CRITICAL NOTES.—
Genesis 2:14. East of Assyria] So Ges. and Dav. Lit., “before A.” wh. to a writer in Pal. is = west (Fürst).
Genesis 2:17. Surely die] Heb. “die, die shalt thou;” as in Genesis 2:16 “eat, eat shalt thou,” Genesis 3:16, “increase, increase will I:”—“a frequent and quite peculiar idiom for the indication of emphasis” (Ewald). Dying thou shalt die” is misleading, has in fact misled many into groundless subtleties.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 2:8-17
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
There has been much speculation as to the situation of the Garden of Eden; but in vain, it is utterly impossible to ascertain its site. All vestage of it was probably swept away by the deluge. This, however, is of little moment, in comparison with the higher and more solemn moral truths with which this garden stands connected. In these the world is interested, in them it finds its most difficult problems, and the only explanation of its present condition.
I. In this garden provision was made for the happiness of man. This is evident from the description of the garden found in these verses.
1. The garden was beautiful. There was planted in it “every tree that is pleasant to the sight.” Beautiful scenery does much to enhance the comfort and enjoyment of man: in order to gaze upon it men will travel to the ends of the earth. By all that was lovely and inspiring in material nature, Adam was daily surrounded.
2. The garden was fruitful. “And good for food.” Hence with the beautiful in nature, there was blended all that would be needful to supply the temporal requirements of man. The material beauty by which he was surrounded was only indicative of the plenty that everywhere presented itself for his service.
3. The garden was well watered, “and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” Thus we cannot wonder at the beauty and fertility of this garden. The teaching of this garden is, that God intended man to enjoy a happy life. He did not design that man should be shut up in a cloister, but that he should wander amid the beautiful scenes of nature; He did not design that man should lead a melancholy and sad life, but that he should be jubilant, and that his joy should be inspired by all that was beautiful and morally good. In this happy picture of primeval life we have God’s ideal of life, a pattern for our own.
II. In this garden provision was made for the daily occupation of man. “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”
1. Work is the law of man’s being. Work is a divine ordination. God put Adam to it. He was the first Employer of labour. Man’s ideal of life is to have nothing to do, to be “independent” as it is called. Work is compatible with the most ideal existence. It is a token of dignity; a willingness to perform it, is a vestige of the former splendour of our being. People tell us that work is the result of the fall. This is not true. Man worked before he fell, but free from fatigue or pain. The element of pain which has been infused into work, that is the result of the fall. Man must work. He is prompted to it by natural instincts. He is cheered in it by happy results. He is rewarded after it by an approving conscience.
(1) Man’s work should be practical. Adam was to dress the garden. It is man’s work to develop, and make God’s universe as productive as possible. Some men spend their lives in speculation; it would be far better if they would employ them in digging. Aim to be practical in your toil. The world needs practical workers. The world is full of men who want to be great workers, and they would be, if they would only undertake little tasks.
(2) Man’s work should be healthful. There is no employment more healthy than that of husbandry. It enables a man to get plenty of fresh air. It will make him stalwart. It would be much better for the health of the world if less men were engaged in offices, and more in the broad fields.
(3) Man’s work should be taken as from God. “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden.” This will dignify work. It will inspire the worker. It will attain the full meaning of service. A man who lets God put him to his trade, is likely to be successful.
2. Work is the benediction of man’s being. Work makes men happy. Indolence is misery. If all the artizans of our country were freed from their employment to-morrow, it would not increase their joy; to what would they turn their attention? Work is the truest blessing we have. It occupies our time. It keeps from mischief. It supplies our temporal wants. It enriches society. It wins the approval of God.
III. In this garden provision was made for the spiritual obedience of man.
1. God gave man a command to obey. Adam was not entirely to do as he liked in this garden, one restriction was made known to him. He was to be none the less happy. He was to be none the less free. He was to be the more obedient to that Being who had so kindly ordered his circumstances. Man is not to do as he likes in this world. God places him under moral restrictions, which are for his welfare, but which he has the ability to set aside. There are certain trees in the world, of whose fruit we are not to eat. But these restrictions are not irksome or unreasonable, they refer only to one tree in all the great garden of life. Let us attend to the regulation which the gospel puts upon our use of the creatures by which we are every day surrounded.
