Genesis 2:7–25

Only a word or two needs saying about the garden. It was a place of delights. Eden means pleasure. It has completely disappeared, and God meant it to disappear. Yet at least two of the rivers show us that it stood on this earth much as we have it now. The LORD God had formed the man; the LORD God had planted the garden.

So at the beginning the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. All the earth was fair before sin ruined it, and God had made everything "very good." Even so, the garden was better still, and God gave it special care in His moral government. Man had to be tested, and no excuse would be open to him, because no one could point to a single flaw. God planted the garden, so everything in it was there for use and beauty, fit for a creation that had not yet fallen. He loves a cheerful giver, and He is Himself the pattern of all generosity.

This has always been God's way. He planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed (Gen. 2:8). The One who did this has gone to prepare a place for His own in His Father's house. He prepares the place, the land, beforehand, and then brings His people into it.

He was not created in Eden. He was made of dust, and God breathed the breath of life into him — that is all. Then God forms the garden and places him there under set conditions. The whole scene shows the relationships, and the footing on which man stood in every respect.

He was the favourite of Heaven, the last and newest creature. God put him there as a dependent one, and, I believe, the most dependent of all His creatures. God placed him in a paradise that He Himself watched over and cared for. All his needs became simply ways of showing God's care for him. He was a dependent creature by his very nature. The angels had fallen before this… In all this God was hiding pride from man. He was teaching him dependence.

Eden was the country. "The garden" was that choice part of it, not in the west or the centre, but "in the east," which the LORD God planted for Adam. Scripture speaks of it again later — in this book, again and again in the prophets, and at greatest length in Ezekiel. It is quite distinct from another Eden, spelled a little differently in Hebrew, which seems to have been in Babylonia.

He planted a garden in Eden and separated it from the rest of the scene. The man was to live there, work it and keep it. Yet four rivers flowed out of it, carrying its blessings to the four quarters of the earth.

Eden means "delight." It is called Paradise in the Greek translation — the Septuagint. We have heard of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained." Scripture says nothing of the second. Once lost, man's Paradise is never regained. But God in grace opens a heavenly Paradise.

Once innocence is lost, it can never be recovered. For faith, God does bring in a better condition through the Second man at His first coming, and He will bring it in open power at His second. But the first state is never restored. People keep forgetting this. They make far too much of Adam's original condition. They fail to see how complete the ruin caused by sin is. They lower or ignore the new creation in Christ.

God created man in this way, and then made a garden of delights to be his home. The name Eden means "Pleasure." Every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food was there. Nothing was lacking to support life or to give pleasure. The verse gives special mention to two trees. The tree of life was surely a witness to a life different from the one man already had. God put that life within his reach. The other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was there to remind him of his responsibility and to test it.

As with Israel long afterward, there was full preparation now. Nothing was lacking on Jehovah's part... So at the beginning Jehovah Elohim planted a garden eastward in Eden. However fair all the earth might be before ruin came through sin, and everything that God had made "very good," the garden was clearly superior, and the object of special care to God in His moral government. Man had to be tried; and no excuse was possible, no flaw could be alleged.

But there is revealed in verse 9 another fact of the deepest interest. The tree of life was distinct from the tree of knowing good and evil. The test of responsible obedience was one thing; the means of life was quite another. From the very first they are separate. When man disobeyed by eating from the one tree, God drove him out, in case he should take from the other as well and make his fallen sinful state last for ever. The point is marked clearly here: responsibility and life are wholly separate.

People often find it hard that God made the moral history of the world turn on touching that tree or eating that fruit. To the mere mind of man it seems a great problem that something which looks so small should carry such terrible results. Do you not understand that this was the very essence of the trial? The key feature of the trial was this: it turned only on God's authority in forbidding, not on some grave moral evil.

Almost all men say that God created Adam in righteousness and in holiness of the truth. Not so... He was innocent; he did not have what Scripture here calls "the knowledge of good and evil." Man only gained it by the fall. He had, of course, the consciousness of responsibility... Now holiness implies that, having this knowledge, we are separate from the evil to the good. Adam had no such knowledge. Unfallen, he had no lust.

The constant effort of man, especially of religious man, is to treat the two trees as one. That is, to make life depend on fulfilling responsibility. This idea flies in the face of the facts when man was innocent. It is even more plainly false once man was a sinner, expressly shut out from the tree of life... Sin morally compelled God to be a judge. Love, divine grace, made Him a Saviour.

In the garden of Eden there was the tree of life, and there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Life stood on one side, responsibility on the other. Man failed, ate of the tree of knowledge, and could not get to the tree of life. Now the law took up the same principle... and said, "Do this and live." Then the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Man, comes. He does His Father's will in everything, and sovereign grace takes up our responsibilities. He takes the consequences of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and He is the life.

If in the earliest chapters of the Bible we find man shut out from the tree of life in the middle of a paradise of innocence, in the closing chapters we find him redeemed through Christ's precious blood, and in the paradise of God — the paradise of holiness — eating of the Tree of Life, in a higher sphere and condition than before.

