden has never been known precisely. For most adherents of the view that the garden is mythical, the garden’s exact location has no meaning, and the geography indicates only the story’s cultural origin. For those believing there was a garden in fact, the Bible provides tantalizing and specific geographic clues to its location.”^[2]

According to the Anchor Bible Dictionary one of the earliest attempts to locate the Garden of Eden was done by Josephus.  They suggest he might have gotten it right. It says,” Josephus (Ant 1.37–39) provides the only reasonably coherent post-biblical Jewish account of the rivers of paradise. He identifies the Pishon as the Ganges (the “land of Havilah” = India). The Giḥon is the Nile, presumably because the land of Cush, through which it flows, is taken in its normal biblical sense of Ethiopia. The other two rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates. Josephus seems to imply that all four of these rivers originate in the waters of the Ocean…”^[3] The major problem with this is that from the current geography it doesn’t look like it’s possible for the rivers mentioned, regardless of which ones they are, could ever be of one and the same source. However, Hugh Ross argues, “At that time Earth was experiencing its last ice age. Ocean levels were much lower, and the pressure of ice on the north latitude landmasses caused several seafloors to rise. That meant it was possible that at the time of Adam and Eve, the present Persian Gulf was dry ground. With Eden located in the southeastern part of the gulf, all four rivers could have easily come together.”^[4] Then we have the strange doctrine that come to us from the Mormon Church, Decker has revealed this one: “In accord with the revelations given to the prophet Joseph Smith, we teach that the Garden of Eden was on the American continent located where the City Zion, or the New Jerusalem, will be built. When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden, they eventually dwelt at a place called Adam-Ondi-Ahman, situated in what is now Davies County, Missouri” (Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, p. 74).”^[5]

The two rivers we know, the Tigress and the Euphrates seem to be the starting point for searching for the Garde of Eden. But what if those rivers were named after the rivers mentioned in the Bible instead of being the actual rivers. One source suggested that it was possible, “It could be that the modern rivers called the Tigris and Euphrates are simply named after those associated with Eden, in the same way that Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is named after the town in Judea.”^[6] I think I’ll let my search for the location of the Garden go with the words of Warren Wiersbe, “Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to master ancient geography in order to understand the spiritual lessons of these early chapters in Genesis. In this beautiful Garden, God provided both bounty and beauty; Adam and Eve had food to eat and God’s lovely handiwork to enjoy. As yet, sin hadn’t entered the Garden; so their happiness wasn’t marred.”^[7]

^[1] Greidanus, Sidney. 2004. “Preaching Christ from the Narrative of the Fall.” Bibliotheca Sacra 161: 265.

^[2] Munday, John C. Jr. 1996. “Eden’s Geography Erodes Flood Geology.” Westminster Theological Journal 58, no. 1: 125.

Ant Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (= Antiquitates Judaicae)

^[3] Alexander, Philip S. 1992. “Geography and the Bible: Early Jewish Geography.” In The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, 2:979–80. New York: Doubleday.

^[4] Ross, Hugh. 2009. More than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

^[5] Decker, Ed. 1995. In Decker’s Complete Handbook on Mormonism, 27. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.

^[6] Got Questions Ministries. 2002–2013. Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

^[7] Wiersbe, Warren W. 1998. Be Basic. “Be” Commentary Series. Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Pub.

The great gardener, Himself, not only made all the beautiful and delicious plants to grow in the Garden of Eden, but he put two other trees there as well. Genesis 2:9b, says, “The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” These two trees are singled out because they represent death and life. Eat from one of them and you will live. Eat from the other and you will die. Now, it’s not because one tree was poisonous. No, both trees, in my opinion, were beautiful to look at and they were both edible and even delicious.  Living in communion with God in Paradise however, demanded an open and honest understanding and recognition of God. It involves trusting God to be a good and loving God who always has our best foremost in His mind, even when it doesn’t look like it. It’s trusting Him to know what’s best and resting in that trust.

Picture with me, if you will, on our left is the tree of life. It was given as food. It must have been one of those that not only looked good but tasted good also. But then on the right side is the tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil. This tree was forbidden to us by decree from the great gardener himself. But man listened to the lies of the great father of lies, the great deceiver, and they, seeing that it too was one of those trees that were both beautiful and good for food, decided to believe the lie and ate from the forbidden fruit, the tree that became the source of our sin. Since then, it’s been the other tree that has been forbidden from us. The tree of life that is now forbidden awaits all those who have washed their garments in the blood of the lamb. That’s the symbol of a third tree we should imagine between the two others. The middle tree, the cross, where the curse of death we accrued at the first tree, was taken by Jesus himself for us, and through which we gain access to the other tree, the tree of life. Jesus promises us “eternal life” instead of death. John 3:16 is key here. It reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”

Now consider the three trees standing on the hill called Golgotha, the place of the skull. On the left we have a tree on which hangs a thief, that would take what did not belong to him and yet have no remorse or repentance in his heart. On the other tree is a thief, a sinner of the same kind as the one on the other side, yet he was filled with remorse and acknowledged the penalty as just and sought not to be delivered from his just deserts, but looked to the one between them suffering innocently and cast his lot with that one. The figure on the middle tree, said to him, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”