Commentaires bibliques

7. formed] A different word from that used in Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:27, “created,” or in Genesis 1:26, “made.” The metaphor is that of the potter shaping and moulding the clay, LXX ἔπλασεν, Lat. formavit. As applied to the Creator, the metaphor is a favourite one; cf. Isaiah 45:9, Jeremiah 18:1-5, Wis 15:7, Romans 9:20-24.

See Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra, “Aye, note that Potter’s wheel, That metaphor, &c.”

man] Heb. âdâm. Man was popularly thought to be so called because taken from the adâmah, “the cultivated ground,” to which he is to return at death (Genesis 3:19), and which he is to cultivate during life (Genesis 3:23). It is impossible in English to give any equivalent to this play upon the names for “man” and “ground.”

In this verse and elsewhere, where the Heb. âdâm (= man) occurs with the def. article (hâ-âdâm), there is no reference to the proper name “Adam.” See note on Genesis 2:16.

of the dust of the ground] These words describe the Hebrew belief concerning the physical structure of man. It was seen that after death the bodily frame was reduced, by dissolution, into dust: it was, therefore, assumed that that frame had at the first been built up by God out of dust. For other passages illustrating this belief, cf. Genesis 3:19; Genesis 18:27, Psalm 90:3; Psalm 104:29, 1 Corinthians 15:47. We find the same idea in the Babylonian myth, where man is made out of earth mingled with the blood of the God Marduk1[3], and in the Greek myth of Prometheus and Pandora.

[3] See Appendix A (Book Comments).

breathed … life] The preceding clause having explained man’s bodily structure, the present one explains the origin of his life. His life is not the product of his body, but the gift of God’s breath or spirit.

At death the breath (ruaḥ) left man’s body; hence it was assumed, that, at the first, the mystery of life had been imparted to man by the breath (ruaḥ) of God Himself. Through life, man became “a living soul,” (nephesh), and, as “a living soul,” shared his life with the animals. But man alone received his life from “the breath of God.” It is this breathing (n’shâmâh) of life (LXX πνοὴ ζωης: Lat. spiraculum vitae) which imparts to man that which is distinctive of his higher principle of being, as compared with the existence of the animals, cf. Genesis 2:19. It would seem from Job 34:14-15 that one phase of Hebrew belief was (1) that at death the flesh of man turned again unto dust; (2) that God took back unto Himself His breath (ruaḥ) which He had given; (3) that the nephesh, or soul, departed into the Sheol, the region of the dead.

For the picture here given of vitality imparted to man by the breath breathed by God into man’s nostrils, cf. Job 27:3, “The spirit (or breath) of God is in my nostrils.”

We should compare the expression “breathed into” with the words in St John’s Gospel John 20:22. There the symbolical act of our Lord derives significance from this verse. Christ who is “the New Man,” Himself imparts the life-giving Spirit; “He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.”

8–9. The Garden in Eden

8. a garden] More strictly “an enclosure.” LXX παράδεισον, Lat. paradisum, a word borrowed from the Persian, and meaning “a park-like enclosure.” Its use here has given rise to the Christian metaphorical use of the word “Paradise.” “The word is of Iranian origin. In Avesta it is pairi-daêza encircling wall’ (Vend. iii. 18). It passed into Neo-Babylonian, Aramaic, post-Exilic Hebrew, Neo-Hebrew, Armenian, Persian, Kurdish, Greek, and Arabic as a word for a park or splendid garden. In the O.T. it is found in Nehemiah 2:8, Song of Solomon 4:13, Ecclesiastes 2:5” (Encycl. Rel. and Eth. vol. ii. p. 705).

eastward] The point of view is not that of the Babylonian, but of the Israelite, who regarded the East, and, in particular, Babylonia, as the cradle of man’s earliest civilization. Notice here the quite general description of the site of the “garden.” For its more minute definition, see Genesis 2:10-15. LXX κατὰ ἀνατολάς: Vulg. a principio. The Hebrew, when speaking or writing, is mentally facing East. “Eastward” is the same as “on the side fronting you.”

in Eden] Eden is not the name of the “garden,” but of the country or district in which Jehovah planted his “garden.” Eden in Hebrew means “delight,” or “happiness”; and the Israelite naturally associated this meaning of the word “Eden” with the dwelling place of the first man and woman, because this auspicious name seemed appropriate to the Garden of Jehovah. Hence we find the Garden of God spoken of as the place of fertility, beauty, and delight, Isaiah 51:3, Ezekiel 28:13; Ezekiel 31:8-9; Ezekiel 36:35, Joel 2:3.