The point matters little in itself. What matters is that we hold the whole account of Paradise to be history in the strictest and fullest sense. More than that, the position of these rivers seems to me to explain the account given here, which has often been a difficulty to many. If the garden of Eden lay in that region (that is, in Armenia), in the part where the springs or watershed of these rivers rise, they would all lie within one limited area, surrounding this garden.

The last two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, are well-known rivers today, though the flood will have changed the shape of the land so much that their courses cannot be the same.

Notice that in these verses we first hear of a "river." Which river it was that went out from Eden to water the garden seems to be withheld on purpose. If it vanished when the garden was no longer seen, the wisdom of Scripture's silence is not hard to see. Some argue, like the poet Milton, that the Tigris watered paradise. Others say it was the Euphrates and the Tigris joined together. Both certainly do violence to the inspired text.

The source of these rivers was the territory from which God had ordered that blessing should flow. River-streams took their source in Eden. This is how the garden was watered, and all their freshness was there. From there the waters flowed here and there. They surrounded other countries and gave them their character… The garden was the first object, but from there they flowed around the world, which needed them.

"Four" is a number with a definite meaning attached to it. The river with four heads went out of Eden to water the garden, and through it the whole earth received its refreshment from the original fountain. Four Gospel writers record the life of Him who was sent to be the Saviour of the world, and their testimony is for the whole earth.

Scripture also mentions a river flowing out of the garden. It clearly rose from a spring in the earth, but it watered the garden as it flowed. This speaks of the blessing of God by His word and Spirit. So does the "river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb," described in Revelation 22:1. But this river from the garden of Eden parted into four different rivers, showing blessing increasing as the waters flowed.

The reference to Genesis 2 is unmistakable: "A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden." The heavenly city's river does not part "into four heads," as the river of Eden did. Nor does it part into east and west, like the living waters of Zechariah. One river flows throughout the city, and one joy is shared by all. In the same way there is only one tree of life, not two trees named on their own, as in the garden on earth. Moses mentions the tree of life first. John refers to the river of life first.

This is only a side point. Where the rivers ran is of no great importance in itself. What matters is that we should hold the entire account of Paradise to be historical in the strictest and fullest sense.

It is remarkable that the two less well-known rivers get a fuller description than the rivers everyone knows. This shows that the Spirit of God takes an interest and gives us a thread to help us. We are therefore justified in supposing that Scripture describes them just because they might have been harder to recognise.

Land encircled by the river Pison, where there was fine gold and precious stones. No one has identified it.

Reland has given strong reasons for concluding that the Pison is the Phasis, though Colonel Chesney argues for the Halys. Reland even held that Colchis, the region the Phasis runs through, is simply the Greek form of Havilah. Ancient sources link gold and precious stones with that land more clearly than with the land the Halys skirts.

Scripture speaks of copper very early (Genesis 4:22), where it calls Tubal-cain a teacher of those who worked in brass. Tellingly, Genesis names gold first, and before the fall: "the gold of that land is good." God's glory comes first. It may also mean something that copper appears in connection with the family of Cain.

Gold is a figure of the glory of God, of His attributes of righteousness, holiness, wisdom, power, goodness and truth — everything suggested by the purity, brightness and value of the metal. This is not guesswork. Under God's direction, gold was used wherever these great facts were to be shown. Solomon's temple, as God's earthly dwelling, was overlaid with gold, even its floor (1 Kings 6:21-22, 30). And in the book of Revelation the heavenly city is described as "having the glory of God"; "and the city was pure gold, like clear glass."

Pison, "increase," is first; it encircles the land of Havilah, "anguish" or "travail," where the gold is that is good. Gold is the symbol of God's glory. Christ has won increase for eternity by encircling the land of anguish — the birth-pains of the new creation, of which He is the Beginning. There, all the same, the glory of God has been found in all its wealth. And if faith can say now, "the gold of that land is good," how much more in the eternal day!

Leaving Eden, the river parted into four heads, marking the beginning of God's ways worldwide. The first head became the river Pison, which encircled the land of Havilah, a land that spoke of the richness, fragrance and glory of God's providence in its gold, bdellium and onyx stones.

In the earthly paradise there was a river, and with it the riches of the earth, the gold and precious stones (Genesis 2:10-12). In the Paradise of God the seer is shown "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1). God and the Lamb are the source of divine life and heavenly freshness. Everything flows from the throne that orders all for His glory and the blessing of His own.

The account has the difficulties that come from countries obscure to later generations, both in their own names and in the names of their products. People have debated Havilah and Cush nearly as much as Pison and Gihon, and they have debated just as much what B'dolach and Shoham exactly mean.

No opinion has been clearly proved, because the text itself presents serious difficulties as to its meaning.

Suggestively, gold is mentioned first and before the fall: "The gold of that land is good" (Gen. 2:11-12). God's glory is first.

Any of God's creatures becomes a source of evil only when man puts it to evil uses. Gold is the most precious thing man has, so it makes a fitting emblem of the rights that belong to God alone — the rights man wrongly hands to his idol. Gold, then, is a figure of the glory of God, of His righteousness, holiness, wisdom, power, goodness and truth. It stands for everything the purity, brightness and value of the metal suggest... Solomon's temple was God's home on earth, and gold covered it, even its floor (1 Kings 6:21-22, 30). And in the book of Revelation the heavenly city has "the glory of God", and "the city was pure gold, like clear glass."

