What is the location of the Garden of Eden?

The text then is conclusive for the Armenian table-land as the true locality, and disproves every modification of the scheme that conceives the garden and the described rivers as in Babylonia or even farther south along Khusistan and E. Arabia. Nor does it compel one to explain away the meaning of a "river" or to give to "heads" any meaning which is not the natural and correct one. As to the moral lesson, it was but creature trial, and no permanence in either river or paradise. How different the paradise of God on high, or even that river the streams whereof make glad the city of God on earth! God is in the midst of her: this accounts for all in His grace. But the manifestation of divine grace and fidelity for both awaits the coming of the Lord. Here was but the responsible man in the midst of the garden; and we see how quickly he fell and dragged down all in his own ruin. Christ alone overcomes, and through Him God gives us the victory.

1892 65 We hear again of the Lord God putting Man, the man (Adam) into the garden. This is no vain repetition. In vers. 8-14 the general fact was stated, and those special precincts described within a country of delight and pleasantness, where He Who built all things stocked it particularly with every thing beautiful and good for His favoured creature and representative on earth, but also with two trees, there only, which some have designated "sacramental." Whether this be quite just or not, certainly they were most momentous and significant, the tree of life evidently and absolutely distinct from that of knowing good and evil, which alone was prohibited. In that garden was Man placed to abide in dependence and obedience, sovereign of all around him, subject to Him Whose goodness set him there with but one test of his loyalty. This we hear only in the second statement of his introduction there, where a river afforded its refreshing waters, which on leaving the garden parted into four heads or chief streams outside, two less known and more described, two more notoriously connected with man's sad history, of which the end is not yet.

This, not to speak of other reasons, appears conclusive against the claim of the Pison to be the Ganges! set up by Josephus and a crowd of Greek and Latin fathers, the Nile according to Jarchi and other Rabbis, the Indus of late reasserted by Ewald, more than one of the fathers considering it to be the Danube! Caesarius and Epiphanius held it to be the Danube, the Ganges, and the Indus, and that after an extraordinary course in the south it joined the ocean near Cadiz! Those who made the Pison to be the Ganges regarded the Gihon as the Nile. Those who embrace the theory that Eden lay on the Shat-el-Arab consider the Pison and the Gihon as mere branches of the stream formed by the blending of the Euphrates and the Tigris (or Hiddekel). But this seems to me indefensible, though there may be difficulty in reconciling what I regard as the truth with an unusual force of one or two words.

However this is merely by the way, for it is evidently a matter of no great importance in itself, save that we should hold the entire account of Paradise to be historical in the strictest and fullest sense. And, more than that, the position of these rivers seems to me to explain — what has often been a difficulty to many — the account that is given us here, that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and became into four heads;" because if the garden of Eden lay in that quarter (that is to say in Armenia), in the part of it where are found the springs or watershed of these rivers, they would be all within a certain circumscribed quarter, as surrounding this garden. It is however possible that God may have allowed a certain change as to the distribution of these waters around the garden. I do not venture on any opinion as to this. Scripture does not say more, and we must hold to scripture. But these remarks are merely thrown out to show that there seems to be no insuperable difficulty in the way of arriving at a satisfactory solution of this vexed question. As for the transfer of the site of the garden lower down in the plain of Shinar, it appears to me altogether untenable. It is impossible thus to connect Eden with the fountainhead or sources of these rivers. It is not hard to conceive both that they had a common source before they parted, and that the garden of Eden may have been of considerable extent. Let this suffice: I do not wish to speculate about the matter.

Observe another thing too. We have the description of the garden of Eden. I do not consider that its locality is so very difficult to ascertain in a general way as has been often imagined. Scripture describes it, and mentions two rivers which unquestionably exist at the present day. There can be no doubt that the Euphrates and the Tigris or Hiddekel, here named, are the same two rivers similarly called to this moment. It appears to me beyond reasonable doubt that the other two rivers are by no means impossible to trace; and it is remarkable, as showing that the Spirit of God takes an interest, and furnishes a thread to help us in the fact, that the two less notorious rivers are described more fully than the rivers which are so commonly known.* We are therefore warranted in supposing that they are described just because they might have been less easily discerned. It is said that the name of the first river is the Pison, and of the other the Gihon. Now without wishing to press my individual judgment of such a matter, I may state the conviction that the Pison and the Gihon, here described, are two rivers on the north of the site of Eden, one running into the Black Sea, the other into the Caspian. I believe that they are what are called, or used to be called in ancient times at any rate, the Phasis and the Aras or Araxes.