2. God annexed a penalty in the case of disobedience.
(1) The penalty was clearly made known.
(2) It was certain in its infliction.
(3) It was terrible in its result.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
THE TWO PARADISES.— Genesis 22:8; Revelation 2:2
I. Compare the Places. The second is superior to the first.
1. In respect to its elements. What was dust in the first paradise was gold in the second.
2. Of its extent. The first paradise was the corner of a small planet; the second is a universe of glory in which nations dwell, and whose limits angels know not.
3. Of its beauty.
II. Compare the Inhabitants. of the two paradises. The inhabitants of the second are superior to those of the first.
1. In physical nature.
2. In employment. The employment of heaven will relate to beings rather than to things. The sphere of activity will be more amongst souls than flowers. Will call into exercise loftier faculties; will tend more to the glory of God.
3. In rank.
4. In freedom.
5. In security. Adam was liable to temptation and evil. In the second paradise is immunity from peril.
6. In vision of God. In the first paradise God walked amid the trees of the garden. Adam realizes the overshadowing Presence. The inhabitants of the second paradise shall enjoy that Presence more perfectly.
(1.) Vision brighter.
(2.) Constant. [Pulpit Analyst.]
A garden:—
1. Its plantation.
2. Its situation.
3. Its occupation.
Genesis 2:9. As God gives us all things freely, so He takes special notice of all that He bestows upon us.
Every plant grows where, and in what manner God appoints it.
God’s bounty abounds unto men, not only to the supply of their want, but also for their delight.
It is usual with God to mix delight and pleasure with usefulness and profit in all his blessings.
God’s commandments ought to be full in view of His people.
It is usual with God to teach His children by things of common use.
Genesis 2:10-15. God’s blessings are in every way complete and perfect.
Springs and rivers of waters are not amongst the least of God’s blessings.
Every son of Adam is bound to some employment:—
1. Necessary to mutual subsistence.
2. The creatures of the world are not serviceable without toil.
3. To occupy time.
4. To employ our faculties.
Our daily calling—
1. Undertaken by a Divine warrant.
2. Pursued with cheerfulness and fidelity.
3. Guided by God’s word.
4. Seeking the good of the community.
5. Abiding there till God shall discharge us.
Duty and not gain should be the ground of our daily calling.
Man’s employment ought to be in those places where it is most needed.
Very rich in earthly treasure was the habitation of innocency.
Genesis 2:16-17.—Eden: or God’s voice to man on entering his earthly sphere of life.
I. That man’s earthly sphere of life is furnished with vast and varied blessings. “Of every tree.” There are many trees of pleasure for man in this life.
1. There is the sensational tree. Material nature with its million branches is a tree all thickly clustered with fruit.
2. There is the intellectual tree. Life is crowded with ideas, every form of life embodies them, every event starts them.
3. There is the social tree.
4. There is the religious tree. This gives it beauty and worth to all. What a rich garden is our earthly life.
II. That these vast and varied blessings are to be used under certain Divine regulations. “But of the tree.”
1. His regulations are proper.
2. His regulations are liberal.
3. His regulations are needful.
III. That the violation of these Divine regulations will entail the utmost ruin. “Thou shalt surely die.” To disobey God is sin, and the wages of sin is death. Disobedience to God will produce death.—[Homilist.]
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Breath of Life! (Genesis 2:8.) God breathed into man at the first creation the breath of life, and he became a living creature. Christ breathed upon His disciples the breath of eternal life, and said: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. We have all the breath of the first creation; but this breath will not save us from the vanity and perishableness of our natural life. Christ must breathe into our souls the Holy Spirit, Who alone can make us immortal souls. To hew a block of marble from the quarry, and carve it into a noble statue—to break up a waste wilderness, and turn it into a garden of flowers—to melt a lump of iron-stone, and forge it into watch springs; all these are mighty changes. Yet they all come short of the change which every child of Adam requires—for they are merely the same thing in a new form. But man must become a new creature. He must be born again—born from above—born of God. God must breathe into him the breath of life. So that the natural birth is not a whit more necessary to the life of the body than is the spiritual birth to the life of the soul.—Ryle.