People have taken the word bedolach to mean both a clear white oily gum and a white pearl. The description of the manna refers to its colour in Numbers 11:7, and in Genesis 2:12 it stands with gold and onyx stones as a mark of the land of Havilah. The white pearl seems the more likely picture, since Exodus 16:14 also compares the manna to frost.

His glory as the Firstborn in Creation may be shown in the first precious stone named in the Bible, the onyx (Gen. 2:12). It is also the first in the group in Job 28:16-19, and there it is called the "precious onyx" — the only single stone given that title, except where Christ is spoken of as the Stone, chosen and precious. The onyx stones were on the shoulders of the High Priest... Genesis 2:12 names the bdellium with it alone, and bdellium is named only once more in Scripture, in Numbers 11:7, where it describes the manna. This confirms what we have said. If we have the glory of Christ as the Firstborn of all Creation in the onyx, we are reminded that when He came into His Creation He came in lowly grace as the Manna, whose appearance was like bdellium.

Pison, which means "increase," comes first. It winds round the land of Havilah, which means "anguish" or "travail," and the gold there is good... The Hebrew word for bdellium means "in trouble," and the word for onyx-stone means "their recompense." Here we may get a hint of how faith is joined to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that follow. Those who find their increase through the anguish of Christ are given not only to believe but to suffer for Him. Suffering leads to being glorified with Him, so there is both the trouble and the recompense.

Scripture describes heaven as a city of gold and jewels, just as here we have the gold of the land of Havilah, which is "good", and bdellium and the onyx stone, precious jewels. They foreshadow that final display, when God at last will be free to let all the brightness of His glory shine out to His ransomed creatures.

Scripture had not yet mentioned rivers, though it had mentioned seas and dry land. Their source was the land from which God had ordered blessing to flow… Their freshness all was there. From there the waters flowed here and there. By their course they surrounded and gave their character to other countries. So the sense would be — "And a river-source was in Eden to water the garden; and from there it was distributed, and became four principal streams." Of these we know two, and two are uncertain — which is not very surprising… The primary object was the garden; but from there they flowed around the world which needed it.

The Ethiopia of verse 13 is really Cush, of whom we read in Genesis 10:6. There appears to have been a district bearing his name between Mesopotamia and India, as well as the better known land we now call Abyssinia.

Reland has clearly proved… that the Gihon is the Araxes, or Aras… There is no doubt that the Gihon or Aras encircled the Cossaei, the descendants of Cush. There was an Asiatic Cush no less than an African, and widely dispersed too. This certainty explains "the rivers of Cush" in Isaiah 18:1.

What is given clearly was worth knowing. God holds back the details that would only satisfy man's curiosity, or might expose people to dangerous superstition. The burial place of Moses is not the only spot which divine wisdom has veiled from human sight. And the site of the lost paradise might have become the goal of an even wider — indeed worldwide — pilgrimage of folly and evil. The sad truth is that sin led to man's expulsion. He is an outcast.

Ethiopia may show that God has before His eye even the distant lands. Assyria may show that God is watching the land that will be closely tied to Israel. The Euphrates may show that God is already marking out the borders of Israel.

The second river of Eden is Gihon, "the bringer-forth." It surrounds the whole land of Cush, which means "terror," or "black." Christ is our Deliverer from the land of our terror and blackness. In this way God in His mercy brings us out of darkness into marvellous light… To this end Christ first entered the land of terror and blackness, and came out as the firstborn from among the dead. Those who believe share in His triumph.

Scripture describes the garden, and mentions two rivers that certainly exist today. There can be no doubt that the Euphrates and the Tigris, or Hiddekel, named here, are the same two rivers that still go by those names.

This river is only mentioned by name in one other place (Gen. 2:14). Most identify it with the Tigris, from both geography and the origin of its name. If this is correct, Daniel would have had to cross it on his journeys to Shushan (Dan. 8:2) from Babylon.

The river that watered paradise has no name, and that silence is the more striking because the four rivers it was parted into are carefully named. The last was well known enough to need no description. Its companion called for the very few words, "that which flows toward," or in front of, "Assyria." The first and second get a fuller description, since Israel hardly knew them, and in fact the scriptures never mention them anywhere else.

The text then settles the Armenian table-land as the true place, and disproves every version of the scheme that puts the garden and the rivers described here in Babylonia. As to the moral lesson, it was only a test for the creature, and neither the river nor paradise was permanent.

That there were four rivers is fairly clear. Of the four heads, two are named and well known as rivers — Tigris and Euphrates. Nobody has identified the other two for certain… No opinion has been proved, because the text itself is seriously hard to understand.

The early mention of Assyria in Genesis 2:14 shows how important it is in the ways of God. So does Genesis 10:11, which might read, "he (Nimrod) went to Assyria, and built Nineveh."

