Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—” Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—”
Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
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And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
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And the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.'
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (34)
- Revelation 2:7 (v22) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life,…
- Revelation 22:14 (v22) Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city.
- Proverbs 3:18 (v22) She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Happy is everyone who retains her.
- Hebrews 1:7 (v24) Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his servants a flame of fire.”
- Genesis 11:6-7 (v22) Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld…
Show all 34 cross-references
- Psalms 104:4 (v24) He makes his messengers winds, and his servants flames of fire.
- Revelation 22:2 (v22) in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit…
- Genesis 2:9 (v22) Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, including the tree of life in the…
- Exodus 25:18-22 (v24) You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub at the one end, and…
- John 6:48-58 (v22) I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that…
- Genesis 1:26 (v22) God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky,…
- Genesis 3:5 (v22) for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
- 1 Chronicles 21:16-17 (v24) David lifted up his eyes, and saw Yahweh’s angel standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over…
- Genesis 4:2 (v23) Again she gave birth, to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
- Hebrews 10:18-22 (v24) Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by…
- Genesis 3:19 (v23) You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall…
- Genesis 4:12 (v23) From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”
- Genesis 2:5 (v23) No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the…
- Ecclesiastes 5:9 (v23) Moreover the profit of the earth is for all. The king profits from the field.
- Isaiah 47:12-13 (v22) “Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might…
- John 14:6 (v24) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
- Genesis 2:8-9 (v24) Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to…
- Genesis 9:20 (v23) Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard.
- Joshua 5:13 (v24) When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand.…
- Psalms 22:26 (v22) The humble shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise Yahweh who seek after him. Let your hearts live forever.
- Psalms 80:1 (v24) Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit above the cherubim, shine out.
- Psalms 99:1 (v24) Yahweh reigns! Let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned among the cherubim. Let the earth be moved.
- Isaiah 19:12-13 (v22) Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt. The princes of…
- Ezekiel 10:2-22 (v24) He spoke to the man clothed in linen, and said, “Go in between the whirling wheels, even under the cherub, and fill both your hands with…
- Exodus 25:2 (v24) “Speak to the children of Israel, that they take an offering for me. From everyone whose heart makes him willing you shall take my offering.
- Numbers 22:23 (v24) The donkey saw Yahweh’s angel standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and the donkey turned out of the path, and went into…
- 1 Samuel 4:4 (v24) So the people sent to Shiloh, and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of Armies, who sits above the cherubim; and the…
- 1 Kings 6:25-35 (v24) The other cherub was ten cubits. Both the cherubim were of one measure and one form. One cherub was ten cubits high, and so was the other…
- Jeremiah 22:23 (v22) Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (22 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv22–23 22. Behold, the man is become as one of…
22. Behold, the man is become as one of us An ironical reproof, by which God would not only prick the heart of man, but pierce it through and through. He does not, however, cruelly triumph over the miserable and afflicted; but, according to the necessity of the disease, applies a more violent remedy. For, though Adam was confounded and astonished at his calamity, he yet did not so deeply reflect on its cause as to become weary of his pride, that he might learn to embrace true humility. We may add, that God inveighed, by this irony, not more against Adam himself then against his posterity, for the purpose of commending modesty to all ages. The particle, “Behold,” denotes that the sentence is pronounced upon the cause then in hand. And, truly, it was a sad and horrid spectacle; that he, in whom recently the glory of the Divine image was shining, should lie hidden under fetid skins to cover his own disgrace, and that there should be more comeliness in a dead animal than in a living man! The clause which is immediately added, “To know good and evil,” describes the cause of so great misery, namely, that Adam, not content with his condition, had tried to ascend higher than was lawful; as if it had been said, ‘See now whither thy ambition and thy perverse appetite for illicit knowledge have precipitated thee.’ Yet the Lord does not even deign to hold converse with him, but contemptuously draws him forth, for the sake of exposing him to greater infamy. Thus was it necessary for his iron pride to be beaten down, that he might at length descend into himself, and become more and more displeased with himself.
One of us. Some refer the plural number here used to the angels, as if God would make a distinction between man, who is an earthly and despised animal, and celestial beings; but this exposition seems farfetched. The meaning will be more simple if thus resolved, ‘After this, Adam will be so like Me, that we shall become companions for each other.’ The argument which Christians draw from this passage for the doctrine of the three Persons in the Godhead is, I fear, not sufficiently firm. There is not, indeed, the same reason for it as in the former passage, “Let us make man in our image,” since here Adam is included in the word Us; but, in the other place, a certain distinction in the essence of God is expressed.
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And now, lest, etc. There is a defect in the sentence which I think ought to be thus supplied: ‘It now remains that in future, he be debarred from the fruit of the tree of life;’ for by these words Adam is admonished that the punishment to which he is consigned shall not be that of a moment, or of a few days, but that he shall always be an exile from a happy life. They are mistaken who think this also to be an irony; as if God were denying that the tree would prove advantageous to man, even though he might eat of it; for he rather, by depriving him of the symbol, takes also away the thing signified. We know what is the efficacy of sacraments; and it was said above that the tree was given as a pledge of life. Wherefore, that he might understand himself to be deprived of his former life, a solemn excommunication is added; not that the Lord would cut him off from all hope of salvation, but, by taking away what he had given, would cause man to seek new assistance elsewhere. Now, there remained an expiation in sacrifices, which might restore him to the life he had lost. Previously, direct communication with God was the source of life to Adam; but, from the moment in which he became alienated from God, it was necessary that he should recover life by the death of Christ, by whose life he then lived. It is indeed certain, that man would not have been able, had he even devoured the whole tree, to enjoy life against the will of God; but God, out of respect to his own institution, connects life with the external sign, till the promise should be taken away from it; for there never was any intrinsic efficacy in the tree; but God made it life-giving, so far as he had sealed his grace to man in the use of it, as, in truths he represents nothing to us with false signs, but always speaks to us, as they say, with effect. In short, God resolved to wrest out of the hands of man that which was the occasion or ground of confidence, lest he should form for himself a vain hope of the perpetuity of the life which he had lost.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v22 Adam deprived of life, lost also the sign thereof.
Adam deprived of life, lost also the sign thereof.
By this derision he reproacheth Adam’s misery, whereinto he was fallen by ambition.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv22–24 Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the…
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Ver. 22. The man is become as one of us.] A holy irrision of man’s vain affectation of the Deity. Quod Deus loquitur cum risu, tu legas cum fletu. Howbeit St Augustine {a} is of opinion that God speaks thus, not by way of insulting over Adam, but deterring others from such proud attempts. Discite iustitiam moniti, &c.
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And take also of the tree of life.] And so think to elude the sentence of death pronounced upon him by God; which yet he could not have done, had he eaten up tree and all. He should but have added to his sin and judgment by abuse of this sacrament; which would have sealed up life unto him, had he held his integrity. Multi etiam hodie propter arborem scientiae amittunt arborem vitae: In terris manducant quod apud inferos digerunt. { b}
{a} Aug. De Gen. ad Literam, lib. xi., cap. 39.
{b} Aug.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv22–24 The Lord God said, either within himself, or to…
The Lord God said, either within himself, or to the other persons of the Godhead, Adam and Eve both are become such according to the devil’s promise, and their own expectation. This is a holy irony, or sarcasm, like those, 1Ki 18:27; Ecc 11:9; q.d. Behold! O all ye angels, and all the future generations of men, how the first man hath overreached and conquered us, and got the Divinity which he affected; and how happy he hath made himself by his rebellion! But this bitter scorn God uttereth not to insult over man’s misery, but to convince him of his sin, folly, danger, and calamity, and to oblige him both to a diligent seeking after, and a greedy embracing the remedy of the promised Seed which God offered him, and to a greater watchfulness over himself, and respect to all God’s commands for the time to come.
As one of us, i.e. as one of the Divine persons, of infinite wisdom and capacity. Here is an evident proof of a plurality of persons in the Godhead; compare Gen 1:26, and Gen 11:7. If it be said, God speaks this of himself and the angels; besides that as yet not one word hath been spoken concerning the angels, it is an absurd and unreasonable conceit that the great God should level himself with the angels, and give them a kind of equality with himself, as this expression intimates. To know all things, both good and evil.
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Lest he put forth his hand: the speech is defective, and to be supplied thus, or some such way. But now care must be taken, or man must be banished hence,
lest he take also of the tree of life, as he did take of the tree of knowledge, and thereby profane that sacrament of eternal life, and fondly persuade himself that he shall live for ever. This is another scoff or irony, whereby God upbraideth man’s presumption, and those vain hopes wherewith he did still feed himself.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v22 Sentence being passed upon the offenders, we have here…
Sentence being passed upon the offenders, we have here execution, in part, done upon them immediately. Observe here,
I. How they were justly disgraced and shamed before God and the holy angels, by the ironical upbraiding of them with the issue of their enterprise: "Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil! A goodly god he makes! Does he not? See what he has got, what preferments, what advantages, by eating forbidden fruit!" This was said to awaken and humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sin and folly, and to repentance for it, that, seeing themselves thus wretchedly deceived by following the devil's counsel, they might henceforth pursue the happiness God should offer in the way he should prescribe. God thus fills their faces with shame, that they may seek his name, Psa 83:16. He puts them to this confusion, in order to their conversion. True penitents will thus upbraid themselves: "What fruit have I now by sin? Rom 6:21. Have I gained what I foolishly promised myself in a sinful way? No, no, it never proved what it pretended to, but the contrary."
