Knowing The Word in Genesis 2:10-17, The Rivers and the Garden

10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon [“the leaper”]. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah [Arabia?], where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon [“the springer out” and is Jerusalem’s principal spring]. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush [usually refers to Ethiopia, so could be the Nile]. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. [There is no problem identifying the Tigris and Euphrates. The great river that rises in Eden, after leaving the garden, splits into these four rivers. On this basis alone we could conclude that Eden lies somewhere in Armenia near the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates. Another theory puts it near the head of the Persian Gulf where three of the four rivers converge, but in this theory the flow of the rivers is reversed. Perhaps the insoluble geography is a way of saying that Eden is now inaccessible, even unlocatable, after the fall and expulsion of man from the garden.]

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. [This is the man’s job. Even before the fall man is expected to work. Paradise is not a life of leisurely unemployment but a place where man fulfills his creation purposes.] 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat [similar prohibition to the Ten Commandments], for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” [The prohibition applies simply to one of the two special trees. Evidently man was allowed to eat of the tree of life if and when he wanted. The death sentence shows God’s seriousness in prohibiting access to the tree.]