And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Ver. 15. To dress it, and to keep it.] This he did as without necessity, so without pains, without weariness. It was rather his recreation than his occupation. He laboured now by an ordinance; it was after his fall laid upon him as a punishment, Gen 3:19 to eat his bread in the sweat of his nose. God never made any, as he made Leviathan, to sport himself only; or to do, as it is said of the people of Tombutum in Africa, that they spend their whole time in piping and dancing; but to "work," either "with his hands" or his head, "in the sweat of his brow," or of his brain, "the thing that is good"; Eph 4:28 and with how much the more cheerfulness any one goeth about his business, by so much the nearer he cometh to his paradise.