“In Eden”; so, rightly, LXX ἐν Ἐδέμ. The Lat. “voluptatis,” = “of pleasure,” represents a popular misapprehension, not recognizing it as a proper name.

Assyriologists point out that the Assyrian word edinnu, meaning “a plain” or “steppe,” was applied to the Euphrates Valley. They suggest that the “garden” lay in this region. The Hebrew narrative, however, evidently contemplates a fruitful enclosure, not a plain: the name “Eden” is chosen because of its auspicious meaning in Hebrew, while the fact that in sound it reproduced the Babylonian designation of a remote Eastern, or Mesopotamian, region, made it appear all the more appropriate.

9. And out of the ground, &c.] The characteristic feature of the “garden,” or “enclosure,” is not its flowers, but its trees. This evident, also, from the traditional belief as to the Garden, which is reproduced in Ezekiel 31:8-9. To the Oriental, the large well-grown tree was an especial object of reverence (“pleasant to the sight”): and man was to live on the fruit of the trees (“good for food”). It is implied that the trees of the “garden,” like the man who is put into it, were from the first fully grown.

the tree of life] There are two wonder-working trees in the “garden.” One is called “the tree of life,” whose fruit imparts immortality to those who eat it (cf. Genesis 3:22-24): the other is called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” whose fruit conveys moral discernment. These gifts of knowledge and of immortality are the special prerogatives of Jehovah (Genesis 3:5; Genesis 3:22).

The mention of the two trees in this verse comes in a little abruptly. “The tree of life” is spoken of as “in the midst of the garden”; “the tree of knowledge” is then mentioned, but without any description of its position. In Genesis 2:17 the Lord God forbids the man to eat of “the tree of knowledge”; but does not mention “the tree of life.” In Genesis 3:3 the woman refers to “the tree which is in the midst of the garden,” as if there was only one tree that had been forbidden to them, and Genesis 2:5 shews it is “the tree of knowledge.” It is probable that we have the trace of some little confusion between two Hebrew traditions about the sacred trees. The mention of “the tree of life” has here, and in Genesis 3:22; Genesis 3:24, been added to that of “the tree of knowledge.” At any rate, in this verse, “the tree of life” is given the place belonging to “the tree of knowledge” which is “in the midst of the garden.” The story of the Temptation and the Fall turns on the tradition, according to which there was one tree, that “of the knowledge of good and evil,” “in the midst of the garden.” The expression “tree of life” was used as a common metaphor of health and fruitfulness in Hebrew language, cf. Proverbs 3:18, “She (Wisdom) is a tree of life”; Genesis 11:30, “the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.”

the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] What is signified by this is doubtful. Some say it is the knowledge which infancy lacks and experience acquires, cf. Deuteronomy 1:39, “Your children which this day have no knowledge of good or of evil.” Judging by the context we should rather identify it with moral judgement: the fruit produces the exercise of conscience, which is accompanied by the realization of evil, though not necessarily by the forfeiture of innocence. See Special Note on Genesis 3:24.

Palms as sacred trees are frequent objects of representation in Assyrian and Babylonian art.

On the possible connexion of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” with the date palm, see Barton’s Semitic Origins, pp. 93–95.

10. And a river went out] The description of the river in this verse is as follows: (1) it took its rise in the land of Eden; (2) it flowed through the garden, and irrigated it; (3) after passing through the garden, it separated into four branches, or, as they are here called, “heads.”

to water] The same word as in Genesis 2:6, “a mist … watered the whole face of the ground.”

The account which follows (11–14) is irreconcilable with scientific geography. But the locality of a garden planted by the Lord God, containing two wonder-working trees, is evidently not to be looked for on maps. In the description of the four rivers, we must remember that the Israelites possessed only a very vague knowledge of distant lands. They depended upon the reports of travellers who possessed no means of accurate survey. Mediaeval maps often present the most fantastic and arbitrary arrangement of rivers and seas to meet the conjectures of the cartographist. We need not be surprised, if the early traditions of the Hebrews claimed that the four greatest known rivers of the world had branched off from the parent stream, which, rising in Eden, had passed through the garden of the Lord God. The four rivers here mentioned are referred to in the order of Pishon, Tigris, Euphrates, and Gihon in Sir 24:25-27.

“Alexander the Great believed he had found the sources of the Nile in the Indus, because of the crocodiles and beans he saw there (Arrian, vi. i. 2 ff.; Str. xv. i. 25) … Pausanias records the tradition that ‘the same Nile is the river Euphrates, which was lost in a lake, and reemerged as the Nile in the remote part of Ethiopia’ ” (Gordon, p. 278). When such views of geography were held by the most enlightened Greeks, we need wonder at nothing in the primitive traditions of Palestine.