Eden! Genesis 2:8. Sir Henry Rawlinson, to whom we owe so much in Assyrian decipherment, long ago identified Eden with the Kardunias or Gan-dunias of the inscriptions. Kardunias is one of the names of Babylonia—perhaps properly belonging to some particular part of the country, and it is said to be watered by four rivers just like Eden in Genesis. But Dr. Wylie and others lean towards another view of the locale of Eden. “Paradise” is said to be a garden eastward in Eden. As these words were penned by Moses in the wilderness south of Judea, it is self-evident that Eden must be considerably east of Palestine. Some have thought of the noble plain around Damascus, which is well-watered, luxuriant, and rich. Others have found it in that district known as Arabia Felix, so called on account of the eminent richness of its pastures. While others have seen it in that region somewhere between Bagdad and Bussorah at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. Here the soil is fertile, the climate delicious, and the noble stream which waters it diffuses a delightful freshness and verdure throughout the great plain along which it flows. Here the skies are serene; and the earth might wear everlastingly a robe of vernal beauty were it not for the neglect and barbarity of man. It is now occupied by ignorant and barbarous tribes under the nominal sceptre of the Shah of Persia. Beyond this we can make no nearer approach to the seat of primæval innocence
“Well named
A paradise, for never earth has worn
Such close similitude to heaven as there.”—Bickersteth.
Man! Genesis 2:8. He was to be the High Priest of creation, the mysterious yet glorious link between the material and spiritual. On him God placed his Eden robes that he might officiate on the first sabbath as a holy Levite before the Lord. Paradise was the temple prepared for him by his Creator, in which to worship the Holy and Eternal One. It was the glory of man that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and made him a living soul, in order that he might stand as the annointed priest in the midst of the great congregation of creation, to give a tongue to all around him, that, through him, the loud anthem of universal adoration might rise too. And though man is no longer nature’s minister before the Lord, and no longer resembles a walking orange tree swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air, yet
“That day God’s church doth still confess,
At once creation and redemption’s feast,
Sign of a world called forth, a world forgiven.”—Mant.
Work! Genesis 2:8. Not only did Adam work before the Fall; but also nature and nature’s God. From the particle of dust at our feet to man, the last stroke of God’s handiwork, all bear the impress of the law of labour. The earth, as has been said, is one vast laboratory, where decomposition and re-formation are constantly going on. The blast of nature’s furnace never ceases, and its fires never burn low. The lichen of the rock, and the oak of the forest, each works out the problem of its own existence. The earth, the air and the water teem with busy life. The poet tells us that the joyous song of labour sounds out from the million-voiced earth, and the rolling spheres join the universal chorus! Therefore, labour is not, as Tupper expresses it, the curse on the sons of men in all their ways. Rather—
“In the master’s vineyard.
Go and work to-day;
Be no useless sluggard
Standing in the way.”—Bonas.
Healthy Work! Genesis 2:8. It is not, says one, work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Motion is all nature’s law. Action is man’s salvation, both physical and mental. Rest is ruin; therefore he only is wise, who lays himself out to work till life’s latest hour; and that is the man who will live the longest, and live to the most purpose. Work gives a feeling of strength, and in this our highest pleasure consists. It is vigour; for an angel’s wing would droop if long at rest. As an Oriental couplet expresses the idea in quaint guise:—
“Good striving
Brings thriving;
Better a dog who works
Than a lion who shirks.
Tree! Genesis 2:11. A tree, called the man-chaneel, grows in the West Indies. Its appearance is very attractive, and the wood of it peculiarly beautiful. It bears a kind of fruit resembling the golden pippin. This fruit looks very tempting, and smells very fragrant—
“Not balm new bleeding from the wounded tree,
Nor bless’d Arabia with her spicy grove,
Such fragrance yields.”
