Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Ver. 23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth.] He gently dismissed him, as the word signifies; placed him over against Paradise, in the sight thereof (as Stella a observeth out of the Septuagint) that, by often beholding, the sorrow of his sin, might be increased, that his "eye might affect his heart" b Lam 3:5 Yet, "lest he should be swallowed up of over-much sorrow," and so Satan get "an advantage of him" - for 2 Corinthians 2:7 ; 2Co 2:11 God is not ignorant of his devices - Christ, the promised Seed, was, by his voluntary banishment, to bring back all believers to their heavenly home; to bear them by his angels into Abraham's bosom, and to "give them to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Rev 2:7 Our whole life here is nothing else but a banishment. That we like it no worse, is because we never knew better. They that were born in hell, saith the proverb, think there's no other heaven. The poor posterity of a banished prince take their mean condition well-aworth; Moses counts Egypt, where yet he was but a sojourner, his home; and in reference to it calls his son, born in Midian, Gershom, that is, a stranger there. Oh, how should we breathe after our heavenly home! groaning within ourselves, like those birds of paradise naturalists c speak of, stretching forth the neck, as the apostle's word d importeth, "waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our bodies," Rom 8:23 glorifying God meanwhile with our spirits and bodies, devouring all difficulties, donec a spe ad speciem transeamus, till Christ, who is gone to prepare a place for us, return and say, "This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
a Stella in Luke 7:1,50 .
b Iisdem, quibus videmus, oculis flemus.
c Avis Paradisi. - Gesner .
d αποκαρασοκια, Romans 8:19 .