10–14. A Geographical Description of the Garden

This is very probably a later insertion. It interrupts the sequence of thought.

11. Pishon] The name of this river does not occur elsewhere in the Bible except in Sir 24:25. What river was intended, we can only conjecture, (a) from the description of its course, and (b) from the names of the rivers with which it is classed, two being the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is described as “compassing,” that is, encircling, “the whole land of Havilah.” The identification of Havilah is much controverted. In the present day scholars are of opinion that the name probably denotes a region either in N.E., or in S., Arabia. It is mentioned again in Genesis 10:7; Genesis 10:29; Genesis 25:18, passages in which Arabia seems to be indicated. Havilah is further called a land “where there is gold.” Arabia, in ancient times, was famous for its gold.

The river which would encircle Havilah is, therefore, quite probably rightly identified by P. Haupt, the Assyriologist, with the Persian Gulf and the sea that surrounded Arabia, on the east.

Josephus identifies it with the “Indus.”

NOTE ON THE RIVERS OF PARADISE

Genesis 2:11-14The mention of the four rivers of Paradise has given rise to many endeavours to localize the site. A famous pamphlet by Prof. F. Delitzsch, entitled Wo lag das Paradise? (= What was the site of Paradise?), 1881, gave an immense impulse to the enquiry.

1. Delitzsch himself ingeniously identifies Pishon with the Pallakopas, a canal on the W. bank of the Euphrates, flowing into the Persian Gulf, and Gihon with the modern Shaṭṭ-en-Nil, a canal from the E. bank of the Euphrates, near Babylon, and returning to the Euphrates over against Ur. Hiddekel and Euphrates will then be the lower portions of the Tigris and the Euphrates; Havilah part of the desert W. of the Euphrates; Cush the name for that region in Babylonia, which gave its name to the Kassite dynasty. According to this theory, Eden is the plain (edinu) between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the river in Genesis 2:10 is the Euphrates. It seems, however, fatal to this ingenious view that

(a) it identifies the river of Genesis 2:11 with one of the four heads into which it divides itself:

(b) “the whole land of Havilah” must be intended to denote something much more extensive than the small district enclosed by the Pallakopas canal: while the canal Shaṭṭ-en-Nil could never be described as encircling the land of Cush:

(c) “in front of Assyria” is a description of the Tigris to the N. of Babylonia, and is unsuitable to the region near Babylon where the two rivers approach most closely to each other.

2. Sayce, in H. C. M. 95 ff., proposes that the garden of Eden is to be identified with the sacred garden of Ea at Eridu, once the seaport of Chaldaea on the Persian Gulf; and the river which waters it (Genesis 2:11), with the Persian Gulf, while the four rivers are the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Pallakopas (= Pison), the Choaspes (modern Kerkha) = Gihon, their waters entering the Persian Gulf by separate mouths. The Persian Gulf was sometimes designated in the Babylonian language Nâr Marratum (“Bitter River”). It is an objection that the Biblical account makes the one river divide up into four, while this theory makes four rivers flow into one.

3. With this view should be associated that of Hommel (A.H.T. 314 ff.), who identifies Eden with the “garden” at Eridu, the river of Genesis 2:11 with the Persian Gulf, and the three rivers Pishon, Gihon and Hiddekel with three wâdis in N. Arabia.

4. Haupt, quoted in Driver, supposes the common source of the four rivers to have been an imaginary lake in N. Mesopotamia. The Pishon is the Persian Gulf encircling Havilah, or Arabia; the Gihon is the Karun, supposed to flow eventually through Cush and become the Nile; while the Tigris and the Euphrates entered, by separate mouths, the marshes, beyond which was the Persian Gulf.

5. Skinner suggests (p. 64) that the Hebrew geographer, who was himself only acquainted with the two great Mesopotamian rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, added to them the names of two others, the Pishon and the Gihon, by which he intended the two mysterious rivers of the Indian world, the Indus and the Ganges.

Delitzsch and Dillmann identify the Pishon with the Indus, and the Gihon with the Nile. “But if the biblical narrator believed the Nile to rise with Euphrates and Tigris, it is extremely likely that he regarded its upper waters as the Indus, as Alexander the Great did in his time; and we might then fall back on the old identification of Pishon with the Ganges” (Skinner).

6. Two of the rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates, which were known to flow from a remote Northern region into Mesopotamia. The tradition supposed this Northern region to contain also the sources of two other rivers which rivalled the Tigris and the Euphrates. One of them, according to the vague notions of ancient geography, somehow encircled Havilah (= Arabia), while the other watered the region of Cush (= Soudan).