But to eat of it is instant death. Its sap is so poisonous that, if a few drops of it fall on the skin, it raises blisters and occasions great pain. The Indians dip their arrows in the juice, that they may poison their enemies when they wound them.
Paradise! Genesis 2:12. To dream of a paradise on earth is to dream of what never can be realised. There is, however, another paradise into which we may enter—a paradise whose gates stand open day and night—at whose doors are ministers of grace to invite us to enter—within whose precincts are the Tree of Life and the Water of Life. It is the garden of His Church. Yet are the beauties of the Gospel paradise nought compared with the unfading charms of the Heavenly Eden. A traveller in the east was once invited to see the glory of a prince’s garden. It was the night-blooming cereus; glorious indeed, with its creamy waxen buds and full bloom of exquisite form—the leaves of the carolla of a pale golden hue, and the petals intensely white. He saw it just as the short twilight of the tropics was deepening into night, and the beauteous flowers were beginning to exhale their wondrous perfume. But this sweet burst of glory he considered as nothing when, at the midnight hour, he saw the plant in all its queenlike radiance at perfect maturity, as the full glory of a royal garden revealed to his eye. So, beautiful as was the natural paradise, and beautiful as is the spiritual paradise, their beauty will be nothing to that of the upper paradise.
“O there are gardens of the immortal kind,
That crown the Heavenly Eden’s rising hills
With beauty and with sweets;
The branches bend laden with life and bliss.”—Watts.
Eden and Gethsemane! Genesis 2:13. We compare the earthly with the heavenly paradise, but do we contrast Eden with Gethsemane? The earthly Eden was man’s Gethsemane—his garden of woe and sweat. The Gethsemane is man’s spiritual Eden, where crimson flowers bloom brilliant as the sunset rays, and emit an odour sweeter far than the spicy perfumes wafted from eastern gardens. It has been very quaintly put thus:
“Sweet Eden was the arbour of delight,
Yet in its honey flowers our poison blew;
Sad Gethsemane, the bower of baleful night,
Where Christ a health of poison for us drew,
Yet all our honey in that poison grew.”—Fletcher.
Tree of Life! Genesis 2:9. In Eastern poetry they tell of a wondrous tree, on which grew golden apples and silver bells; and every time the breeze went by and tossed the fragrant branches, a shower of those golden apples fell, and the living bells chimed and tinkled forth their airy ravishment. On the gospel tree there grow melodious blossoms; sweeter bells than those which mingled with the pomegranates on Aaron’s vest; holy feelings, heaven-taught joys; and when the wind blowing where he listeth, the south wind waking, when the Holy Spirit breathes upon that soul, there is the shaking down of mellow fruits, and the flow of healthy odours all around, and the gush of sweet music, where gentle tones and joyful echoings are wafted through the recesses of the soul. Not easily explained to others, and too ethereal to define, these joys are on that account but the more delightful. The sweet sense of forgiveness; the conscious exercise of all the devout affections, and grateful and adoring emotions God-ward; the lull of sinful passions, itself ecstatic music; an exulting sense of the security of the well-ordered covenant; the gladness of surety righteousness, and the kindly spirit of adoption, encouraging to say, “Abba, Father,” all the delightful feelings which the Spirit of God increases or creates, and which are summed up in that comprehensive word, “Joy in the Holy Ghost.”—Hamilton.
Blessings! Genesis 2:16. Holmes remarks that a man may look long enough in search of particles of iron, which he was told were in a dish of sand, and fail to detect them. But let another come, and sweep a magnet through the sand, and soon the invisible particles would be discerned by the mere power of attraction! The thankless heart is like the finger, it cannot see the innumerable—the vast and varied blessings. The magnet is that truly grateful spirit, which, sweeping through the earth, discovers many a rich earthly treasure.
In the nine heavens are eight paradises,
Where is the ninth one? In the human heart.
Given to thee are those eight paradises,
When thou the ninth one hast within thy heart.—Oriental.