Among the many rivers mentioned in Scripture are the Euphrates and the Jordan. The Euphrates stands out in the ways of God with the nations of the world. Its first mention is in Genesis 2:14 and its last in Revelation 16:12. There, as the great barrier between east and west, its waters are dried up "to prepare the way for the kings from the east," so they may enter the conflicts of the last days.

The third river is Hiddekel, which means "sharp words." "The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword." Mark presents the Lord Jesus as a servant. Connect the name with that, and we find His word full of power and authority. Those who opposed Him felt its sharp keen edge all the way through. Demon, disease and death all fled at His word.

The man had received his being from God, and it was God who placed him in the garden prepared for him. He was placed there not to be idle, but "to work it and keep it." How complete were God's rights over the creature He had formed! All of Adam's rights — over the garden, the earth, and the various kinds of lower creatures — came from the sovereign appointment of the One to whom they all belonged, Adam included.

Here we are told not about the place, its resources and surroundings, far-reaching as they were. We are told its moral point and purpose. God the Governor took Man and put him into the paradise He had prepared. All was unfallen, in order and beauty, with no stain in Adam or in the creation under him, and certainly none in its loveliest spot. Yet God put Man there to work it and keep it. Standing above the work in indifference would have been out of place, even though Man was blessed, everything was very good, and toil and sorrow were unknown.

Scripture does not say there was no "work" before the fall. Man was placed in the garden "to work it and keep it," which shows God did not want His creature to be idle. But no "toil" or "sorrow" went with that occupation. Now thorns and thistles were to appear, and man was to eat bread by the sweat of his face. Weariness is known now, and so is the sweetness of rest after work. Idleness was one of the sins of Sodom (Ezek. 16:49). It had no place in innocence… Work here is good for all, and there is profit in it. For out of evil God can and does bring good.

How telling it is that God laid toil on man when sin came into the world! Man was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. At first God put him there to work and keep the garden, but there was no bitterness of service and toil. So in that heavenly Paradise, the rest of God we enter, there will be service and ministry throughout eternity — but no weariness, no toil, nothing to show that sin is present.

He had put Adam there to work it and keep it — not as a slave, bent low by the sweat of his face over ground cursed because of him. That ground gives back for his labour, along with the plants he eats, "thorns and thistles," rods of discipline and constant reminders of his fall. No, God had placed Adam there as king, centre and head of the whole lower creation, a picture of the One who was to come.

Along with everything else God provided for his blessing we must count this — too little thought of — that Adam was also to be taught mastery, even in a place where no moral evil existed. He was to "fill the earth and subdue it," and to "work and keep" even the "garden of delight."

In the first garden God placed Adam, innocent, with access to the tree of life. But he chose the tree of responsibility, went the wrong way, and fell. In the second garden lay the One who had a right to the tree of life, yet who had met that responsibility in the dust of death. For the first man, the garden east in Eden became the gateway to a lost world that ends in the lake of fire. For the other, that garden becomes the gateway for His people — not back to Paradise regained, but into the Paradise of God.

How fitting that there should be some test of whether Adam recognised these rights of his Creator! And if there was to be a test, how could there have been an easier one, or one kinder to man? In Genesis 2:16-17, notice four things: God's authority — He "commanded the man"; His bounty — "Of every tree"; His prohibition — "You shall not"; His warning — "In the day." So man is fully set in responsibility before the woman is created. She was to share the responsibility with him.

God had revealed His ways to him, as a Giver, in the widest generosity. Nothing was withheld from man. The ten thousand streams that fed into his happiness in Eden spoke of a God who would withhold no good thing. "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat" announced the freeness and fullness of a Hand that was not stingy. The man was to enjoy it all freely.

What could have met such a poisoned arrow from Satan but perfect confidence? Confidence would have answered in the very words of the LORD God: "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat." Such is our Creator's goodness. And since He made only this one exception, we can trust His goodness in this too — that it is for our good. Faith would have noticed the "every" and the "freely" in Genesis 2:16.

God had reserved for Himself only one of the trees in that great estate. That one tree showed that the garden belonged to God. The command not to eat from it simply upheld God's right to be obeyed by His creature.

Here was a test of man's obedience. The wide range of delightful fruits made it no hardship to refrain from this one tree. And further, it was a merciful fencing off of a real danger. Think for a moment. Adam knew the good. The good could only be a blessing to him. The knowledge of evil could only defile, and bring nothing in its train but sorrow.

The sense of responsibility was there, the debt of obedience. It belonged to the nature of his relationship with God. But distinguishing things as good and evil in themselves had no place in his mind. To have eaten of the tree was no evil in itself: he would have eaten of it as innocently as of any other. God had forbidden it, and everything depended on that command. Adam in innocence was formed to understand responsibility to obey. Avoiding something just because it was evil, where no command had been given, was unknown to him.

In verses 16 and 17 we find that Adam, though created in a state of innocence, was put in a place of responsibility… He was put under law in the simplest way. The law was one commandment, and that commandment concerned only one tree… The divine command was cut down to the barest minimum. It was just enough to keep before him that as the creature he must be subject to the Creator and walk in obedience.