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II. How they were justly discarded, and shut out of paradise, which was a part of the sentence implied in that, Thou shalt eat the herb of the field. Here we have,
1. The reason God gave why he shut man out of paradise; not only because he had put forth his hand, and taken of the tree of knowledge, which was his sin, but lest he should again put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life (now forbidden him by the divine sentence, as before the tree of knowledge was forbidden by the law), and should dare to eat of that tree, and so profane a divine sacrament and defy a divine sentence, and yet flatter himself with a conceit that thereby he should live forever. Observe, (1.) There is a foolish proneness in those that have rendered themselves unworthy of the substance of Christian privileges to catch at the signs and shadows of them. Many that like not the terms of the covenant, yet, for their reputation's sake, are fond of the seals of it. (2.) It is not only justice, but kindness, to such, to be denied them; for, by usurping that to which they have no title, they affront God and make their sin the more heinous, and by building their hopes upon a wrong foundation they render their conversion the more difficult and their ruin the more deplorable.
2. The method God took, in giving him this bill of divorce, and expelling and excluding him from this garden of pleasure. He turned him out, and kept him out.
(1.) He turned him out, from the garden to the common. This is twice mentioned: He sent him forth (Gen 3:23), and then he drove him out, Gen 3:24. God bade him go out, told him that that was no place for him, he should no longer occupy and enjoy that garden; but he liked the place too well to be willing to part with it, and therefore God drove him out, made him go out, whether he would or no. This signified the exclusion of him, and all his guilty race, from that communion with God which was the bliss and glory of paradise. The tokens of God's favour to him and his delight in the sons of men, which he had in his innocent estate, were now suspended; the communications of his grace were withheld, and Adam became weak, and like other men, as Samson when the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him. His acquaintance with God was lessened and lost, and that correspondence which had been settled between man and his Maker was interrupted and broken off. He was driven out, as one unworthy of this honour and incapable of this service. Thus he and all mankind, by the fall, forfeited and lost communion with God. But whither did he send him when he turned him out of Eden? He might justly have chased him out of the world (Job 18:18), but he only chased him out of the garden. He might justly have cast him down to hell, as he did the angels that sinned when he shut them out from the heavenly paradise, Pe2 2:4. But man was only sent to till the ground out of which he was taken. He was sent to a place of toil, not to a place of torment. He was sent to the ground, not to the grave, - to the work-house, not to the dungeon, not to the prison-house, - to hold the plough, not to drag the chain. His tilling the ground would be recompensed by his eating of its fruits; and his converse with the earth whence he was taken was improvable to good purposes, to keep him humble, and to remind him of his latter end. Observe, then, that though our first parents were excluded from the privileges of their state of innocency, yet they were not abandoned to despair, God's thoughts of love designing them for a second state of probation upon new terms.
(2.) He kept him out, and forbade him all hopes of a re-entry; for he placed at the east of the garden of Eden a detachment of cherubim, God's hosts, armed with a dreadful and irresistible power, represented by flaming swords which turned every way, on that side the garden which lay next to the place whither Adam was sent, to keep the way that led to the tree of life, so that he could neither steal nor force an entry; for who can make a pass against an angel on his guard or gain a pass made good by such force? Now this intimated to Adam, [1.] That God was displeased with him. Though he had mercy in store for him, yet at present he was angry with him, was turned to be his enemy and fought against him, for here was a sword drawn (Num 22:23); and he was to him a consuming fire, for it was a flaming sword. [2.] That the angels were at war with him; no peace with the heavenly hosts, while he was in rebellion against their Lord and ours. [3.] That the way to the tree of life was shut up, namely, that way which, at first, he was put into, the way of spotless innocency. It is not said that the cherubim were set to keep him and his for ever from the tree of life (thanks be to God, there is a paradise set before us, and a tree of life in the midst of it, which we rejoice in the hopes of); but they were set to keep that way of the tree of life which hitherto they had been in; that is, it was henceforward in vain for him and his to expect righteousness, life, and happiness, by virtue of the first covenant, for it was irreparably broken, and could never be pleaded, nor any benefit taken by it. The command of that covenant being broken, the curse of it is in full force; it leaves no room for repentance, but we are all undone if we be judged by that covenant. God revealed this to Adam, not to drive him to despair, but to oblige and quicken him to look for life and happiness in the promised seed, by whom the flaming sword is removed. God and his angels are reconciled to us, and a new and living way into the holiest is consecrated and laid open for us.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv22–24 And the Lord God said,.... The Word of the…
And the Lord God said,.... The Word of the Lord God, as the Jerusalem Targum; not to the ministering angels, as the Targum of Jonathan but within himself, or to the other two divine Persons:
behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; which is generally understood as an irony or sarcasm at man's deception by Satan, who promised man, and he expected to be as gods, knowing good and evil; behold the man, see how much like a god he looks, with his coat of skin upon his back, filled with shame and confusion for his folly, and dejected under a sense of what he had lost, and in a view of what he was sentenced to; yet must be understood not as rejoicing in man's misery, and insulting over him in it, but in order the more to convince him of his folly, and the more to humble him, and bring him to a more open repentance for affecting what he did, and giving credit to the devil in it: though I rather think they are seriously spoken, since this was after man was brought to a sense of the evil he committed, and to repentance for it, and had had the promised seed revealed to him as a Saviour, and, as an emblem of justification and salvation by him, was clothed with garments provided by God himself: wherefore the words are to be considered either as a declaration of his present state and condition, in and by Christ, by whose righteousness he was made righteous, even as he is righteous, though he had lost his own; to whose image he was conformed, now bearing the image of the heavenly One, though he was deprived of that in which he was created, having sinned, and come short of the glory of God; and was now restored to friendship and amity with God, favoured with his gracious presence, and having faith and hope of being with him for evermore; the eyes of his understanding were enlightened by the Spirit and grace of God, to know the good things which God had provided for him in Christ, and in the covenant of grace, a better covenant than that under which he was made, and which he had broke; and to know the evil nature of sin, its just demerit, and the atonement of it, by the death and sacrifice of the promised seed: or else the words are a declaration of man's past state and condition, and may be rendered, "behold, the man was as one of us" (o); as one of the Persons in the Deity, as the Son of God, after whose image, and in whose likeness, he was made; both as to his body, that being formed according to the idea of the body of Christ in the divine mind, and which was not begotten, but made out of the virgin earth; and as to his soul, which was created in righteousness and holiness, in wisdom and knowledge, and was like him in the government he had over all the creatures: and besides, he was in many things a type of Christ, a figure of him that was to come; especially in his being a federal head to his posterity, and in his offices of prophet, priest, and King; and being created in knowledge, after the image of him that created him, and having the law of God inscribed on his heart, he knew what was good and to be done, and what was evil and to be avoided: but now he was in a different condition, in other circumstances, had lost the image of God, and friendship with him, and his government over the creatures; and had ruined himself, and all his posterity, and was become unholy and unwise; for being tempted by Satan to eat of the forbidden fruit, under an expectation of increasing his knowledge, lost in a great measure what he had:
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and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life; as well as of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; which some take to be a continued sarcasm; and others, that it was in pity to him, that he might not live a long life of sorrow; and others, as a punishment, that having sinned he was justly deprived of the sacrament and symbol of life; or else to prevent a fresh sin; or rather to show that there could be no life without satisfaction for the sin committed, and this in no other way than by Christ, the antitype of the tree of life:
and eat, and live for ever; not that it was possible, by eating of the fruit of the tree of life, his natural life could be continued for ever, contrary to the sentence of death pronounced upon him; or so as to elude that sentence, and by it eternal life be procured and obtained; but he was hindered from eating of it, lest he should flatter himself, that by so doing he should live for ever, notwithstanding he was doomed to die; and very probably the devil had suggested this to him, that should he be threatened with death, which he made a question of, yet by eating of the tree of life, which stood just by the other, he might save himself from dying: wherefore to prevent him, and to cut off all hopes of securing life to himself in this way, it is suggested that something must be done, which may be supplied from the following verse, let us send him out of the garden.
(o) "fuit", Pagninus, Montanus, Schmidt. So Abarbinel. apud Abendana in Miclol. Yophi in loc.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv22–24 Behold, the man is become as one of us,…
Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil - See what he has got, what advantages, by eating forbidden fruit! This is said to humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sin and folly, that seeing themselves thus wretchedly deceived by following the devil's counsel, they might henceforth pursue the happiness God offers, in the way he prescribes.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 Verse 22. Behold, the man is become as one…
Verse 22. Behold, the man is become as one of us] On all hands this text is allowed to be difficult, and the difficulty is increased by our translation, which is opposed to the original Hebrew and the most authentic versions. The Hebrew has היה hayah, which is the third person preterite tense, and signifies was, not is. The Samaritan text, the Samaritan version, the Syriac, and the Septuagint, have the same tense. These lead us to a very different sense, and indicate that there is an ellipsis of some words which must be supplied in order to make the sense complete. A very learned man has ventured the following paraphrase, which should not be lightly regarded: "And the Lord God said, The man who WAS like one of us in purity and wisdom, is now fallen and robbed of his excellence; he has added לדעת ladaath, to the knowledge of the good, by his transgression the knowledge of the evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever in this miserable state, I will remove him, and guard the place lest he should re-enter. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden," c. This seems to be the most natural sense of the place. Some suppose that his removal from the tree of life was in mercy, to prevent a second temptation. He before imagined that he could gain an increase of wisdom by eating of the tree of knowledge, and Satan would be disposed to tempt him to endeavour to elude the sentence of death, by eating of the tree of life. Others imagine that the words are spoken ironically, and that the Most High intended by a cutting taunt, to upbraid the poor culprit for his offence, because he broke the Divine command in the expectation of being like God to know good from evil and now that he had lost all the good that God had designed for him, and got nothing but evil in its place, therefore God taunts him for the total miscarriage of his project. But God is ever consistent with himself; and surely his infinite pity prohibited the use of either sarcasm or irony, in speaking of so dreadful a catastrophe, that was in the end to occasion the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and passion, the death and burial, of Him in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Col 2:9.
