I. Chapter 2:12 – And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
· More clues to help us potentially identify this region
· Bdellium - An aromatic gum resin similar to myrrh, produced by certain Asian and African shrubs or trees of the genus
J. Chapter 2:13 – And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia
· Gihon – “bursting forth” mentioned 5 other times in scripture, all referencing geography. Identified as modern day Kerkah (ancient Khoaspes) a river in Khūzestān Province Zagros Mountains , and passes north of Shush (ancient Susa Tigris just below its confluence with the Euphrates .
· Ethiopia Kas
K. Chapter 2:14 – And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria . And the fourth river is Euphrates .
· Hiddekel – Akkadian word for Tigris , meaning the “encircling”
· Akkadia - The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad Agade ) and its surrounding region in Mesopotamia . The Akkadian state was the predecessor of the later empires of Babylonia and Assyria ; formed following centuries of Akkadian cultural synergy with Sumerians, it reached the height of its power between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC. (Liverani, Mario, Akkad: The First World Empire)
· Assyria – should read “city of Assur Assyria
· Euphrates – The Greek Euphrates from the Persian Ufratu – “the river”
L. Chapter 2:15 – And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.)
· End of the parenthetical
· Why did God put the man in the garden?
· To dress it and keep it (have dominion over it?)
· This man Adam (who is the son of God) was placed in the garden as a servant
o Keep – keep safe, preserve
· John 19:41 – Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
o Is this possibly a foreshadowing of Christ having dominion over the garden of the grave and therefore preserving mankind from death?
M. Chapter 2:16 – And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
· Allows the man to “eat” from every tree in the garden including the tree of life
· Death was not yet introduced into this world, so was “eating” required to sustain life or was something else meant by “eating”
· Eat = אכל 'akal- (verb) - to eat, devour, burn up, feed, consume
· Lets get back to this one
N. Chapter 2:17 – But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
· Forbids the man from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
· Why? Because “in the day” you “eat” you will die
· So God was doing this for the sake of the man in that He was saving him from certain death by preventing him from eating of this tree
· Was it physical “fruit” that this tree produced or something else? Was it something that could be physically consumed?
o Does the act of physically eating give us knowledge or wisdom?
o The act of seeing can be compared to eating for example we have a well known periodical called the Reader’s Digest
o We gain knowledge from seeing, reading or experiencing with other senses
· Why would God have allowed the man to even have access to something that was harmful to him? This is man’s purpose as outlined in the prior chapter.
O. Chapter 2:18 – And the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”
· God recognizes the man’s need for companionship
· He determines it here and completes it in v. 22 after the animals are named.
P. Chapter 2:19 – And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
· Were fowl formed from the ground or the waters as in 1:20 ?
o If we read 1:22 , "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." This verse makes it clear that the fowl were not created for or came out of the water, and that the fowl would indeed multiply upon the earth which is evident today.
o Robert Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) printed in 1898 translates v. 20 as follows: “...Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature, and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens..." This translation rightly indicates that the verse does not necessarily state where these creatures were created but where they exist. The seas would contain the sea creatures and the sky would likewise contain the fowl.
· So did God form the animals before or after he formed the man?
o The text of Genesis 2:19 merely suggests that the animals were formed before being brought to man; it says nothing about the relative origins of man and beast in terms of chronology.
· This passage seems to portray how much God just wants to spend time with us, wants to know our thoughts, wants to see how we react to His creatures and His creation. This sets man apart from the other creatures in that God enjoys spending His time with us in a deeper more personal way.
· Obviously through this process Adam would have noticed that all of the other creatures had a mate, yet he was alone.
· Adam named “every living creature” See next verse…
Q. Chapter 2:20 – And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
· Did Adam have to learn a language or was he built with a language “pre-loaded” into his brain?
· The National Science Foundation’s (aptly named “Tree of Life” project) estimates that there could be anywhere from 5 million to 100 million species on the planet, but science has only identified about 2 million. Of that Vertebrates: ~3% of all known species: Reptiles: 7,984 species, Amphibians: 5,400 species, Birds: 9,000-10,000 species, Mammals: 4,475-5,000 species and Finned Fishes: 23,500 species
· This creates a reconciliation problem in that according to this verse Adam named ALL of the animals BEFORE Eve was formed
· There are only 86,400 seconds in a 24 hour day, so if Adam only named the identified species of approximately 2 M at 1 second per name it would have taken a little over 23 days.
· The problem is that Eve wasn’t created until Adam named all of the species and in Chapter 1:27 we see that on the 6th day God created both male and female.
· So here are some possible solutions to this riddle:
o The “days” referenced in Chapter 1 are not literal days but an unknown span of time
o The male and female created in 1:27 are not the same as Adam and later Eve referenced in chapter 2, thus Adam was “formed” sometime after the initial creation of man and woman
o Adam didn’t really name all of the animals just a fraction of them and we are missing some sort of figurative speech (thus all cattle, fowl of the air and every beast of the field do not necessarily make up all SPECIES) Mammals, Birds and Reptiles are approximately 23,000 species, so if Adam were to name all of these at 1 second each it would take ~6.5 hours.
o God enabled Adam to name the animals at an incredible rate of speed that we cannot comprehend
o This is somehow analogous to all of mankind naming the species down through the years and going forward and not necessarily limited to the confines of this 6th day.
o When God created man He considered that as creating both male and female simultaneously since He created “one flesh” which is subsequently referred to as the union between man and woman.
o Can we somehow test any of these theories?
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