7. The well-known names embodied in this strange piece of ancient geography make it very improbable that any mythological or astrological explanation can meet the requirements of the problem.

12. bdellium] LXX ἄνθραξ: Lat. bdellium. In Numbers 11:7, “manna” is compared with “bdellium”; where the LXX gives κρύσταλλος. Possibly it may be identified with an aromatic transparent resin, obtained from balsam (balsamodendron mukul), and found in Arabia as well as in India, Bactria and Africa. The Hebrew name b’dôlaḥ is probably a foreign word. Another rendering, “pearls” (which are abundantly found in the Persian Gulf), would be more poetical, and possibly more appropriate for comparison, with “manna”; but we can only conjecture.

the onyx stone] or beryl. Hebrew Shoham mentioned elsewhere, Exodus 25:7, Job 28:16. A precious stone is clearly intended; possibly = “carbuncle.” Assyriologists have identified it with an Assyrian word Samdu; but what Samdu was, is not known. Sayce conjectures “turquoise”; Haupt “pearl.”

13. Gihon] This river is not mentioned again by the same name in the Bible, except in Sir 24:27. The student will be careful not to confound it with the Gihon of 1 Kings 1:33, a spring in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. It is here described as encircling “the whole land of Cush.” “Cush” in the Bible generally denotes Ethiopia (but cf. Genesis 10:8 note); and by Ethiopia would be signified Nubia, the Soudan, and Upper Egypt, a great tract of country watered by the Nile, cf. Isaiah 18:1. Hence, though the description “that compasseth the whole land of Cush” is fanciful, it seems very probable that the Gihon here means the Nile. The Nile is generally called in the Bible ye’or (cf. Genesis 41:1), and sometimes Shihor (cf. Isaiah 23:3, Jeremiah 2:18). See note Genesis 41:1. For Cushites in David’s time, cf. 2 Samuel 18:21.

14. Hiddekel] Tigris. The Assyrian name is “Idiklat,” or “Diklat,” the old Persian “Tigra,” whence the Greek “Tigris” (modern Digle). It is mentioned in the Bible elsewhere only in Daniel 10:4 and Sir 24:25. This famous river rises not far from the source of the Euphrates, and flows at first east from Diarbekr and unites with the Bohtan Tsckai, after which it flows south-east. It approaches the Euphrates at Bagdad, but continues a separate course until it unites at Korna with that river, and enters the Persian Gulf as the Schatt-el-Arab. In earlier times the two rivers entered the sea at different points. The Tigris was so called from an old Persian word meaning “arrow,” and probably because of its swiftness.

in front of Assyria] The Hebrew expression rendered “in front of” generally denotes “to the east of,” cf. Genesis 2:8, Genesis 4:16, Genesis 12:8 notes. The Hebrew standpoint is always that of a person facing east. That which is in front is east: towards his right hand is the south, towards his left the north, at his back the west. It is objected that Assyria was a country, through which the Tigris flowed, and that, as Assyrian territory lay on the east as well as the west bank of the Tigris, it would not be correct to describe the Tigris as “that which goeth towards the east of Assyria.” Hence Sayce conjectures that we should here understand, not the country “Assyria,” but the country’s old capital “Asshur” which gave its name to the country, and which lay on the west bank of the Tigris. But Asshur, the city, is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible; presumably, therefore, it was little known to the Hebrews, and was not likely to be mentioned in a geographical description. On the other hand, “Asshur” is the regular Hebrew designation of the country “Assyria”1[4]; the mention here of “Assyria” is parallel to that of “Cush” in the preceding verse. There seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the name “Asshur” is here used, in its usual Biblical application, for the land of Assyria. If so, the geographical description of the Tigris may not be strictly accurate. Considering its remoteness from Palestine, this need not surprise us, especially in a writing dating from a period previous to the active Assyrian interference in the course of Israelite affairs.

[4] See Genesis 10:22. The “Asshur” of Ezekiel 27:23 is mentioned with “Sheba … and Chilmad.”

Euphrates] Heb. Prath. Assyrian “Puratu,” old Persian Ufrâtû, whence the Greek and Latin “Euphrates.” The Euphrates rises in the mountains near Erzerum, and, after following a tortuous course through the Taurus Mts., flows first in a southerly, and then, from Balis, in a S.E. direction, uniting with the Tigris before entering the Persian Gulf.

The Israelites seem to have regarded the Euphrates as “the river par excellence.” Hence “the River,” as a proper name, in Exodus 23:31, 1 Kings 4:21; 1 Kings 4:24, Psalm 72:8; Psalm 80:11, Isaiah 8:7, Zechariah 9:10.