In Ge 1:26-27, we have seen man in the perfection of his nature, the dignity of his office, and the plenitude of his happiness. Here we find the same creature, but stripped of his glories and happiness, so that the word man no longer conveys the same ideas it did before. Man and intellectual excellence were before so intimately connected as to appear inseparable; man and misery are now equally so. In our nervous mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon, we have found the word [A.S.] God signifying, not only the Supreme Being, but also good or goodness; and it is worthy of especial note that the word [A.S.] man, in the same language, is used to express, not only the human being so called, both male and female, but also mischief, wickedness, fraud, deceit, and villany. Thus a simple monosyllable, still in use among us in its first sense, conveyed at once to the minds of our ancestors the two following particulars:
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1. The human being in his excellence, capable of knowing, loving, and glorifying his Maker.
2. The human being in his fallen state, capable of and committing all kinds of wickedness. "Obiter hic notandum," says old Mr. Somner in his Saxon Dictionary, "venit, [A.S.] Saxonibus et DEUM significasse et BONUM: uti [A.S.] et hominem et nequitiam.
Here it is to be noted, that among the Saxons the term GOD signified both the Divine Being and goodness, as the word man signified both the human being and wickedness." This is an additional proof that our Saxon ancestors both thought and spoke at the same time, which, strange as it may appear, is not a common case: their words in general are not arbitrary signs; but as far as sounds can convey the ideal meaning of things, their words do it; and they are so formed and used as necessarily to bring to view the nature and proper ties of those things of which they are the signs. In this sense the Anglo-Saxon is inferior only to the Hebrew.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 Gen 3:22. The Lord God said — In his…
Gen 3:22. The Lord God said — In his own eternal mind: Behold, the man is become as one of us — See what he has got, what advantages, by eating forbidden fruit! This is said to humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sin and folly, that, seeing themselves thus wretchedly deceived by following the devil’s counsel, they might henceforth pursue the happiness God offered, in the way he prescribed.
Here is another evident proof of a plurality of persons or subsistences in the Godhead. Compare Gen 1:26; Gen 11:7. If it be said that God speaks this of himself and the angels, it must be replied that no mention has yet been made of the angels, and that it is unreasonable to think that the great God should level himself with angels, and give them, as the expression intimates, a kind of equality with himself.
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Lest he take also of the tree of life — The sentence is defective, and, it seems, must be supplied thus: Care must be taken, and man must be banished hence, lest he take of the tree of life, as he took of the tree of knowledge, and thereby profane that sacrament of eternal life, and persuade himself that he shall live for ever. To prevent this, (Gen 3:23,) the Lord God sent him forth — Expelled him with shame and violence; from the garden of Eden — So as never to restore him to that earthly paradise.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v22 - XVII. The Execution
- XVII. The Execution
24. כרוּב kerûb ברך in Aramaic: “carve, plow”; Persian: “grip, grasp.” This word occurs about eighty-seven times in the Hebrew scriptures; in sixty of which it refers to carved or embroidered figures; in twenty-two to the living being in the vision of Ezekiel Ezek. 10; in two figuratively to the king of Tyre Eze 28:14, Eze 28:16; in two to a being on which the Lord is poetically described as riding 2Sa 22:11; Psa 18:11; and in the present passage unequivocally to real and well-known beings. The root is not otherwise extant in Hebrew proper. But from the class of actions to which it refers, and from a review of the statements of Scripture concerning these creatures, we are led to the following conclusions:
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First. The cherubim are real creatures, and not mere symbols. In the narrative of the fall they are introduced as real into the scenes of reality. Their existence is assumed as known; for God is said to place or station the cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden. The representation of a cherub too in vision, as part of a symbolic figure, implies a corresponding reality Eze 10:14. A symbol itself points to a reality.
Second. They are afterward described as “living creatures,” especially in the visions of Ezekiel Eze 1:10. This seems to arise, not from their standing at the highest stage of life, which the term does not denote, but from the members of the various animals, which enter into their variously-described figure. Among these appear the faces of the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle, of which a cherubic form had one, two or four Exo 25:20; Eze 41:18; Eze 1:16. They had, besides, wings, in number two or four Exo 25:20; 1Ki 6:27; Eze 1:6. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides Eze 1:8; Eze 10:8. Ezekiel also describes their feet as being straight, and having the sole like that of a calf. They sometimes appear too with their bodies, hands, wings, and even accompanying wheels full of eyes Eze 1:18; Eze 10:12. The variety in the figuration of the cherubim is owing to the variety of aspects in which they stand, and of offices or services they have to perform in the varying posture of affairs. This figuration is evidently symbolic. For the real being has not a varying number or order of its constituent parts in the same stage of its existence, though it may be readily represented by a diversity of symbols, according to the diversity of the circumstances in which it appears, and of operations it has to perform. The figuration is merely intended to shadow forth its nature and office in sensible forms to those who have not entered the spiritual world.
Third. The cherubim are intelligent beings. This is indicated by their form, movement, and conduct. In their visible appearance the human form predominates: “They had the likeness of a man” Eze 1:5. The human face is in front, and has therefore the principal place. The “hands of a man” determine the erect posture, and therefore the human form of the body. The parts of other animal forms are only accessory, and serve to mark the possession of qualities which are not prominent in man. The lion indicates the active and destructive powers; the ox, the patient and productive; the eagle denotes rapid motion, with which the wings coincide, and quick sight with which the many eyes accord; and the man signifies reason, which rationalizes all these otherwise physical qualities.
The four faces indicate powers of observation that sweep the whole horizon. The straight feet, with soles like those of a calf, mark an elasticity of step appertaining only to beings unaffected by the force of gravitation. Their motion, “straight forward,” combined with the four faces, and the wheel within a wheel going according to its quarters, points to a capacity of moving in any direction without turning by the mere impulse of the will. The intelligence of their conduct will appear from the nature of the duties they have to discharge.
Fourth. Their special office seems to be “intellectual and potential” rather than moral. They have to do with the physical more than the moral aspect of being. Hence, they stand related, on the one side, to God, as אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym, “the Everlasting, the God of omnipotence;” and, on the other, to the universe of created things, in its material, animal, and intellectual departments, and to the general administration of the divine will in this comprehensive sphere. The radical meanings of the terms “carve, plow, grasp,” point to the potential. The hand symbolizes intelligent agency. The multiplicity of eyes denotes many-sided intelligence. The number four is evidently normal and characteristic. It marks their relation to the cosmos - universe of system of created things.
Fifth. Their place of ministry is about the throne, and in the presence of the Almighty. Accordingly, where he manifests himself in a stated place, and with all the solemnity of a court, there they generally appear.
Sixth. Their special functions correspond with these indications of their nature and place. They are stationed at the east of the garden of Eden, where God had condescended to walk with man before his fall, and where he still lingers on earth to hold communion with man, for the purpose of mercy, and their business is to keep the way of the tree of life. They are figured in the most holy place, which was appropriated to the divine presence, and constructed after the pattern seen in the mount. They stand on the mercy-seat, where God sits to rule his people, and they look down with intelligent wonder on the mysteries of redemption. In the vision of the likeness of the glory of God vouchsafed to Ezekiel, they appear under the expanse on which rests the throne of God, and beside the wheels which move as they move. And when God is represented as in movement for the execution of his judgments, the physical elements and the spiritual essences are alike described as the vehicles of his irresistible progress Psa 18:11. All these movements are mysteries to us, while we are in a world of sense. We cannot comprehend the relation of the spiritual and the physical. But of this we may be assured, that material things are at bottom centers of multiform forces, or fixed springs of power, to which the Everlasting Potentate has given a local habitation and a name, and therefore cognate with spiritual beings of free power, and consequently manageable by them.
Seventh. The cherubim seem to be officially distinct from angels or messengers who go upon special errands to a distance from the presence-chamber of the Almighty. It is possible that they are also to be distinguished in function from the seraphim and the living beings of the Apocalypse, who like them appear among the attendants in the court of heaven.
Here we enter upon the record of the steps taken to carry into effect the forfeiture of life by man, consequent upon his willful transgression of the divine command.
Gen 3:22
As one of us. - This is another indication of the plurality in unity which is evidently inherent in the Eternal Spirit. It is still more significant than the expression of concert in the creation of man, as it cannot be explained by anything short of a personal distinction.
Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. - We are now prepared to understand the nature of the two trees which were in the midst of the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil effected a change, not in the physical constitution of man, but in his mental experience - in his knowledge of good and evil. There do not appear to have been any seeds of death - any poisonous or malignant power in the tree. “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and likely to the eyes,” as well as a tree to be desired to make one wise. Neither does it appear that the virtue of making wise on the particular point of moral distinctions lay in the digestion of its fruit when received into the stomach. The natural effect of food is on the body, not on the understanding. The moral effect lay rather in the conduct of man in regard to the tree, as a thing prohibited. The result of his conduct, whether in the way of obedience or disobedience to the divine command, was to be the knowledge of good and evil. If man had obeyed, he would have come to this knowledge in a legitimate way. For he would have perceived that distrust of God and disobedience to his will, as they were externally presented to his view in the suggestions of the tempter, were evil; and that confidence and obedience, internally experienced in himself in defiance of such suggestions, were good. And this was the germ of the knowledge of good and evil. But, by disregarding the express injunction of his Maker with respect to this tree, he attained to the knowledge of good and evil in an unlawful and fatal way. He learned immediately that he himself was the guilty party, whereas, before, he was free from guilt; and thus became aware, in his own person and to his own condemnation, of good and evil, as distinct and opposite qualities.
