15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
God put Adam in the garden “TO….”
In other words, God had a purpose for putting him there. What was that purpose?
It was to cultivate and to keep (literally, “guard”) paradise! This word in Hebrew,
shamar (שמר), is the same word used in 3:24 when the cherubim are placed at the garden to “
GUARD the way to the tree of life.”
God intended mankind to be caretaker of His creation. God also intended him to guard it against predators – a task at which, we know from the rest of the story, Adam failed miserably.
Man was created to work – to be active and productive. I’ve heard people describe the curse, where God told Adam he would eat “
by the sweat of his face,” as if the need to work was part of the curse. I’ve heard people talk about the Garden of Eden in a way that suggests that God just put everything there to care for itself and mankind would just reap the bounty
How unlike God would that be?! How NOT in God’s image would a person be who didn’t work, didn’t care for anything, and didn’t create?
Every verse from the Bible’s beginning until now has shown that God is a purposeful, creative, caretaker and protector. He certainly works. Genesis 2:2-3 says God rested because He had completed His “work.”
Created in God’s image, man was created to work and produce as well. His job description was straightforward: care for and guard over the garden.
16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely ; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
In Genesis 3:22, from the phrase “
eat and live forever,” we will learn that this is the tree of “eternal” life.
Verse 16 is the first record of God speaking to man in the Bible. His first communication was a commandment. Notice that this commandment - not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - was given to Adam before Eve was formed from him.
Also notice that there were many trees in the garden, not just two. Note v.9, “Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
So within the confines of God’s commandment not to eat was a great deal of freedom to choose what to eat.
All of these trees – including the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – were “good for food and pleasing to the eye.” All were equally compelling to man’s aesthetic appreciation and pleasure. God provided a genuine choice. He didn’t skew the choice by making the bad option undesirable. That’s important to realize. Sin is pleasurable. It seems to satisfy a real need. It brings pleasure. Otherwise no one would do it. God didn’t cause sin to be undesirable. He gave us a genuine choice.
Adam actually had many choices, not just two. We could reduce it to three choices:
- Eat from the tree of life,
- Eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or
- Eat from any other tree.
What are the consequences of each?
- Eat of the tree of life and live forever (3:22),
- Eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and die (2:17), and
- Eat of the other trees and… what? Stay as you are – forever between death and eternal life.
Adam could choose to live forever, choose to die knowing good and evil, or choose to stay as he was. Nowhere is he commanded to eat from one tree or another. The tree of life doesn’t even take focus in the story until the end. It isn’t even mentioned again until after the fall, when Adam and Eve by necessity must no longer have access to it.
18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
V. 20 is the first occurrence of “Adam” as a name in our English Bibles – at the beginning of the verse it says “the man,” near the end of the verse it says “Adam.“ But in Hebrew there is not such a clear distinction. Two basic forms of the same word appear in Hebrew - “a man” and “the man,” or “
an adam” and the “
the adam.” There is no clear indication as to whether it is used as a proper name or a description.
Why are names always given? To distinguish between two things that are similar to each other. At this point, Adam was the only man. So he is called adam, “a man.” There’s no need for a distinguishing name.
But God realized that Adam needed someone else, someone besides God, someone to provide something that God didn’t provide for him… A companion who would be a “helper” (v.18).
Pause for a moment and reflect on what we know about the story so far. The writer of this story wants us to feel its tension.
Q: What is the tension and focus of the story at this point?
A: Making in choice of what to eat.
Q: Why wasn’t it good for man to be alone when it seems like he wasn’t alone – he had perfect communion with God?
A: Because he needed someone to help him.
Q: What was this helper supposed to help him with?
A: With the decision before him – choosing the right tree and the right fruit to eat.
That is what this section of the story is all about. Adam didn’t have a superficial decision to make. It was a decision about obedience. It was a decision about how to handle freedom. It was a decision of eternal consequences, one that would radically impact man’s relation to his Creator. It was not a decision God could or would help him with, other than to tell him what was right and wrong.
So Adam had a simple but important decision – eat and live forever, eat and know good and evil, or eat and stay as he was – and he could use a companion to help him make the choice.
That is the tension in the story right now. That is what he needed help with. That decision becomes the theme for the entire rest of the story, and for the rest of the Bible for that matter!
It would be reasonable to wonder if Eve was created to help Adam tend the garden, but that would be out of place here. First, tending the garden isn’t the thrust of the story. Second, during the curse narrative in 3:18-19, it is Adam (not Eve) to whom God said “you will eat bread by the sweat of your face.” Adam was the worker, not Eve. God will create a helper to help Adam choose.
God made the animals and birds and let him name each of them.
Naming something makes it our own, as an entrepreneur names a company, an author names a book, a songwriter names a song, and a parent names a baby. Naming forms a connection between the namer and the named.
Naming also establishes an authority structure. God had already given Adam dominion over the garden (v.15) and now over the animals (see 1:29-30). In fact, Adam’s fatal choice later on will ultimately affect these creatures, too. They were his responsibility and he had dominion over them.
God obviously wasn’t surprised that the animals and birds weren’t adequate to help Adam make good decisions. Presenting these creatures was to show Adam that they were inadequate. These animals might be companions, but they couldn’t help him choose to live well. This passage further emphasizes the distinctions between God, man, and animals.
And a final thought for the manly men among us. Adam had unlimited time to hunt and fish! But he still needed his woman :-).