A river ran out of Eden to water it, and then divided into four. Only two of these can be identified, the Euphrates, and the Hiddekel denoting the Tigris. There are no others to be found to make up the four, and all efforts to find out where the garden of Eden was situated have utterly failed. It belonged to the time of innocence, and as that has gone, the earthly paradise has long ceased to exist. See PARADISE.

The location of Eden is indicated in verses 10-11. Two of the rivers can easily be identified; the other two very uncertainly. It seems certain that it lay somewhere to the east of the Euphrates, in a district noted for gold and precious stones and fragrant resin — for that is what bdellium is supposed to be.

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.

The garden of Eden was situated in a fertile, pleasant plain, somewhere near the two streams still known by their names, the Euphrates and the Tigris (Hiddekel). The tree of life represents Christ, while the rivers of water are clearly the types of the Holy Spirit. What the tree of knowledge of good and evil was no one knows. The command was given to test man in his innocency. Adam unfallen had not the knowledge of good and evil. That knowledge was acquired by the fall. The test, therefore, involved not some great moral evil but simply the authority and right of God to prohibit something. The tree of knowledge then represented responsibility.

The next difficulty is the geography of the rivers in Paradise. It is "inexplicable." (Phases, p. 110.) This is very possible. But I apprehend that the inexplicable thing is the text which speaks of geography, not the geography of the text. If so, which certainly is the case, I should think Mr. N. had better wait till he can explain or rather translate it before he raises an objection from it. The interpretation of this exceedingly brief statement is not easy. If it were explicable, perhaps Mr. N. might find no objection arising out of it. A river went from Eden to water the garden; from thence it was separated, and it became four heads. Now, that there were four rivers is pretty clear, for of four heads we have two well known named ones which are rivers — Tigris and Euphrates. The other two are not clearly ascertained. Two systems have been maintained: one that Gihon and Pison were the two rivers which form or formed the mouths of Tigris and Euphrates, which, after uniting, separated again. But this presents many difficulties. Others, who have placed the garden in Armenia, near the sources of Tigris and Euphrates, seek Gihon and Pison in rivers in that country. No opinion has been clearly proved, because the text itself presents serious difficulties as to its meaning.

But it may be noticed that in these verses we first hear of a "river." Of course, to say nothing of previous conditions, there were such in the Adamic earth since the third day. But it was fitting that mention of a river, should he reserved till the Holy Spirit gave it first in connection with paradise. What the river was which went forth from Eden to water the garden seems intentionally withheld: if it vanished when the garden was no longer seen, it is not hard to see the wisdom of the scripture's silence. But it is certain that those who contend like our Milton, that it was the Tigris, which watered paradise, or, as others, the united streams of Euphrates and Tigris, do violence to the inspired text; and "scripture cannot be broken," says our Lord. An unnamed river, having its rise in the territory of Eden, flows by the garden which it refreshed, and from thence (how far off is not said) it parts and becomes four heads, or chief streams, two of which (P'hrath and Hiddekel) are beyond doubt, Gihon only not certainly the Aras and Pison, probably the Rioni, if not the Kizil-Irmak (or Halys). For the river, after watering the garden in the east, may have run so as to cover the beginnings of these four in the west of that region.

1892 49 Next, we have the position of paradise set out with sufficient definiteness to mark the locality in a general way. Eden was the country; "the garden" was that choice portion not in the west or centre, but "eastward" which Jehovah Elohim planted for Adam, to which scripture alludes subsequently, not only in this book (Gen. 3, Gen. 4, Gen. 13:10), but in the prophets repeatedly (Isa. 51:3, Joel 2:9), and most at length in Ezekiel (Ezek. 28:13, Ezek. 31:9-19, Ezek. 36:35). It is quite distinct from another Eden, spelt in Hebrew somewhat differently, in Babylonia seemingly, referred to in 2 Kings 19:12, Isa. 37:12, and Ezek. 37:23).