This view of the tree is in accordance with all the intimations of Scripture. First. The terms in which it is prohibited are, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat; for in the day thou eatest of it, die surely shalt thou.” Here it is important to mark the consequence which is pointed out as flowing from the eating of it. It is not, Thou shalt know good and evil by any physical virtue of the tree, a process by which knowledge comes not at all; but, “Thou shalt surely die.” Now, this is not any physical result of the fruit being received into the system, since man did not die for centuries after, but a penal result, in fact, the awful sanction of that divine command by which man’s probation was to be accomplished. Second. The points brought out by the serpent are to the same effect. He suggests that God had not given permission to eat of every tree of the garden.
There was some reserve. This reserve is an injury to man, which he makes out by denying that death is the consequence of eating of the tree reserved, and asserting that special benefits, such as the opening of the eyes, and being as God in knowing good and evil, would follow. In both of these statements there is equivocation. Death is not indeed the natural, but it is the legal consequence of disobedience. The eyes of them both were opened, and they became like God in knowing good and evil; but, in both instances, to their own shame and confusion, instead of their glory and honor. They saw that they were “naked,” and they were “ashamed” and “afraid.” They knew good and evil; but they knew the evil to be present with them, and the good to have departed from them. Third. The interview of God with the culprits is also in keeping with the same view. The question to the man is, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat?” Mark the tenor of this question. It is not, Hast thou eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? but, “of which I commanded thee not to eat;” by which it is indicated that, not the physical character of the tree, but the moral character of the action, is the point of the interrogatory.
The tree, then, was the ordained occasion of man’s becoming as God in knowing good and evil. He had now reached the second, or experimental lesson in morals. When God gave him the theoretical lesson in the command, he expected that the practical one would follow. He now says, “Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” In the style of his word he notes the result, without marking the disobedience of man as the means. This is understood from the circumstances. Man is therefore guilty, and the law must be vindicated.
Hence, it is added, “Lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever.” This sentence is completed by an act, not a word, as we shall see in the next verse. Measures must be taken to prevent his access to this tree, now that he has incurred the penalty of death.
From this sentence it follows that the tree of life must have had some virtue by which the human frame was to be kept free from the decrepitude of age, or the decay that terminates in death. Its name, the tree of life, accords with this conclusion. Only on such a ground could exclusion from it be made the penalty of disobedience, and the occasion of death. Thus, also may we meet and answer all the difficulties which physiology presents to the immortality of unfallen man. We have it on record that there was an herbal virtue in paradise capable of counteracting the effects of the wear and tear of the animal frame. This confirms our account of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Death, which, it is to be remembered, is, to a moral and responsible being, in a comprehensive sense, exclusion from the blessings of conscious existence, and pre-eminently from that of the divine complacence, was not the physical effect of its fruit being eaten, but the penal consequence of a forbidden act. And this consequence is brought about by a special judicial process, recorded in the next verse:
The two trees stand related to one another in a way that touches the very center of man’s moral being. “Do this and live” is the fundamental dictum of the moral law. Its implied counterpart is, “If thou do it not, thou shalt die.” The act of disobedience is evidently decisive for the whole conduct, character, and relation to God. It therefore necessarily forfeits that life which consists in the favor of God and all consequent blessings. The two trees correspond with the condition and the benefit in this essential covenant of law. The one is the test of man’s obedience, or disobedience; the other, the benefit which is retained by obedience and lost by disobedience. Man fails in obedience, and loses the blessing. Hence, forth both the legal and the beneficial parts of the covenant must come from a higher source to all that are saved. Christ bestows both the one and the other by his obedience and by his Spirit. In the old form of the covenant of grace, the Passover typifies the one, and circumcision the other; in the new, the Lord’s Supper and baptism have a similar import. These all, from first to last, betoken the two essential parts of salvation, redemption, and regeneration. This is a clear example of the unity and constancy which prevail in the works of God.
It is evident that the idea of immortality is familiar to the early chapters of Genesis. The primeval command itself implies it. Mortality, moreover, applies to the נפשׁ nephesh, the organic living body; not to the particles of matter in that body, nor to the חיים נשׁמת nı̂shmat chayı̂ym, “breath of life” which came from God. It means not annihilation, but dissolution. Still further, the first part of death is exclusion from the tree of life, which takes place on the very day of disobedience. This indicates its nature. It is not annihilation of the spiritual essence, which does not in fact take place, but the withdrawal from it of the blessings and enjoyments in communion with God of which it is capable. And, lastly, the whole tenor of the narrative is, that death is a penalty for transgression; whereas annihilation is not a penalty, but a release from the doom of perdition. Accordingly, the tempter is not annihilated, but left to bear his doom; and so man’s existence is perpetuated under partial privation - the emblem and earnest of that death which consists in the total privation of life. Death is, no doubt, in its primary meaning, the dissolution of the living body. But even in the execution of the primeval sentence it begins to expand into that compass of meaning which all the great primitives of the scriptural language sooner or later express. Earth, sky, good, evil, life, and death are striking specimens of this elasticity of signification. Hence, we perceive that the germs of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul lie even in these primeval documents. And more we could not expect, unless we were to concentrate the whole fullness of revelation on this subject into its opening pages.
Gen 3:23
In consequence of man’s disobedience the tree of life is withdrawn from the reach of man as a forfeited boon, and the dissolution of the present life allowed to take place according to the laws of nature, still remaining in force in regard to other animated beings; aided, indeed, and accelerated in their operation, by the sinful abuse of human passions. And thus the expression, “in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die,” receives its simple application. It is a conditional sentence, pronounced antecedently as a warning to the responsible party. On the very day of transgression it becomes legally valid against him, and the first step toward its regular execution in the ordinary course of things is taken. This step is his exclusion from the tree of life. This is effected by sending man out of the garden into the common, to until the soil whence he was taken.
Gen 3:24
So he drove out the man. - This expresses the banishment of man from the garden as a judicial act. While he is left to the fruits of his labor for the means of subsistence until his return to the dust, his access to the source of perpetual life and vigor is effectually barred by a guard stationed east of the garden, where was no doubt its only entrance, consisting of the cherubim and the flame of a sword waving in all directions. The flaming sword is the visible form of the sword of justice, repelling the transgressors from the seat and source of happiness and life. The cherubim, who are here mentioned as well-known objects, whose figure does not require description, are the ministers of the divine presence and judgment - of his presence which was not entirely withdrawn from man; and of his judgment, by which he was excluded from the garden of delight.
There is unspeakable mercy here in every respect for the erring race. This present life in the flesh was now tainted with sin, and impregnated with the seeds of the curse, about to spring forth into an awful growth of moral and physical evil. It is not worth preserving for itself. It is not in any way desirable that such a dark confusion of life and death in one nature should be perpetuated. Hence, there is mercy as well as judgment in the exclusion of man from that tree which could have only continued the carnal, earthly, sensual and even devilish state of his being. Let it remain for a season, until it be seen whether the seed of spiritual life will come to birth and growth, and then let death come and put a final end to the old man.
Still further, God does not annihilate the garden or its tree of life. Annihilation does not seem to be his way. It is not the way of that omniscient One who sees the end from the beginning, of that infinite Wisdom that can devise and create a self-working, self-adjusting universe of things and events. On the other hand, he sets his cherubim to keep the way of the tree of life. This paradise, then, and its tree of life are in safe keeping. They are in reserve for those who will become entitled to them after an intervening period of trial and victory, and they will reappear in all their pristine glory and in all their beautiful adaptedness to the high-born and new-born perfection of man. The slough of that serpent nature which has been infused into man will fall off, at least from the chosen number who take refuge in the mercy of God; and in all the freshness and freedom of a heaven-born nature will they enter into all the originally congenial enjoyments that were shadowed forth in their pristine bloom in that first scene of human bliss.
We have now gone over the prelude to the history of man. It consists of three distinct events: the absolute creation of the heavens and the earth, contained in one verse; the last creation, in which man himself came into being, embracing the remainder of the first chapter; and the history of the first pair to the fall, recorded in the second and third chapters. The first two fall into one, and reveal the invisible everlasting Elohim coming forth out of the depths of his inscrutable eternity, and manifesting himself to man in the new character of Yahweh, the author and perpetuator of a universe of being, and pre-eminently of man, a type and specimen of the rational order of beings. Whenever moral agents come into existence, and wherever they come into contact, there must be law, covenant, or compact. Hence, the command is laid upon man as the essential prerequisite to his moral deportment; and Yahweh appears further as the vindicator of law, the keeper of covenant, the performer of promise.
Man, being instructed by him in the fundamental principle of all law, namely, the right of the Creator over the creature, and the independence of each creature in relation to every other, takes the first step in moral conduct. But it is a false one, violating this first law of nature and of God in both its parts. “Thus, by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” Hence, the prospect of man’s future history is clouded, and it cannot be darker than it afterward turns out to be. But still it is tinged even in its early dawn with some rays of heavenly hope. The Lord God has held out signals of mercy to the tempted and fallen pair. The woman and the man have not been slow to acknowledge this, and to show symptoms of returning faith and repentance. And though they have been shut out of the garden, yet that region of bliss and its tree of life are not swept out of existence, but, in the boundless mercy of God, reserved in safe keeping for those who shall become heirs of glory, honor, and immortality.