Responsibility and moral obligation to God is the due relationship of the creature, man, to God as sovereign and supreme, in every condition… Law was not in Eden, though responsibility to obey was there. So it is written: "The Lord God commanded the man." This commandment was not a ban on something wrong in itself, like "You shall not murder." It was a simple test of obedience.

The forbidden tree took nothing from Adam. It denied him no pleasure or taste, for the Lord God had set in the garden every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. It did carry fruit. But God restricted eating it for one reason only: to remind His wonderful creature that he held everything in trust under his Maker. Beneath man was everything in this lower creation. Above him, God. The one simple safeguard for keeping his position was obedience. And obedience, not to a complicated code of laws, but to one simple command.

The actual test was the prohibition of something that was not in itself evil, but simply and by decree wrong for man because God had forbidden it. That is the very essence of a test for an innocent man... It was the simple question of whether God was really Jehovah-Elohim, whether He was a moral governor or not, whether man was to be independent of God or not. This was not decided by some great matter whose results man could reason out and foresee. It was decided simply by doing or not doing the will of God.

God had given every tree of the garden for food except one single tree. This prohibition was a test of the creature's obedience to the Creator. The Creator also knew what would follow if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It would ruin man's innocence. It would poison his whole being by bringing in the knowledge of evil, with no power to resist it. Therefore His prohibition was merciful.

Knowledge was acquired, but no wisdom, and man's knowledge ever since has been his ruin — knowledge of good, but no power to practise it; knowledge of evil and no power to resist it.

Adam already had life. God tested him by a direct, well-known command: do not eat the forbidden fruit. What made this test perfect was that it raised no moral question in itself... What I insist on is this. There was no promise of life, which would suppose he did not have it. There was a threat of death, which supposed he was alive — alive and innocent, with no knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of life was distinct from that of knowing good and evil. The test of responsible obedience was one thing, the means of life quite another. When man disobeyed by eating from the one tree, God drove him out, in case he should also take from the other and make his fallen sinful state everlasting.

Here the Lord attaches to the first act of evil nothing less than complete separation from Himself; for He is the living God... and therefore a state of death was a state of separation from Him. He announces this state as the certain and immediate doom of the creature the moment he commits evil.

Spiritual death, or "death in trespasses and sins," cannot be what God speaks of in His warning to Adam. That is indeed the spiritual state that results from the fall. But the moral state of a criminal is very different from the judgment passed on the criminal. Man's depravity is what he is condemned for, not what he is sentenced to.

The first form of unbelief was the denial of God's word... God said, "in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." The serpent said, "You shall not surely die." Eve did not believe God's word, and so she became the unbeliever.

The Lord had said, "you shall surely die." Christ came as the great witness to His people that "the wages of sin is death." In His case it was by imputation only, for He was perfectly and entirely holy. But He took our sins; He bore our iniquities. He was willing to be looked on as the guilty one, and to bear the penalty God had attached to sin — "you shall surely die" — to uphold the truth of God.

Here in Genesis 2 the LORD God is both moral Governor and Creator. He enters with kind care into the daily life and comfort of man on earth. He has a kind and wise mind about man's well-being. He also speaks it out, so that man may know it as His. This is not a command, as in verses 16 and 17. It is the kind judgment of One who knew everything and overflowed with favour toward man. "Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone.'" Exchange of affection and interest is good for man. No wonder that solitude is the harshest punishment short of death.

The love that had blessed with so much had further good in store, and that in the form of one who should be worthy of the object of such love and goodness.

For Adam, where everything was still right, here was a spiritual being he could share thought and feeling with — the exchange our whole being craves. She was also an object for his heart. She was a pledge of his Creator's love. In her, love served him where he could see it, and drew out his own love. She rescued him from isolation, and from being wrapped up in himself.

God did not create man to be self-sufficient. He needed more than company. He needed a "helper fit for him," a counterpart. We see the goodness of God as well as His wisdom in the way the counterpart came into being. God's aim was Adam's own good. So He brought the whole range of beasts and birds before Adam. That way Adam saw for himself that no such counterpart existed among them.

"A marriage" carries us back at once to Eden, and to the word by which God set it up: "It is not good that the man should be alone." God made man for communion. The gift of language shows it — man can speak, and can be spoken to. In this he shows not only a creature's need. He also shows the likeness of his Creator. In the very preface to his creation the words "Let us make man" speak of communion.

It was "not good that the man should be alone." But His provision was not two or more. It was one woman, "a helper fit for him," his counterpart. Self-will kept growing. In the end it did not hesitate to cross God's mind, which His act had shown plainly to those who fear Him: "And Lamech took two wives." From the beginning it was not so.

The man was created first, and it was not good for him that he should be alone. The woman was created in view of this need. Why a woman for that reason, and not another man? Because another man would not have given the help she gave.

In eternity past God looked forward and saw the risen, glorified Son. He was saying, It is not good for Him to be alone. I will build a helper suitable for Him. God thought it; God said it; and God has done it. All of it is of God. Think of the predestined glory of the church. Whatever Adam was, that was every particle of Eve. Whatever Christ is, as the risen man from among the dead, such shall be, such is, His bride.