"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and became four heads. The name of the one (first) [is] Pison, that which compasses all the land of Havilah, where the gold [is], and the gold of that land is good; there [is] the bdellium (B'dolach) and the onyx stone (Shoham). And the name of the second river [is] Gihon, that which encompasses all the land of Cush. And the name of the third [is] Hiddekel, that which goes forth before (or eastward to) Assyria. And the fourth river [is] Euphrates" (vers. 10-14).

That the district indicated is the plateau of Ararat ought not to be doubted, though it may be beyond the means of man to determine the great centre of interest with precision. What is given clearly it was of interest to know: such particulars are withheld as might only gratify man's curiosity, or perhaps expose to dangerous superstition. The burial place of Moses is not the only spot which divine wisdom has veiled from human ken. And the site of the lost paradise might have been perverted to a still wider, yea universal, pilgrimage of folly and evil. The sad truth is that sin led to man's expulsion. He is an outcast. The natural tree of life was thenceforth barred with unmistakable power and rigour. But a better hope was set be-fore the guilty, if we may anticipate a little, in the to be bruised Bruiser of the old Serpent, the Devil and Satan, who too easily overcame the first man. That God should have sooner or later effaced the Adamic paradise (for it was an extensive park, rather than what a garden ordinarily means) is as intelligible morally, as it accords with the fact that no such scene has greeted the eyes of man in the quarter where it must have been when our first parents were introduced there.

This is confirmed by the notable fact that the river which watered paradise is without a name; silence the more striking, because the four rivers, into which, after its allotted service, it was parted, are carefully named. One can readily understand that fact, if it were caused to disappear as well as paradise. It is implied in the description that it flowed through Eden before it watered the garden, and only after that was severed into four chief streams, two of which are the well-known rivers, Hiddekel or Tigris, and P'hrath or Euphrates. The last was notorious enough to need no description, its companion calling for the very few words, "that which flows toward," or in front of, "Assyria." The first and second are described more fully, as being comparatively unknown to Israel, and in fact nowhere else mentioned in the scriptures. But the account has the difficulties arising from countries obscure to later generations at least, both in their own names and in those of their products. Havilah and Cush have been debated nearly as much as Pison and Gihon; and not less the exact force of B'dolach and Shoham.

Josephus, in the first book of his Antiquities, led the way in strange departure by interpreting Pison as the Ganges! and Gihon as the Nile! Him not only many Rabbis follow (some reversing the case) but the best known of the Christian Fathers, as Eusebius, Epiphanius, Augustine and Jerome, etc., without speaking of allegorists like Origen and Ambrose, who adopted the idea of heaven, as others did the misty ideas of Philo Judoeus They accounted for those distant rivers by the supposition of their immense disappearance in the earth and rising again in the east and the south.

The first words, "a river going out from Eden," present a difficulty. The general idea, that the garden of Eden was not without this refreshment, is clear; and Tigris and Euphrates give a general idea of the country it was in. Eden supplied this water; that general idea is given. Eden may have contained the general source of waters, hence called Nahar generically; but the waters of this common springhead separated, and four principal streams were formed from them.*

107 No rivers had yet been mentioned, though seas and dry land had. The source of these was the territory from which God had ordered that blessing should flow. Thus Nahar would be used generically (as I might say land in contrast with sea). Nahar, river-streams, took their source in Eden. The garden was thus watered. Their freshness all was there. From thence the waters flowed here and there, and surrounded and characterized by their course other countries. Thus the sense would be — "And a river-source was in Eden to water the garden; and from thence [Eden] it was distributed, and became four principal streams." Of these we know two, and two are uncertain — a circumstance not very astonishing; while there are such, and which answer accurately enough to such description. This sense has its perfect place in the general moral bearing of this part of scripture. There were the streams of refreshment found. The primary object was the garden; but thence they flowed around the world which needed it. The context of the passage speaks of the different things that characterized the garden; and this account of the river which refreshed it then comes in. Every reader knows the place which a river holds in every description of what God has established. There is "a river which makes glad the city of God." "God is in the midst of her." This last could not be said of the garden.