Let it be observed that we here stand on the broad ground of our common humanity. From this wide circumference Scripture never recedes. Even when it recounts the fortunes of a single individual, family, or nation, its eye and its interest extend to the whole race; and it only dwells on the narrower circle of men and things as the potential spring of nascent, growing, and eternal life and blessing to the whole race. Let us endeavor to do justice to this ancient record, in the calm and constant grandeur and catholicity of its revelations concerning the ways of God with man.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 Behold Adam, &c. This was spoken by way of…
Behold Adam, &c. This was spoken by way of reproaching him with his pride, in affecting a knowledge that might make him like to God. (Challoner) --- "These are the words of God, not insulting over man, but deterring others from an imitation of his pride." (St. Augustine, de Gen. xi. 39.) --- For ever. The sentence is left imperfect: (Calmet) but by driving man from Paradise, God sufficiently shewed how he would prevent from eating of the tree of life, (Haydock) which Adam had not yet found. As he was now condemned to be miserable on earth, God, in mercy, prevented him from tasting of that fruit, which would have rendered his misery perpetual. (Menochius) --- He would suffer him to die, that, by death, he might come, after a life of 930 years, spent in sorrow and repentance, to the enjoyment of himself. (Haydock) --- Lest perhaps. God does not exercise his absolute power, or destroy free-will, but makes use of ordinary means and precautions, to effect his designs. (St. Augustine) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 And God said, Behold, the man is become as…
And God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us--not spoken in irony as is generally supposed, but in deep compassion. The words should be rendered, "Behold, what has become [by sin] of the man who was as one of us"! Formed, at first, in our image to know good and evil--how sad his condition now.
and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life--This tree being a pledge of that immortal life with which obedience should be rewarded, man lost, on his fall, all claim to this tree; and therefore, that he might not eat of it or delude himself with the idea that eating of it would restore what he had forfeited, the Lord sent him forth from the garden.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv22–24 22. As one of us, to know good and…
22. As one of us, to know good and evil — The plural form of expression is the so-called plural of majesty, as in Gen_1:26. Some, however, imagine that the angels are here addressed. The likeness is defined and limited by the words, to know good and evil, and this entire utterance of Jehovah Elohim is a solemn declaration of judgment. The allusion to the serpent’s words, in Gen_3:5, is too marked to be denied, and hence we may allow that this word of the Lord contains an element of irony. This opinion is not to be set aside by the assertion that irony, at the expense of a fallen soul, would befit Satan rather than Jehovah. The irony is an element of the penal judgment, and as Goeschell (quoted in Lange) well observes, “a divine irony is everywhere the second stage in all divine acts of punishment.” Lange himself thus paraphrases: “He is become like God; true, alas! God pity him! He knows now, in his guilty consciousness, the difference between good and evil.” God, in his infinite holiness and wisdom, possesses absolute knowledge of good and evil, but not by participation in the evil. By a perfect knowledge and possession of good, sinning is with him immutably impossible. Heb_6:18. Man should have attained like knowledge in a normal way, not by an opening of his eyes through disobedience. Compare note on Gen_2:17.
Take also of the tree of life — The word also does not necessarily imply “that the man had not yet eaten of the tree of life,” (Keil,) nor are we to suppose that once eating of the fruit of that tree would secure exemption from death. Often, during his sojourn in Eden, might he have eaten of that tree. But now, lest by continuing to eat he maintain himself in immortal vigour, he must be excluded from the garden, and allowed no access to the tree of life.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv22–24 22–24. The Expulsion from the Garden
22–24. The Expulsion from the Garden
22. as one of us] It is not stated to whom Jehovah addresses these words. Two explanations are possible. Either (1) He speaks to the Heavenly Beings by whom the throne of God was believed to be surrounded. See notes on Gen_1:26 and Gen_3:5, Gen_6:1, Gen_11:7. “As one of us” will then mean, not “like unto Jehovah personally,” but “like to the dwellers in Heaven,” who are in the possession of “the knowledge of the distinction between good and evil.” Or (2) the words are used in the language of deliberation, and represent the Lord moved, as it were, by apprehension or displeasure, because the eating of the Tree of Knowledge had conferred upon man an attribute to which he was not entitled.
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According to either line of explanation, the sentence is one which is most easily understood as one of the few survivals of the earlier myth form of narrative.
The Targum of Onkelos, to avoid the phrase “as one of us,” renders “is become one from himself.”
and now, lest, &c.] Man must be prevented from eating of the Tree of Life, and so obtaining another prerogative of Divinity, that of immortality. Man is created mortal. Immortality, obtained by disobedience and lived in sin, is not according to Jehovah’s will.
The verse contains a survival of the naïve trait in the primitive story, which represented Jehovah as jealous of the possible encroachment by man upon the prerogatives of Divinity. The serpent had referred to this (Gen_3:5); and it appears again in Gen_11:5.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv22–24 (22) As one of us.—See Note on Gen_1:26. By…
(22) As one of us.—See Note on Gen_1:26. By the fall man had sunk morally, but grown mentally. He had asserted his independence, had exercised the right of choosing for himself, and had attained to a knowledge without which his endowment of free-will would have remained in abeyance. There is something painful and humiliating in the idea of Chrysostom and other Fathers that the Deity was speaking ironically, or even with insult (Augustine). All those qualities which constitute man’s likeness to God—free-will, self-dependence, the exercise of reason and of choice—had been developed by the fall, and Adam was now a very different being from what he had been in the days of his simple innocency.
Lest he put forth his hand.—Adam had exercised the power of marring God’s work, and if an unending physical life were added to the gift of freewill now in revolt against God, his condition and that of mankind would become most miserable. Man is still to attain to immortality, but it must now be through struggle, sorrow, penitence, faith, and death. Hence a paradise is no fit home for him. The Divine mercy, therefore, commands Adam to quit it, in order that he may live under conditions better suited for his moral and spiritual good.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv22–24 And the Lord God said. Verba insultantis (Augustine); ironica…
And the Lord God said. Verba insultantis (Augustine); ironica reprobatio (Calvin). But "irony at the expense of a wretched, tempted soul might well befit Satan, but not the Lord" (Delitzsch), and is altogether inconsistent with the footing of grace on which man was placed immediately upon his fall. Behold, the man is become as one of us. Not the angels (Kalisch), but the Divine Persons. (cf. Gen_1:26) It is scarcely likely that Jehovah alludes to the words of the tempter. (Gen_3:5) To know good and evil. Implying an acquaintance with good and evil which did not belong to him in the state of innocence. The language seems to hint that a one-sided acquaintance with good and evil, such as that possessed by the first pair in the garden and the unfallen angels in heaven, is not so complete a knowledge of the inherent beauty of the one and essential turpitude of the other as is acquired by beings who pass through the experience of a fall, and that the only way in which a finite being can approximate to such a comprehensive knowledge of evil as the Deity possesses without personal contact can see it as it lies everlastingly spread out before his infinite mind is by going down into it and learning what it is through personal experience (cf. Candlish, in loco).
And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. On the meaning of the tree of life vde Gen_2:9. Neither
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(1) lest by eating of the fruit he should recover that immortal life which he no longer "it possessed (Kalisch), as is certain that man would not have been able, had he even devoured the whole tree, to enjoy life against the will of God" (Calvin); nor
(2) lest the first pair, through participation of the tree, should confer upon themselves the attribute of undyingness, which would not be the zwhniov of salvation, but its opposite, the oleqron aijwnion of the accursed (Keil, Lange, T. Lewis, Wordsworth); but either
(3) lest man should conceive the idea that immortality might still be secured by eating of the tree, instead of trusting in the promised seed, and under this false impression attempt to take its fruit, which, in his case, would have been equivalent to an attempt to justify himself by works instead of faith (Calvin, Macdonald); or
(4) lest he should endeavor to partake of the symbol of immortality, which he could not again do until his sin was expiated and himself purified. (cf. Rev_22:14; Candlish) The remaining portion of the sentence is omitted, anakoloutha or aposiopesis being not infrequent in impassioned speech (cf. Exo_32:32; Job_32:13; Isa_38:18) The force of the ellipsis or expressive silence may be gathered from the succeeding words of the historian.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 Behold, the man is become as one of Us,…
Gen_3:22
Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil
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Mans gain through loss
I.
Consider SOME OF THE EFFECTS OF THE FALL, as they are suggested in the statements of this narrative. You have here, then, four facts. We shall adopt the order of their logical relation rather than that of the history.
1. The first is mans moral condition resulting from the Fall. Man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil.
2. The second is the prime original elements of the moral development of the race. Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. That is the beginning of social life. Humanity naked is humanity without the possibility of improvement. Clothe man, and he enters upon the road of progress. Here is the germ of all the arts of culture, of science, and of social growth.
3. The third is the profound hope, the inextinguishable hope, that springs within the human heart. Adam called his wifes name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. The fulness, the multitudinousness of life everywhere affords the hope, without which human restoration were not possible.
4. The fourth is the condition of human perfecting which is to be found in the unalterable past, He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. These are the results of the Fall according to Scripture. They are of course connected with, though different from, the guilt which followed sin. That I do not propose to consider particularly, though the thought of it must underlie all our discussion.