This moral meaning, and the picture it carries, is the true key to the record in Genesis 2:4-25. It fully accounts for the differences from chapter 1 to 2:3 — differences that ignorance and unbelief twist into the contradictions of two separate writers. It is not true that Genesis 2:7, 19 presents man as created first of all living creatures, before the birds and beasts. Nor does man's creation in God's image (Gen. 1:27) contradict Genesis 2:7, which says that God formed him from the dust of the ground.

Chapter 2 shows that God made birds out of the earth. But Genesis 1:20, they say, shows that He made them out of the waters. Superficial objectors! Genesis 1 says nothing of the sort. It agrees perfectly with Genesis 2:19… This verse does not teach that the waters were to bring forth birds, as it appears to do in our English version. It says, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature, and let birds fly about the earth in the open expanse of heaven."

God made Adam lord of the lower creation here on earth. In His goodness He gave him the wisdom and intelligence to give the proper names to all cattle, to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, for He had put them all under him. This matters all the more, because it is the fitting sign of the dominion given him… Adam claimed nothing here in pride. It was the Lord God who brought the animals to him to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called every living creature had His approval.

One of man's first lessons was a lesson in zoology. Giving names to all the creatures implies that he understood them, and the names stood for qualities in them that could be recognised, and were. Adam had no language but his own. He could not hide the emptiness of a meaningless name behind grand-sounding Greek, as our zoologists do now.

The Lord God brings these creatures before Adam, and Adam gives names to them all. This shows not only his title as lord, but the power of fitting language, given by God from the first. The idea that clear speech is only a growth from the slow putting together of elements is a dream of clever speculation… On the very first day of his life, even before Eve was formed, Adam gave the animals their names, and God Himself endorsed what their head said.

God did not create man to be an entirely self-sufficient being. He needed not only companionship but a "helpmeet," a counterpart. We see the goodness of God as well as His wisdom in the way that counterpart came into being. God's aim was Adam's good and profit, so He brought the whole range of beasts and birds before him and let him see for himself that no such counterpart existed among the animals.

To complete his condition, the Lord God holds for him a coronation day and a wedding day. But this action has an order in it… He brings the creatures of the field and of the air to Adam, to see what he would call them. This was investing him with dominion, setting the royal crown on his head. Then He prepares the helper suited to him, and presents Eve to him, following his coronation with his marriage.

Giving names is a ruler's right. Scripture recognises this everywhere — not only in Genesis but right through the Bible, even when Gentile nations held the upper hand. It belongs to man by nature, and he still uses it today over everything and everyone under him. But the weightiest and most striking use of this right was in man before he sinned, fresh from his Creator's hand. The Creator, Himself Sovereign Ruler, took pleasure in the rule of His representative on earth.

Giving names is a mark of lordship, or ownership. So Adam at the beginning gave names to the animals. Pharaoh gave a name to Joseph, and Nebuchadnezzar gave one to Daniel (Gen. 2:20; Gen. 41:45; Dan. 1:7).

He gives them each a name. These are not made-up names. In Scripture a name states the mark that sets a thing apart. So in naming the animals we see that Adam knew them perfectly. But with all this knowledge he fails to find one "his like."

Jehovah-Elohim brings these creatures before Adam, and he gives names to them all. This shows not only his title as lord, but also his power of fitting speech, which God gave him from the first. Some say that speech grew piece by piece, out of smaller elements. That idea is a clever dream. It may exercise men's wits, but it has no foundation at all. On the very first day of his life, before God formed Eve, Adam gave the animals their names. And God Himself approved what their head said.

God did not create man to be completely self-sufficient. He needed more than company. He needed a "helpmeet," or counterpart. The way God brought that counterpart into being shows His goodness as well as His wisdom. God's aim was Adam's own good. So He brought the whole range of beasts and birds before him, and let Adam see for himself that no such counterpart existed among the animals.

Every creature under Adam's rule had its mate to share the joy of its new life. The eagle in mid air, the singing birds in the trees, the roaring lion, the lamb feeding in peace beside him, down to the silent creatures of the waters — each had its own. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. Man was alone in the middle of a paradise, and therefore it was no paradise to him. There was a void in his heart, with all the abundance of that beautiful garden around him.

The beautiful picture is kept intact: creation belongs to Christ. It does not belong to the church in the first place at all; her place is one of grace alone. The Heir of all things is the Second man, not the bride. If she has everything along with Him, that is because she is joined to Him, not because it is hers in herself.

When God created man, no other creature of God's hand was found to be "a helpmate, his like" (Gen. 2:20) — none that could enter into the thoughts and feelings of man, or respond to his love. Ephesians 5 teaches us that Christ went into death, as Adam went into his deep sleep, so that one could be produced who would be "His like."

A deep sleep — in Hebrew, tardemah. The word is never used of natural sleep. It is used of sleep that is either supernatural, sent for a special purpose, or spiritual, sent as part of God's dealings in governing man.

