After a brief detour, studied in the previous post, the text returns to the man who had been formed from the dust of the earth and the task God was giving him. The text contains a single prohibition given to the man and we will see how this prohibition relates to the man’s vocation.

Hebrew text:

15 וַיִּקַּ֛ח יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֑ם וַיַּנִּחֵ֣הוּ בְגַן־עֵ֔דֶן לְעָבְדָ֖הּ וּלְשָׁמְרָֽהּ׃

16 וַיְצַו֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים עַל־הָֽאָדָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֑ר מִכֹּ֥ל עֵֽץ־הַגָּ֖ן אָכֹ֥ל תֹּאכֵֽל׃

17 וּמֵעֵ֗ץ הַדַּ֙עַת֙ ט֣וֹב וָרָ֔ע לֹ֥א תֹאכַ֖ל מִמֶּ֑נּוּ כִּ֗י בְּי֛וֹם אֲכָלְךָ֥ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מ֥וֹת תָּמֽוּת׃

Transliteration:

15 way·yiq·qaḥ  Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hîm  ’eṯ- hā·’ā·ḏām; way·yan·ni·ḥê·hū  ḇə·ḡan- ‘ê·ḏen, lə·‘ā·ḇə·ḏāh ū·lə·šā·mə·rāh.  

16 way·ṣaw  Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hîm,  ‘al- hā·’ā·ḏām lê·mōr;  mik·kōl ‘êṣ- hag·gān ’ā·ḵōl  tō·ḵêl.

17 ū·mê·‘êṣ,  had·da·‘aṯ ṭō·wḇ  wā·rā‘, lō ṯō·ḵal  mim·men·nū; kî, bə·yō·wm  ’ă·ḵā·lə·ḵā mim·men·nū mō·wṯ  tā·mūṯ.

NIV:

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Study:

God puts the man in the garden of Eden to work it and care for it. We were never meant to be idle. We were never meant to be focused inward on ourselves. Rather, the vocation given to the man was outward focused, toward the garden into which God had placed him and for which God had tasked him to care. God then gives the man the freedom to eat from any tree in the garden. We had previously read that God had made all the trees with fruit that were tasty and good to look at. These trees and their fruit are now given to the man to eat and enjoy.

However, God placed a single prohibition on the man. He was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The stated consequence is death. We are not told if this consequence is a natural one that results from eating the forbidden fruit or a punishment for disobeying the command. We will see which one it is when we deal with the events in Genesis 3.

However, it is important to note that the NIV once again obscures the Hebrew text with the choice of words. The phrase בְּי֛וֹם (bə·yō·wm) would literally read ‘in the day’. So the text of v. 17 should read, “for in the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” However, we know that the humans in Genesis 3 do not literally fall down and die within a literal 24 hour day of eating the forbidden fruit. So the NIV camouflages this in Genesis 2.17 by replacing the phrase ‘in the day’ with the more ambiguous ‘when’.

But why does God prohibit the man from eating the fruit of this tree? Is it simply an ad hoc prohibition or is there something in the nature of the tree and the nature of the man that makes mixing them something that should be avoided?

In the preceding post we saw that my possessing the knowledge of good and evil would mean that I would know without a doubt in every situation what would be the correct course of action to take. This would mean that I would not need God’s guidance in any situation because I would know what I had to do. It would mean that I would no longer need to be intimately connected to God for guidance in the events of my life. We also saw in the previous post that the presence of the tree in the garden was to remind the humans of their finitude and of the fact that finitude needs boundaries.

But there was another reason for which God prohibited the man from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humans were supposed to be the caretakers of the garden. They were supposed to provide the environment within which all the creatures placed under their care would flourish. But humans are finite and cannot know what is best for every creature in every situation. If we presumed to possess the knowledge of what is right and wrong for all creatures in all situations we would inevitably ruin things for all creatures because of our poor choices and bad decisions.

The presence of the tree was essential to remind us of our finitude and that we need boundaries because of our finitude. But without an explicit prohibition, we would have gone ahead and believed that the tree was not out of bounds for us. And we would have eaten without knowing what the consequences of our actions would be.

In light of this, God gives the man a single prohibition not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This reminded the man that he is finite and that he did not know what was right for all the creatures in the garden. And it underscored the fact that he still needed God to guide him despite being the caretaker of the garden. The presence of the tree and the prohibition concerning it served as a reminder to the man that he was not the owner of the garden but that it had been given to him as part of his vocation. The tree underscored the fact that our responsibility over the earth is a delegated responsibility and that we can genuinely fulfill it only if we take guidance from God concerning what is best for each and every creature in the garden.

Prayer:

Our heavenly Father. Enable us to recognize your grace even in the prohibitions of our lives. Help us to recognize that the limits you set for us are limits placed by your grace. Enable us to see the wisdom of the limits and how these limits actually enable us to fulfill the tasks to which you call us. And enable us to recognize what we have lost by refusing to constantly seek guidance from you. Help us to see in Jesus an example of a person who remained fully dependent on you every moment of his life. We ask this in his name. Amen.