II. Consider the Word of God in which He declares that The man has now become like one of Us. THE EFFECT OF THE FALL UPON MANS MORAL NATURE IS TO MAKE MAN LIKE GOD. These are striking words. In the moment of a Divine judgment there is also a Divine declaration of great significance concerning man. Behold, the man is become as one of Us. The sneer of the serpent first of all introduces us to this likeness of man to God. Has God said, You shall surely die? Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. They listened to Satan, and all they gained was the knowledge of their nakedness. That is all the serpent can give you. His promise of godlikeness ends in the discovery of your shame. And yet God takes these words first used by Satan and gives them a profound meaning. In Satans mouth they were a lie. In Gods they are an awful and yet a gracious truth. Some hold that God used these words ironically, They have become like Us. The sneer of earth was answered by a sneer from heaven. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe that in an hour like this God would reproach. What then is Gods knowledge of good and evil? It must be perfect. He would not be God if He did not completely know what good and evil were in nature, in all their results, in all their issues and relations. He knows the moral consequence of evil. He knows the degradation of the soul that sins. He knows the wild troop of mischiefs that follow in the train of iniquity. He sees the end from the beginning, and thus He knows. But in all this knowledge God has certain elements in His nature which must be remembered when we speak of Gods knowing. While He knows the good and evil, and knows them completely, He is at the same time absolutely set for righteousness. Though knowing good and evil God remains forever God. But God is not only in Himself free from any attack of evil, He also has complete power over it. He can restrain it, so limiting its scope and so bending it to the purposes of His holy will, that out of it He can bring good; and however deep may be the mystery to us, still evolve a higher good to the universe than it would have known had there been no evil. Then in all this it must be further noted there is no loss of the Divine power and vitality. God possesses every fulness of resource and every fulness of life. These in Him are not affected by the evil which He knows. Indeed, though we cannot say that He becomes more mighty, more vital by reason of evil, because that would be to deny the perfection of being to Him in His original and absolute nature, yet its presence produces a higher manifestation of Divine power and life than an innocent and unfallen world would otherwise have known. Such is Gods knowledge of good and evil with some of its relations to other attributes of the Divine Being. When we turn to that knowledge which man has gained of the dark and dreary subject, we find that, in a sense, he too knows evil as God knows it. Sin in itself is an experience, a teaching. Without it man had never known conditions which now become clear and distinct to him. Think of the course of temptation, the allurements and enticings of sin, the hints and suggestions of the tempter! Through what a series of self-revelations does not the soul tempted to falling pass! How in temptation the unfolding of the wily nature comes into the clear perception of the tempted one! And then, when the temptations force has fully issued in the sin, what a further knowledge is gained! What spheres of action, closed to the innocent, are then opened! What experiences of inner life and circumstances of outward condition the sin displays! This is the knowledge which sin brings. It is Divine in its awfulness, its infinite reach. Now are they like gods, knowing good and evil. But man, like God, is further related to the object of his terrible knowing. The contrast, however, is noteworthy. The light, lurid and alarming, has burst upon his mind, and the mephitic vapours which arise from the horrible pit poison and overcome him. And besides this mans power is limited. By his sin he has opened the sluice gates of the flood, and nothing that he can do can close them, or stay the mad stream that rushes forth and on. This is the power of every sin. Like God, a word of terrible doom! being like God in the knowledge we have gained; but we who have gained it, how helpless we stand before the evils which we ourselves have produced! Another terrible result of sin in its relation to us, as contrasted with Gods knowledge of it, is that the continuance of evil is out of all proportion to the continuance of that life during which alone we can cope with it. God knowing sin, has eternity in which to deal with it. We knowing it by our sin, even if we attempt to undo it, are often cut off long before we have begun to stay its mischievous effects: The evil that men do lives after them. Think of it: your sin overwhelms thousands yet unborn. It may work out its dread succession of evil long after you have been forgotten. But remember it is your sin; you called it up, you set it going. But you are powerless to deal with it. Like Us. Yes, in knowledge. But, oh! how bitter the thought of the contrast when we still find ourselves to be Divine in knowledge, but in all else human, and even less than human, by our sin. And is this our final learning from these words? Must this dark message be the end of our meditation? It is indeed all that philosophy can give us. The historian can furnish us no other teaching, the poet sing no other song than this tragedy of human loss. But, blessed be God! there is another light to shine upon this awful fact. It is the Son of God who can give to this terrible dignity into which we rise its true significance, and change it from its original doom to a blessed evangel. If we have nothing but the record of what this Word of God has uttered, all we gain is to became like God in knowledge, and in the rest to be smitten in the very essence of our life. But Christ by His word, and life, and death, made it possible for us to know the evil and the good, and to share in the Divine nature in its triumph over the evil, even as in its knowledge. (L. D. Bevan, D. D.)
The Fall considered as a development
God made man in His own image. But the deepest power, the free power, was yet latent. By a dark act of rebellion he developed it; and the Lord God testifies that he had thereby become something which the words as one of Us alone describe. And yet that act was deadly. Man, aiming at the height of God, fell perilously on the very edge of the abyss. No more awful condition of life, in point of grandeur and power can be conceived than the words become as one of Us set forth; and yet the penalty of aiming at it was death. It was a step out, a step on for man in the unfolding of the latent powers and possibilities of his being as an embodied spirit; but it brought him within peril and under the hand of woes and evils, which have made his history one long wail, and his life one long night. Adam, the child of Eden, made in Gods image, could find the completeness of his life in Eden. The mould of his being was perfect as an image; the compass of his powers presented him as the likeness of God in this material world. Adam, the child of the wilderness, having become by the act of freedom that which our text describes--having by the actual experiment of what power might be in him, by the actual unfolding of a life whose character and ends were expressly self-determined, grown into something which, if grander on the one hand than the estate in which he was created in the garden, was most terrible and sorrowful on the other--could find the completeness of his life alone in Christ and heaven. God made man in His own image, is the original description of the constitution of man. Then follows the dread history which the third chapter of the Book of Genesis records; and then it is stated, Man is as one of Us, knowing good and evil. The words imply, though they do not express, a growth. Man is said to have grown to something which is in one sense nearer to God, nearer to the Divine level--and the last clauses of the verse seem to imply that he was within reachof that which would bring him still nearer to the level; but, on the other hand, there was a now spot of weakness where he had become vulnerable to foes, whom in his innocence he might safely have despised; there was a new element of disorder, which would bring discord and dire confusion into the harmonious sphere of his powers; there was a new taint of decay and death which, grand as he might seem to have grown by his experiment of freedom, would eat like a canker into his godlike constitution, and unless from Him who made him at the first some renewing, restoring influence should descend, must lay its proud structure in ruins in the dust. Ye shall be as gods, was the devils promise, knowing good and evil. The text affirms that there was a truth in it. Behold, the man is become as one of Us. And yet it was a lie to the hearts core. None but God could stand on that Divine level. Man should stand there one day, partaker of the Divine nature. But for the man who in native, naked, human strength should stand there, there could be no issue but death. The devil was right as to the development. Man brought himself into the sphere of higher and more Divine experiences than his life in paradise could have afforded him. But the devil said nothing about the death. The devil said to the prodigal, Wander freely, spend, enjoy; that is life. The prodigal found it, as every sinner finds it, to be death. What life has come out of it has been born, not of it, but of the strength, the tenderness, the quickening power of the Fathers redeeming love. Man seems to be so organized inwardly that his purest joys spring out of his sorrows, his riches grow by his losses, his laurels bloom in the sphere of his sternest conflicts, his fullest development is the fruit of his hardest toils, and his noblest becomings of his most utter sacrifices--while God completes the cycle, and ordains that his immortal life shall spring out of his death. Thus man is organized. The question then arises, Is this condition of things the accident of sin? Is this the full account of it--that man being in a sinful state, God has thus adapted his mental and moral organization, as the best expedient which the case allows, with a view to his restoration? Or was this contemplated in his first constitution and endowment? Was man made, were all his powers ordained, with a view to this life of toil, struggle, suffering, sacrifice, and Divine experience? Was man made for it? Was the world made for it? Was heaven made for it? Is this the one way through which we are bound to believe that the highest end of God in the constitution of man and of all things is to be gained? And the answer must be, Yes. Man was made for it. Had he remained in Eden the highest interest of heaven in mans career would have been lost; and more would have been lost, the highest, fullest, most absolute manifestation of God. Him, redemption alone could fully declare. If man comes forth into full manhood through that perverse exercise of his freedom, which leaves human nature suppliant for redemption under peril of imminent death, God, in redeeming man from the penalties and fruits of that perverseness, reveals Himself most fully as God. The whole system of things around us seems to me to be constituted with a view to redemption--which comprehends the discipline and education of souls. Thewilderness was there waiting, and all the physical order of the world. That was before man, and was made for man. And it is all set to the same keynote of struggle, toil, and suffering. There is not a bit of rock or a blade of grass, there has not been from the creation, which is not a mute memorial of struggle, wounds, and death. All things travail, not simply because man has sinned, but because the redemption of the sinner is the work for which the all has been prepared by the Lord. Redemption is no accident. The need of being a Redeemer lies deep in the nature of God; and not only was mans sin foreseen, but all things were ordered with a view to the great drama of redemption from before the foundation of the world. But was sin preordained? The sun was ordained to shine, the moon to embosom and radiate his tempered beams. The flowers were ordained to bloom, the rain to fertilize, the lightning to scathe, the whirlwind to uproot and to destroy. Is it part of the Divine plan of creation, that as the sun shines and the rain descends, some men should blaspheme, and some rob, hate, and murder? Are these dark shadows of life but the inevitable attendants of its virtues, brought out into sharpest outline where the light is clearest--and their necessary foil; or else the stages through which God leads the development of nascent virtues, purifying them in the crucible of each as they pass through? To this question the answer of the Bible and of the Church is No! a thousand times no! God has set His witness against this in the picture of Eden and the history of the Fall, and to this witness the history of sin adds an emphatic Amen. Man has never been able in the long run to shake off the horror which sin inspires, as his own hateful and accursed work. Responsibility, in the fullest sense which that word will bear, is the broadest, strongest, most insoluble fact in the spiritual history of our race. God made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions, and nothing can deliver man from the consciousness that the
