The Garden of Eden

Evening in a garden. A breeze moves through the trees. And a voice calls out, not angry, but searching. “Where are you?” Somewhere behind the leaves, two people are hiding.

Before there were cities or roads or kingdoms, Genesis tells of a garden. The Lord God forms a man from the dust of the ground and breathes into him the breath of life, and the man becomes a living being. Then God plants a garden in the east, in Eden. Trees of every kind grow there, good to look at and good to eat. A river flows out of Eden to water it. And in the middle of the garden stand two special trees: the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God puts the man in the garden to work it and take care of it. And he gives him one instruction. “You may freely eat from every tree in the garden. But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will surely die.” Then God says something new. “It is not good for the man to be alone.” He brings the animals to the man, and the man gives each one its name. But none of them is the partner he needs. So God puts the man into a deep sleep, takes part of his side, and makes a woman. When the man wakes and sees her, he is overjoyed. “At last! Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” They are together, unashamed.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any creature the Lord God had made. And it begins with a question. “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” The woman answers that they may eat from the trees, just not from the tree in the middle, or they will die. “You will not surely die,” says the serpent. “God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The woman looks at the tree. The fruit looks good to eat. It is lovely to look at. And it seems to promise wisdom. She takes some and eats. She gives some to her husband, who is there with her, and he eats too.

Their eyes are opened, just as the serpent said. But what they see is not glory. They see that they are naked, and they feel ashamed. They sew fig leaves together to cover themselves. Then, in the cool of the day, they hear the Lord God walking in the garden, and they hide among the trees. “Where are you?” God calls. Of course God knows. The question is an invitation to come out. “I heard you,” the man says, “and I was afraid, so I hid.” “Did you eat from the tree?” And the blaming begins. “The woman you gave me, she gave it to me.” The woman says, “The serpent tricked me.”

Then God speaks to each in turn. The serpent will crawl on its belly in the dust, and there will be hostility between the serpent and the woman, and between their offspring. He will strike your head, God says, and you will strike his heel. To the woman God says that bearing children will be painful, that she will long for her husband, and he will rule over her. To the man he says that the ground will grow thorns and thistles, and he will eat bread by the sweat of his brow, until he returns to the dust he came from.

Then the man names his wife Eve, because she will be the mother of all the living. And look at what God does next. He makes clothes out of skins for Adam and his wife, and he dresses them himself. Then God sends them out of the garden, so that they will not reach out and eat from the tree of life and live forever as they are. At the east of Eden he places cherubim, and a flaming sword flashing back and forth, to guard the way to the tree of life. The gate is closed. But the story of God and his people is only beginning.

Genesis is full of wordplay that is hard to hear in English. The first man is called adam, and he is made from the adamah, the Hebrew word for ground or soil. His very name ties him to the earth he was made to tend. Eve’s name, Chavvah in Hebrew, is linked by the text itself to the word for living. And many Christian readers, from the early church onward, have heard in God’s words to the serpent a first hint of a coming rescuer, though Jewish and Christian interpreters have read that verse in different ways.

The Garden of Eden. You’ll find it in Genesis chapter 2, verse 4, through to the end of chapter 3. The first question God asks in the Bible is not, what did you do? It is, where are you? So here’s something to think about. When you have done something wrong, do you hide from God, or do you come out and answer him?