Comentários bíblicos

(10) A river went out of Eden.—Out of the large region of which the garden formed a part. The tenses, too, are present, as if the main features of the country remained unchanged: “a river goeth forth from Eden, and thence outside of it is parted, and becometh four main streams.” The idea is that of a stream rising in Eden, and flowing through the Paradise, and at some distance outside of it divided into four great rivers. This has made many suppose that the site of Paradise was in the Persian Gulf, in a region now submerged; and the Babylonian legends actually place it there, at Eridu, at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. The two other rivers they suppose to have been the Indus and the Nile, represented by the two coasts of the Persian Gulf. Sir H. Rawlinson suggests the Babylonian province of Gan-duniyas, where four rivers may be found; but in neither case could the ark have floated against the current of the flood up to the highlands of Armenia. We must add that many authors of note have regarded the whole as symbolical, among whom is the famous Syriac writer, Bar-Hebraeus, who regards it as a description of the human body.

(11, 12) The name of the first is Pison.—“The full-flowing” (Gesenius), or “free-streaming” (Fürst). Neither derivation has much authority for it in the Hebrew language, and we must wait for the true explanation till the cuneiform inscriptions have been more thoroughly examined. As two of the four rivers of Paradise rise in Armenia, so we must probably seek the other two there; but the conjectures of commentators have thus far suggested no probable identification of this stream.

Compasseth.—This word, without strictly meaning to go round, gives the idea of a devious course (comp. 1Samuel 7:16; Song of Solomon 3:3), as if the river had now reached a level plain.

Havilah may mean sandy land (Deutsch), or circuit region. There seems to have been more than one country of this name; but the most probable is that in South-Western Arabia, afterwards colonised by the Joktanites (Genesis 10:29), which this river skirted rather than traversed. But we know of no such river, rising in Armenia or elsewhere, which answers to this description now. Besides gold of great purity, pronounced emphatically “good,” this land produced” bdellium,” a scented gum, to which manna is compared (Numbers 11:7), though the meaning even there is uncertain.

Instead of bedolach, bdellium, the Syriac reads berulchê, that is, the same word in the plural, but with d instead of r. These two letters being very similar, not merely in the square Hebrew alphabet now in use, but in the original Samaritan characters, are constantly interchanged in manuscripts; and as berulchê means pearls, the sense agrees better with the other productions of Havilah, gold and onyx stones. As bedolach is a quadriliteral, while Hebrew words have only three root letters, we must look to the Accadi an language for its true signification, if this be really the right reading.

The onyx stone.—Though there is considerable authority for this translation, yet probably the LXX., supported by most ancient authorities, are right in regarding this gem as the beryl of a light green colour (leek-stone, LXX.). The root signifies something pale, while the onyx has its name from its markings resembling those of the human nail.

(13) Gihon, “the river that bursts forth,” has been supposed to be the Nile, because it is said to wind about Ethiopia (Cush). According to this view, there was originally no break between Asia and Africa, and the Nile, entering Abyssinia from Arabia, took thence a northerly course, and traversed Egypt. But Cush is now known to have signified at this period the southern half of Arabia, and it was not until later times that the name was carried by colonists to Abys. sinia. Moreover Gihon, in Arabic Jaihan, is a common name among the Arabs for a river, and perhaps the Oxus is here meant, which flowed northward from Armenia into the Caspian. Mr. Sayce, however, thinks it is the Araxes, “the river of Babylon,” which flowed westward into the desert of Cush, in Arabia (Chald, Gen., p. 84).

(14) Of the “Hiddekel” and “Euphrates” there is no doubt: the former is the Tigris, or Tigres, which is a mere Graecising of its Oriental name, Daglath in Arabic, and Deklath in Syriac, and in the Targum of Onkelos. The word Hiddekel is startling as being a quadriliteral, but the Samaritan Codex reads the Dehel, that is, it has the article instead of the Hebrew Kheth. Mr. Sayce accepts the uncertain reading Hiddekel, and says (Chald. Gen., p. 84) that Hid is the Accadian name for river. Dekel, Tigris, is said to mean an arrow. The Samaritan reading is probably right.

Euphrates.—No description is given of this as being the largest and best known of Asiatic rivers. Hence, probably, the Pison and Gihon were but small streams. Euphrates is the Greek manner of pronouncing the Hebrew Phrath, the first syllable being simply a help in sounding the double consonant. In Accadian it is called Purrat, and means “the curving water,” being so named from its shape.

(15) And the Lord God took the man (the adam), and put him into the garden of Eden.—The narrative now reverts to Genesis 2:8, but the word translated put is not the same in both places. Here it literally means He made him rest, that is, He gave it to him as his permanent and settled dwelling.

To dress it and to keep it.—The first word literally means to work it; for though a paradise, yet the garden had to be tilled and planted. Seeds must be sown and the cultivated plots kept in order; but all this really added to Adam’s happiness, because the adâmâh, as yet uncursed, responded willingly to the husbandman’s care. The other word, “to keep it,” implies, however, some difficulty and danger. Though no unpropitious weather, nor blight nor mildew, spoiled the crop, yet apparently it had to be guarded against the incursion of wild animals and birds, and protected even against the violence of winds and the burning heat of the sun.

(16, 17) The Lord God commanded.—Probation is the law of man’s moral condition now, and it began in Paradise, only the conditions there were different. (See Excursus at end of this book.)