I which has sought them out represents something which, whatever it may be, distinctly is not God. Father, I have sinned, is the only confession which reaches the depths of the human consciousness; and the gospel which demands the confession, and begins its ministry by deepening the conviction of sin, alone seems to him to be able to undertake the cure. As a matter of history it is palpably true that the convincing of sin, the inspiring a horror of sin--a horror which took many grotesque and ghastly forms in the early Christian centuries--was the first Work of that gospel which was Gods message to all mankind. The history of conscience, then, I hold to be conclusive--the profound, universal, unalterable conviction of the moral consciousness in man, that his sin springs out of an I which is not God; that his sin is his own, his creature, for which he is as responsible as God is for the order of the world. Sin then is, and is not Gods creature. The being capable of sinning is Gods creature. For making him capable of sinning God is responsible, and there His responsibility, as concerns Adams transgression, ends. For making me as I am, capable of sin, for bringing me into a sinful world in a body of sinful flesh, God is responsible; not for my sin, that grows up of myself in me. There are but two solutions possible. Either man must lie where his sin must sink him, in a deeper depth of shame and anguish than even a fiend can fathom, or man must rise through Redemption to a higher, Diviner manhood, and eating of the tree of life in Christ, live before the face of God forever. The first Adam is by grace abolished; the elder glory is done away by reason of the glory that excelleth. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v22 Gen_3:24. Cherubims.] The final “s” is superfluous: the word…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_3:24. Cherubims.] The final “s” is superfluous: the word should be either “cherubim,” or, what comes to the same thing, “cherubs.” It is of much more consequence to know and remember that the Heb. has the definite article. This is very significant. It implies that, when the book of Genesis was written, the notion of “the cherubim” had become “familiar.” Instead of wearying the reader with the numerous, and for the most part obviously far-fetched conjectures which critics have indulged in as to the derivation and meaning of the word cherub, we will merely say that perhaps one of the latest and simplest explanations is the best. Fürst regards the root (k-r-b) as meaning “to seize, catch, lay hold of;” and compares with it the Sanscrit gribh, Persian giriften, Greek γρυπ, γρυφ, German grip, krip, greif, &c. If, as he says, the word is an “abstract,” and signifies “the seizing, laying hold of,” even so a ready application of the term to the objects intended may be made. But if, as we venture to think, karubh is simply a pure passive, then the meaning yielded by it would be “the seized ones,” “the laid hold of ones,” “the possessed ones,”—than which a more fitting significance could scarcely be imagined (cf. especially Psa_18:10; Psa_80:1; Ezekiel 10) On the one hand, the cherubim laid hold of and enclosed the divine glory; and, on the other, the divine power laid hold of and directed these upbearers of the divine majesty.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_3:22-24
THE EXPULSION OF MAN FROM EDEN
Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden teaches:—
I. That when comforts are likely to be abused, God sends men from them. There was danger least Adam should put forth his hand and eat of the “tree of life” and live for ever. The fallen man must not be allowed to eat of the tree of life in this world. It can only be tasted by him in the resurrection; to live for ever in a frail body would be an unmitigated woe. There are many trees of life in the world from which God has to drive men, because they are not in a proper condition to make the designed use of them. Government and law must be preventive as well as punitive, they must regard the future as well as the past. It is better for a man to be driven from a mental, moral, or social good than that he should make a bad use of it. Many a soul has lost its Eden by making a bad use of good things.
II. That it is not well that a sinner should live and reside in the habitation of innocence. Adam and Eve were out of harmony with the purity and beauty of Eden. Such an innocent abode would not furnish them with the toil rendered necessary by their new condition of life. Men ought to have a sympathy with the place in which they reside. Only pure men should live in Eden. Society should drive out the impure from its sacred garden. Commerce should expel the dishonest from its benevolent enclosure. Let the wicked go to their own place in this life. A wicked soul will be far happier out of Eden than in it. Heaven will only allow the good to dwell within its walls.
III. That sin always causes men to be expelled from their truest enjoyments. Sin expels men from their Edens. It expels from the Eden of a pure and noble manhood. It drives the monarch from his palace into exile. It exchanges innocence for shame; plenty for want; the blessing of God into a curse; and fertility into barrenness. It makes the world into a prison-house. It often happens that when men want to gain more than they legitimately can, that they lose that which they already possess. In trying to become gods, men often lose their Edens. Satan robs men of their choicest possessions and of their sweetest comforts. This expulsion was
(1). Deserved.
(2). Preventive.
(3). Pitiable.
IV. That though expelled from Eden man’s life is yet beset with blessings. Though the cherubim and the flaming sword closed up the way to Paradise, Christ had opened a new and living way into the holy place. Christ is now the “way” of man—to purity—to true enjoyment—to heaven. Heaven substitutes one blessing for another.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_3:22-24. Jehovah is the disposer of all places and conditions; he sends in and puts out.
The cursed earth is the sinner’s place of correction.
God has separated sin from pleasure. Sin is out of Paradise.
Terrible are the means by which God drives sinners from their pleasures.
God sometimes withholds blessings for our good.
When men have once committed sin, they are in danger of any other.
The surest way to prevent sin is to keep men from the allurements to it.
God cannot allow the defiling of His ordinances by such as have no right to them.
God likes to leave monuments both of His mercies and judgments.
THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION EXHIBITED AT EDEN
By some it has been thought that the plan of redemption began to be unfolded in Eden in that symbolical appearance recorded in our text, receiving, as time rolled on, fuller development and additional illustration, until it was clearly set forth in the Saviour’s mission.
I. The event here recorded. The expulsion of man from Paradise.
1. It was not forcible. The wording of the sentence would certainly lead us to infer the contrary, but we can scarcely suppose that the unwillingness of Adam to leave Eden would manifest itself in rebellious opposition, so as to induce coercive measures; besides, we may infer from the entire narrative, that he had been brought by this time to penitence.
2. Neither are we to suppose that this event occurred merely as a carrying out of the curse which had been pronounced. The sin of Adam no doubt was the ground of this exclusion, but the principal reason was, that access to the tree of life might be denied him. By this he was taught the full consequence of his sin.
II. The transaction that followed. “And he placed at the east of the garden,” &c. The general mind associates with this statement, the idea of wrath; the popular notion being, that an angel with a flaming sword in hand, stood in the entrance of Eden, to prevent any approach to the tree of life. That such cannot be its import might be inferred from the general tenor of the narrative; in several instances, while Adam was yet in the garden, the mercy of God was especially manifested to him, and we cannot suppose that after his exclusion, there would be less mercy. To us it appears as an illustration of the recent promise of the Redeemer.
1. What is the Scripture signification of the term “Cherubim?” (Eze_1:22; Eze_10:1.) (Rev_4:6.) The cherubim of paradise same as these. In Ezekiel, and in all the passages which refer to the subject, we have the idea that God dwelt with the cherubim; we are also told that the appearance of the cherubim was that of a man; so that one great truth taught at Eden might be, that the seed of the woman, who would open the way to the tree of life, would be God dwelling with the flesh.
2. What was the flaming sword? Critics tell us that the word rendered “flaming sword,” might be rendered “the fire of wrath.” Allow that the institution at Eden and the vision of Ezekiel represent the same appearance, and we have a key to the expression, “flaming sword.” In the vision of Ezekiel there was a fire unfolding, or turning back upon itself; and the living creatures, with the likeness of a man, were in the midst of the fire. In the text, the sword of flame is said to have turned every way, but this would be better rendered “turning back on itself;” so that the great truth here taught was, that the fire of wrath, which had been kindled by transgression, instead of burning out to consume man, would turn back and expend itself on “God manifest in the flesh.”
III. The design of this transaction.
1. One great end was to teach the principles of redemption.
2. To keep the divinely-appointed way to eternal life in remembrance.
3. That it might serve as a temple of worship. It was to this “presence of the Lord” that the antediluvian patriarch came—from which Cain was driven. Here sacrifices were offered, as expressions of faith in this way of reconciliation.—(Sketches of Sermons by Wesleyan Ministers.)
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Privileges Perverted! Gen_3:22. Pilkington mentions that in Retsch’s Illustrations of Göethe’s Faust, there is one plate where angels are seen dropping roses down upon the demons, who are contending for the soul of Faust. But every rose falls like molten metal—burning and blistering where it touches. Is it not so with man? God’s gifts are by him abused—His privileges perverted. The gifts remain intrinsically the same; but man’s heart—his guilty conscience is pained; as vice blushes at virtue’s contact.
“Wasted and marred in the sin-stricken soul,
The finest workmanship of God is there.”—Willis.
Divine Care! (Gen_3:23.) God did not forget Adam and Eve. Nor was He indifferent to their constitution. Life in Paradise would be extreme misery. He saw—he knew. So God sees all the way of each child of His. And as he taught Adam and Eve that His Providence and love would guide and direct their future, so does He teach us. Dr. Doddride was taught this in a dream. He thought he had just died, and in an instant was conscious that he was free as a bird. Embodied in an aërial form he floated in light, while beneath was his family weeping over his dead body, which he had just left as though it were an empty box. Reposing upon golden clouds, he found himself ascending through space, guided by a venerable figure, in which age and youth were blended into majestic sweetness. They travelled on and on. At length the towers of a most beautiful edifice rose, brilliant and distinct, before them. The door swung noiselessly open as they entered a spacious room, in the centre of which stood a table covered with a snow-white cloth, on which was a golden cup and a cluster of ripe grapes. “Here you must await the Lord of the mansion, who will soon come,” said the guide. “In the meantime, you will find plenty to delight you.” His guide vanished; and upon looking at the room, he found its walls covered with pictures, which, upon examination, proved to be a complete delineation of his entire life, revealing to him that there had not been an hour in it of joy, sadness, or peril, in which a ministering angel had not been present as guardian and Saviour. This revelation of God’s goodness and mercy and watchfulness far exceeded his highest imaginings. While he was filled with gratitude and love, the Lord of the mansion entered. His appearance was so overwhelming in its loveliness and majesty, that the dreamer sank at his feet overcome. His Lord, gently raising him, took his hand and led him forward to the table. Pressing the juice of the grapes into the golden cup, he first tasted it, then holding it to the dreamer’s lips, said, “Drink: this is the new wine in my Father’s kingdom.” No sooner had he drank, than perfect love cast out all fear, and clasping his arms around the Saviour, he exclaimed “My Lord and my God!” Sweeter than the sweetest of earth’s music, he heard the voice of God His Saviour in accents of comfort and tones of assurance; and, thrilling with unspeakable bliss, he awoke with tears of rapture streaming over his face. Yes! God sees—knows—pities—preserves—perfects.
