Genesis 2:9-17

Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became four heads. The name of the first is Pishon: this is the one which flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good. There is aromatic resin and the onyx stone. The name of the second river is Gihon: the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel: this is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.”

I used to find this passage a bit confusing because of the tense. At least part of it is written in present tense. It was hard for me to understand how Moses would have written about a world that no longer existed until I realized that Moses was most likely quoting Adam. The geography discussed here no longer exists on the earth. I am sure that Eden would be a very popular spot if it still existed.

I assume that the thing that changed our geography was the flood of Noah’s day and its results. So, here we get a small glimpse of what the geography was like during the time
of Adam until the flood. The text brings out one important detail. Out of all of the geography and vegetation, there was one tree that God planted that created a problem for mankind. God said “yes” to everything except this one tree. This single tree was to be “off limits” as far as eating was concerned. Isn’t it amazing that one single tree can seem so significant in a forest of trees just by being told that it is off limits? Isn’t that how temptation usually is? Of all of the wonderful things we could be doing, it is often only one relatively small thing that tempts us to do something wrong. Immorality doesn’t take much more than a small thought and all kinds of problems can result from it.

You can almost tell from these verses that this tree is going to become a serious problem.

Notice that God gave mankind purposeful work. Although the garden was already built, it was man’s job to tend the garden. So we see that work is a good thing even in a perfect world. We were not intended to be lazy but do stay occupied, taking care of things on the earth.