In the day. . . . —Used, as in Genesis 2:4, for an indefinitely long period. But just as on the third day God gave the whole law of vegetation, though trees as the highest development of that law may not have been reached until after the appearance of animal life on the earth, so the law of man’s mortal life came into existence with the eating of the forbidden fruit. Contemporaneously with that act, man passed from the paradisiacal state, with the possibility of living for ever, into the mortal state, with the certainty sooner or later of dying. It was a new condition and constitution of things which then commenced, and to which not Adam only, but also his posterity was subject. And thus this command resembles the words of Elohim in the first chapter. By them the fundamental laws of the material universe were given and established for all time; and the word of Jehovah-Elohim equally here was a law, not for the day only on which Adam broke the command, but for all men everywhere as long as the world shall last.

EXCURSUS A: UPON THE PROBATION OF ADAM (Chap. 2:16).

The great object for which the world is constituted such as we actually find it to be is evidently the trial and probation of man’s moral nature. We cannot wonder, therefore, at finding Adam subject to a probation; and even if he had remained innocent we have no right to suppose that his posterity would always have withstood temptation, or that the world would not finally have become such in the main as it is now. But the manner of Adam’s probation was different. In Paradise he had unlimited freedom, except in one small particular, and no promptings of his own nature urged him to take delight in disobedience and sin. But if thus he was free from passion, on the other hand his conscience was undeveloped, even if it could be said to exist at all in one who did not know the difference between good and evil. He was devoid, too, of experience, and his reason must have been in a state as rudimentary as his conscience. For as there was no struggle between passion and conscience, man had not then learned to choose between opposing ends and purposes, as he has now. Nevertheless, Adam was an intellectual being. He must have had a deep knowledge of natural history; for doubtless he called the animals after their natures. In Genesis 2:23 he calls his wife Ishah, and himself Ish. Now, this name signifies a being, and in so calling himself Adam seems to claim for man that he is the one creature upon earth conscious of his own existence. And when Eve appears he simply adds a feminine termination to the name, recognising her thereby as the female counterpart of himself; but in so doing he shows a mastery of language, and the power of inflecting words according to the rules of grammar. There is proof, after the fall, of even increased insight into the nature of things; for in the name Eve, life, Adam plainly recognised in her difference of sex the Divinely-appointed means for the maintenance of human life upon earth. But man now, to balance the corruption of his nature, has, in addition to intellect, the help of conscience, of increased knowledge and experience of the effects of sin, and of largely developed reason. Devoid of such assistance, a difficult probation, such as is the lot of mankind now, would apparently have been beyond the power of Adam to sustain; whereas, had he not been tempted from without, he might easily, with his passions as yet unstirred, and most of his intellectual gifts still dormant, have endured the simple trial to which he was subjected. But temptation from without was permitted, and Adam fell.

It would be easy to lose ourselves in reasoning upon the possibilities involved in Adam’s trial; but there are points upon which there can be no doubt. First, if probation is the normal law of our condition now, it would be just as right and equitable to make Adam subject to a probation. And alike for Adam then and for men now, probation seems to be a necessary condition of the existence of beings endowed with free will. Secondly, the fall was not all loss; St. Paul affirms this with reference to the gift of a Saviour (Romans 5:17-19). And besides this, higher qualities are called into existence now than were possible in the case of one who had no experimental knowledge of evil. We may even say that in giving this command Jehovah was appealing to qualities still dormant in Adam; and this exercise of the Divine attribute of foreknowledge makes us sure that the Divine purpose was to develop these qualities: not necessarily, however, by the fall, for they would have been to some extent exercised by resisting temptation. Thirdly, Adam, had he remained innocent, could nevertheless have attained to no higher happiness than such as was possible for a being in a rudimentary and passionless state of existence. He would have attained to the perfection of innocence, of pure physical enjoyment, and of even large scientific knowledge; but his moral nature would have developed very slowly, and its profounder depths would have remained unstirred. He would have been a happy grown-up child, not a proved and perfected man. The sufferings of this fallen world are intense (Romans 8:22), but the product in those who use their probation aright, is probably higher than any product of Paradise could have been. The holiness attained to by Eloah, the seventh from Adam, was of a different and higher kind than the most perfect innocence of a being who had been called to make no earnest struggle; for it was as the gold tried in the fire (1Peter 1:7).

(18) It is not good . . . —In these words we have the Divine appointment of marriage, and also the declaration that the female is subsequent in order of production to the male, and formed from him. In Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:2, the creation of male and female is represented as having been simultaneous. She is described as “a help meet for him:” Heb., a help as his front, his reflected image, or, as the Syriac translates it, a helper similar to him. The happiness of marriage is based, not upon the woman being just the same thing as the man, but upon her being one in whom he sees his image and counterpart.

(19) Out of the ground.—The adâmâh; thus the physical constituents of the animals are the same as those of the body of man. Much curious speculation has arisen from the mistaken idea that the order here is chronological, and that the animals were created subsequently to man, and that it was only upon their failing one and all to supply Adam’s need of a companion that woman was called into being. The real point of the narrative is the insight it gives us into Adam’s intellectual condition, his study of the animal creation, and the nature of the employment in which he spent his time. Then finally, at the end of Genesis 2:20, after numerous animals had passed before him, comes the assertion, with cumulative force, that woman alone is a meet companion for man.