God would give man the gift of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the exchange of affection. The end was good, and so was the way. He put the man into a trance, as the Greek version of the Old Testament renders it. So the man felt no pain, yet knew fully what God was giving him. She was not taken from his head, and not from his feet. She was not an absolute equal, and not an utter inferior. She came from his side: the object of nearest love and sustaining care, one who shared all joy and sorrow while depending on him.

Of course God could have created a wife for Adam in a different way, if that had been His will. But He chose to do it in a way that man would never have imagined, showing a wisdom far higher than man's. He caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and removed one of his ribs, closing up the wound (without stitches!).

If God had created the woman separately from the man, it would have been a bare fact with nothing to teach us. Instead, God keeps this striking detail for the account of moral relationship. And may I put it to the conscience of every soul: is this event not placed exactly where it should be? We all know how ready man is to forget the truth, and how often might takes advantage of right. God, for His part, was pleased to form the woman, and to reveal how He formed her. He did it in a way that ought to shame any man who admits she is his own flesh and bone, and yet slights or misuses a relationship so close.

It takes little to see in that deep sleep God sent on Adam a figure of the deeper and more mysterious sleep of the "last Adam." The woman came out of the sleeping man, as the Church came out of Christ's death. And the creative Spirit builds the Church up as His body, "of His flesh and of His bones."

The Risen One breathed the spirit of resurrection life on those for whom He had died. He had made the first Adam a living soul. He was the same One who took the rib out of sleeping Adam's side and made Adam's helper out of it. One day a soldier's spear would pierce His own side and draw out the blood and the water. That was to fit the bride the Father had given Him to live with Him in glory.

Adam fell into a deep sleep, and God built from a rib out of his side a woman, whom He presented to Adam as a helper suited to him. In the same way, the helper suited to Christ came into being after His death. The church did not spring out of the living body. There was no union with Christ when He became man. Through His death this new body came into being.

It is worth noticing that the Hebrew word translated "rib" here is in every other case translated, no less than nineteen times, as "side."

He would give man the gift of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the exchange of affection. The end was good, and so was the way. He threw the man into a trance, as the Greek translators put it. Adam would not feel pain, yet would know perfectly what God was giving him. It was not a separate human being independent of Adam. It was not from the head nor from the feet — not an absolute equal, nor an utter inferior — but from his side. Others long ago have observed what that means: she is the object of nearest love and sustaining care, a sharer of all joy and sorrow, joined to him yet dependent on him.

When it comes to the way God's act of creating Eve is described, the word "built" catches our attention. It was certainly an act of creation. Yet the wording is unusual: God "built the rib into a woman." This is the first time this verb (to build) appears in the Bible. In Ephesians 2:20, 22 the word for the building of the church comes from the same root as the word used here, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The church is presented here as companion. But the mention that God "built" Eve is meant to confirm the truth that the builder of the church is a divine One. The Lord Himself said to Peter: "on this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:18).

As Jehovah Elohim was pleased to build his rib into an Ishah (woman), so He brought her to the man. This is the highest and best form of marriage. The woman was received, as it were, from the divine hand. She came not from Elohim only, but from Him who in all His action recorded here was perfectly laying the ground for mutual duty in the relationship of marriage.

The woman was formed by divine handiwork, not from the dust of the ground as Adam had been, but out of Adam himself. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. The marriage of Adam is the prototype of the marriage of all his sons. In every case of true marriage, God arranges the union. Divine wisdom notices the moment when the man's loneliness is no longer good for him. He then provides a bride who is the complement of his nature, with its personal characteristics. Adam had no choice of brides; there was only the one that would suit him, and she was prepared by God especially for him.

Scripture fully warrants us in looking at Adam and Eve as a type of Christ and the church. So the death of Christ had to be an accomplished fact before the church could be set up. Yet in the purpose of God she was looked at, and chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world.

We may find a contrast to Christ in Genesis 2:22. The Lord God presented Eve to Adam; in Ephesians 5:27 Christ presents the church to Himself. Why is this? The answer is very simple — Christ is God.

Man was alone, and it was not good that he should be so... If God had created someone else out of the dust, apart from Adam, where would Adam's supremacy have been? And where would the tender closeness of relationship that such a companion needs have been? ... His exclamation clearly shows the joy with which he received her. It also shows that he saw the infinite wisdom that had provided him a partner and companion. She was distinct from him, and so the object of his affection and delight. Yet she was so mysteriously linked with his existence that she had once been part of himself.

When he awoke out of sleep and saw standing by his side the fair one whom the Lord God, in His goodness, had provided for him, he exclaimed, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." The blank was now filled up. He had seen nothing till now to suit his heart.

The woman now came to him as it were from God's own hand... "the man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Ishah, for out of Ish was taken this." He knew at once how close and fitting this relationship was, though until then he had not known God's purpose. And he gave her a name that expressed the fact perfectly.

Note the intelligence of Adam and his knowledge of the mystery of the woman's creation... He gives her a name, but owns that she is part of himself. This time it is so, as the name itself shows — part of himself, yet subject to him.

God formed the woman by His own hand. He did not take her from the dust of the ground, as He had taken Adam, but out of Adam himself. So the woman really was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. God saw that Adam was incomplete while he was alone, and gave him a partner designed to meet exactly what he lacked. So in their marriage the two became one flesh, each completing the other.