“Through all my dark has shone
Thy face, Thy peace has flowed beneath my pain;
Stumbling, I fell in Thy embrace
My loss by Thee was turned to gain.”
Mercy and Judgment! Gen_3:24. Mercy here fringed the judgment of exclusion. Man now required an occupation to prevent unavailing regrets. Naturally prone to mood over the past, God gave him an employment which would draw his mind away from past memories to present action and future hope. Regrets of a certain class are useless. As for instance those which a man in mid-life sometimes experiences. It is the solemn thought connected with middle life, that life’s last business is begun in earnest; and it is then, midway between the cradle and the grave, that a man begins to marvel that he lets the days of youth go by so half-enjoyed. It is the pensive autumn feeling; it is the sensation of half-sadness that we experience when the longest day of the year is past, and every day that follows is shorter, and the light fainter, and the feebler shadows tell that nature is hastening with gigantic footsteps to her winter grave. So does man look back upon his youth. When the first gray hairs become visible, when the unwelcome truth fastens itself upon the mind that a man is no longer going up hill, but down, and that the sun is always westering, he looks back on things behind. When we were children, we thought as children. But now there lies before us manhood, with its earnest work, and then old age, and then the grave, and then home. There is a second youth for man, better and holier than the first, if he will look on and not look back. Hence God sent forth Adam to till the ground, to devote his energies to diligent use of the present, by directing his hopes toward heavenly rest in the future. And if we could have his confession now it would be:—
“Yes, I can tell of hours apart
In lonely path and secret place,
When burned and glowed within my heart
The wondrous meanings of Thy grace.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v24 Gen 3:24. - Rev 22:14.
Genesis
EDEN LOST AND RESTORED
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Gen 3:24. - Rev 22:14.
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning.’ Eden was fair, but the heavenly city shall be fairer. The Paradise regained is an advance on the Paradise that was lost. These are the two ends of the history of man, separated by who knows how many millenniums. Heaven lay about him in his infancy, but as he journeyed westwards its morning blush faded into the light of common day-and only at eventide shall the sky glow again with glory and colour, and the western heaven at last outshine the eastern, with a light that shall never die. A fall, and a rise-a rise that reverses the fall, a rise that transcends the glory from which he fell,-that is the Bible’s notion of the history of the world, and I, for my part, believe it to be true, and feel it to be the one satisfactory explanation of what I see round about me and am conscious of within me.
1. Man had an Eden and lost it.
I take the Fall to be a historical fact. To all who accept the authority of Scripture, no words are needed beyond the simple statement before us, but we may just gather up the signs that there are on the wide field of the world’s history, and in the narrower experience of individuals, that such a fall has been.
Look at the condition of the world: its degradation, its savagery-all its pining myriads, all its untold millions who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. Will any man try to bring before him the actual state of the heathen world, and, retaining his belief in a God, profess that these men are what God meant men to be? It seems to me that the present condition of the world is not congruous with the idea that men are in their primitive state, and if this is what God meant men for, then I see not how the dark clouds which rest on His wisdom and His love are to be lifted off.
Then, again-if the world has not a Fall in its history, then we must take the lowest condition as the one from which all have come; and is that idea capable of defence? Do we see anywhere signs of an upward process going on now? Have we any experience of a tribe raising itself? Can you catch anywhere a race in the act of struggling up, outside of the pale of Christianity? Is not the history of all a history of decadence, except only where the Gospel has come in to reverse the process?
But passing from this: What mean the experiences of the individual-these longings; this hard toil; these sorrows?
How comes it that man alone on earth, manifestly meant to be leader, lord, etc., seems but cursed with a higher nature that he may know greater sorrows, and raised above the beasts in capacity that he may sink below them in woe, this capacity only leading to a more exquisite susceptibility, to a more various as well as more poignant misery?
Whence come the contrarieties and discordance in his nature?
It seems to me that all this is best explained as the Bible explains it by saying: {1} Sin has done it; {2} Sin is not part of God’s original design, but man has fallen; {3} Sin had a personal beginning. There have been men who were pure, able to stand but free to fall.
It seems to me that that explanation is more in harmony with the facts of the case, finds more response in the unsophisticated instinct of man, than any other. It seems to me that, though it leaves many dark and sorrowful mysteries all unsolved, yet that it alleviates the blackest of them, and flings some rays of hope on them all. It seems to me that it relieves the character and administration of God from the darkest dishonour; that it delivers man’s position and destiny from the most hopeless despair; that though it leaves the mystery of the origin of evil, it brings out into clearest relief the central truths that evil is evil, and sin and sorrow are not God’s will; that it vindicates as something better than fond imaginings the vague aspirations of the soul for a fair and holy state; that it establishes, as nothing else will, at once the love of God and the dignity of man; that it leaves open the possibility of the final overthrow of that Sin which it treats as an intrusion and stigmatises as a fall; that it therefore braces for more vigorous, hopeful conflict against it, and that while but for it the answer to the despairing question, Hast Thou made all men in vain? must be either the wailing echo ‘In vain,’ or the denial that He has made them at all, there is hope and there is power, and there is brightness thrown on the character of God and on the fate of man, by the old belief that God made man upright, and that man made himself a sinner.
2. Heaven restores the lost Eden.
‘God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared them a city.’
The highest conception we can form of heaven is the reversal of all the evil of earth, and the completion of its incomplete good: the sinless purity-the blessed presence of God-the fulfilment of all desires-the service which is blessed, not toil-the changelessness which is progress, not stagnation.
3. Heaven surpasses the lost Eden.
{1} Garden-City.
The perfection of association-the nations of the saved. Here ‘we mortal millions live alone,’ even when united with dearest. Like Egyptian monks of old, each dwelling in his own cave, though all were a community.
{2} The richer experience.
The memory of past sorrows which are understood at last.
Heaven’s bliss in contrast with earthly joys.
Sinlessness of those who have been sinners will be more intensely lustrous for its dark background in the past. Redeemed men will be brighter than angels.
The impossibility of a fall.
Death behind us.
The former things shall no more come to mind, being lost in blaze of present transcendent experience, but yet shall be remembered as having led to that perfect state.
Christ not only repairs the ‘tabernacle which was fallen,’ but builds a fairer temple. He brings ‘a statelier Eden,’ and makes us dwell for ever in a Garden City.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv23–24 Therefore the Lord God
Therefore the Lord God
The Second Dispensation: Conscience. By disobedience man came to a personal and experimental knowledge of good and evil--of good as obedience, of evil as disobedience to the known will of God. Through that knowledge conscience awoke. Expelled from Eden and placed under the second, or ADAMIC COVENANT, man was responsible to do all known good, to abstain from all known evil, and to approach God through sacrifice. The result of this second testing of man is stated in Gen 6:5 and the dispensation ended in the judgment of the Flood. Apparently "the east of the garden" Gen 3:24 where were the cherubims and the flame, remained the place of worship through this second dispensation. See for the other six dispensations:
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INNOCENCE (See Scofield "Gen 1:28")
HUMAN GOVERNMENT (See Scofield "Gen 8:21")
PROMISE (See Scofield "Gen 12:1")
LAW (See Scofield "Exo 19:8")
GRACE (See Scofield "Joh 1:17")
KINGDOM (See Scofield "Eph 1:10")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v22 the man
the man
Possible meanings are 1) God was referring to one human, the man, or 2) God was referring to humans in general, so this would mean the man and his wife. Even if God was speaking about one person, what he said applied to both of them.
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like one of us
"like us." The pronoun "us" is plural. See how you translated "Let us make" in Genesis 1:26.
knowing good and evil
Here "good and evil" is a figure of speech that refers to both extremes and everything in between. See how you translated "knowledge of good and evil" in Genesis 2:9. AT: "knowing everything, including both good and evil" (See: Merism)
he must not be allowed
This can be stated in active form. AT: "I will not allow him" (See: Active or Passive)
tree of life
"the tree that gives people life." See how you translated this in Genesis 2:9.
the ground from which he had been taken
"dirt because he had been taken from dirt." This does not refer to the particular place on the land that the God took man from.
So God drove the man out of the garden
"God forced the man to leave the garden." This refers to the event in Genesis 3:23, where it says "Yahweh God sent him out of the garden of Eden." God did not send the man out a second time.
to cultivate
This means to what is needed so that plants grow well. See how you translated this in Genesis 2:5.
in order to guard the way to the tree of life
"in order to stop people from going to the tree of life"
flaming sword
Possible meanings are 1) a sword that had flames coming from it or 2) a fire that was shaped like a sword. Languages that do not have swords could use another weapon such as a spear or arrow.
translationWords
Lord Yahweh
Eden
cherub
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22–24 3:22 like us: The plural probably reflects God’s conversation…
3:22 like us: The plural probably reflects God’s conversation with his angelic court (see study note on 1:26). • the tree of life . . . live forever! Mercifully, God prevented humankind from eating of the tree of life and having to live forever in a fallen state. Through Jesus Christ, however, eternal life is once again made available (see Rev 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.