We all know how ready man has been to forget the truth — how often power takes advantage of what is right! God, for His part, chose to form woman, and to reveal how He formed her, in a way that should shame any man who recognises her as his own flesh and bone, yet slights or misuses so close a relationship.

Adam's marriage is the pattern for the marriage of all his sons. In every true marriage, God arranges the union... Adam had no choice of brides; there was only one who would suit him, and God had prepared her especially for him.

The relationship of husband and wife is not merely a convenient illustration. Ephesians 5 makes it clear that God modelled marriage on what He already had in His mind — the relationship of Christ and the church. In other words, God had the relationship of Christ and His church in mind in His eternal purpose, and only later, in time, did He institute marriage.

The link is not between the Lord as Man and men in general. It was not true, as some say, that in becoming Man He became flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. It is we, His people, who are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone (Eph. 5:30). For this, too, death had to come in... It was in the deep sleep that fell on Adam — the image of that death-sleep — that Eve was taken out of his side.

The first verse describes circumstances entirely different from those of Adam, who had no father or mother to leave.

As He had already answered: "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt. 19:3-8). It is not Adam who said this, but God.

Up to the time of a man's marriage the chief relationship he stands in is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents. But when he marries he leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife. From then on she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no longer two but one flesh.

This verse settles many questions. He holds fast to his wife — only one wife, so that bigamy and polygamy are completely unscriptural. Holding fast to his wife involves genuine love for her, and faithfulness and devotedness.

Now the same lawgiver who allowed divorces had, in an earlier book of the law, made known how God first set up marriage. That first account has no clause permitting divorce. Both passages (Deut. 24:1; Gen. 2:23-24) were God's Word. The first was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts"… The second (Gen. 2:24) taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie… So we are taken back to how marriage began, and reminded of how God sees it — two made one flesh, whom He has joined, and whom therefore man should not separate.

It matters greatly that God set up marriage between Adam and Eve while they were still innocent. When they were joined, sin had not entered the world, and death, its just penalty, had not yet come. But when their disobedience brought sin in, marriage kept the holy character God gave it when He set it up.

That union is meant to remind the Christian of his own blessed privilege: he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him — not one flesh, but one spirit. This is so because he has received the Holy Spirit. So impurity is a sin not only against his own body, but against the Trinity and the price paid for him. "Glorify God then in your body."

God cast Adam into a deep sleep and formed Eve from a rib taken from his side. This is a picture of the church, which was formed by the death of Christ. Ephesians 5:25-32 brings this out so clearly that there can be no mistake about its meaning. Marriage was not just a handy illustration of Christ and the church. God designed it from the start to be a picture of that union.

Christ, as man, left what belonged to Him through His link with His earthly people, Israel, so that He might gain and have the church… The marriage bond, therefore, becomes the picture of the union of the church with Christ.

The first condition of man is described too. "And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." It was a state completely different from that of fallen man. It suited them then, but man as he is now could never rightly imagine it. Yet we cannot help feeling how right it was for innocence, the condition in which God made man and woman. Could He have made them any other way and stayed true to His own character?

There was neither holiness nor righteousness before the fall. The original state was something distinct from both. Adam was innocent, but not properly righteous or holy. To apply innocence to God, or to the Lord Jesus, would be absurd. God is holy: He sees what is bad and hates it. That, at least, is the negative side of what holiness is. A righteous man judges what is contrary to justice, and hates it. An innocent man did not know good and evil in themselves, though of course he knew it was his duty to obey God.

Finally, we see here the unashamed nakedness of the man and the woman — a happy expression of innocent closeness. No closeness such hearts might enjoy would deserve rebuke, and it will be the same between the true pair in the heavenly garden. There will be no fear of having to hide, and no shame in coming very close. Innocence was the safety between Adam and Eve. In the same way, all the virtues of the new mind will be the necessary, instinctive guard over the ways of the redeemed Bride of the Lamb, as she walks with the Lord.

This verse gives the facts that belonged to that first condition — facts that were not true, and could not fittingly be true, at any other time. Shame followed sin: the knowledge of good and evil made them conscious that they had fallen, and so they covered themselves.

When they gained a conscience through sin, God planted in them a sense of shame at being naked. Animals do not have this, but even in the lowest type of human culture, conscience speaks.

Adam and his wife in innocence were naked, and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:25), but it was very different when they sinned. They knew they were naked, tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, and hid among the trees. This is a solemn picture of what man is in sin, and at a distance from God. Man knows he is not fit for God's eye in the nakedness of his sinful state. So he tries to clothe himself in garments of his own making — his own self-righteousness. Yet when he is brought near to God's presence, he has to admit that his own words of righteousness cannot hide his nakedness.

Adam and his wife had tried to cover their nakedness with fig-leaf aprons, and had failed. The Lord God did cover them with coats of skins. Now skins do not come from a plant; they come from an animal. They can only clothe man once death has come upon the animal that produced them. Here, then, is the earliest revelation that man can only stand clothed before God on the basis of death.