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Parsha 1: B'resheet (continued)
(In the Beginning, Gen. 1:1-6:8)
B. Shabbat Instituted (2:1-4) [Saturday, 2 April 3976 BCE]
1The heavens[GN] and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2By the seventh day Elohim[GN] had finished the work He had been doing; and on that day He ceased[2] from all His work. 3Elohim blessed the seventh day, and consecrated it as holy,[3a] because on that day He ceased from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.[3b]
Sheni (Second) [A:iv] 4This is the history [referring back to what has just been written] of the of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that ADONAI[4] Elohim[GN] made the earth and the heavens.
C. Adam and Havah (2:5-25)
1. Creation of Man (2:5-7)
5Now no shrub of the field had yet apeared on the earth, nor had any plant of the field[5a] sprouted; for ADONAI Elohim had not sent rain upon the earth,[5b] and there was no human to cultivate the ground. 6But moisture would well up from the earth to water the whole surface of the ground. 7ADONAI Elohim fashioned a humanHebrew אדם, adam from the soil of the groundHebrew: אדםה adamah,[7a] and breathed the breath[7b] of life into his nostrils; and the human[7c] became a living being.[7d]
[Mesopotamia [MAP] 3976 BCE]
2. Garden of Eden (2:8-17)
8ADONAI Elohim planted Gan Eden[8a] in the east [or “in antiquity”],[8b] where He placed the human He had formed.[8c] 9Out of the ground ADONAI Elohim made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the Tree of Life[9a] and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.[9b] 10A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it branched into four headwaters.[10] 11The name of the first is Pishonincrease: it winds through the whole land of Havilah,[11] where there is gold, 12The gold of that land is pure, and bdellium[12] and onyx stone are also there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon“bursting forth”. It winds through the whole land of Kush. 14The name of the third river is Khiddeqel“rapid” - the Tigris?. It runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Perath“fruitfulness” - the Euphrates?.
15Then ADONAI Elohim took the human, and placed him in Gan Edenthe garden of Eden[15] to cultivate and keep it. 16ADONAI Elohim commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden; 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;[17a] for in the day that you eat of it, you will be doomed to die.”[17b]
3. Creation of Woman (2:18-22)
18ADONAI Elohim also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.[18a] I will make a suitable helper[18b] for him.” 19Out of the ground ADONAI Elohim had formed every animal of the field[19a] and every bird of the sky, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. Whatever the man called each living creature, that became its name.[19b]
Shlishi (Third) 20The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21So ADONAI Elohim caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, He took one of his ribs, and closed up the area with flesh. 22And from the rib that ADONAI Elohim had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to the man.
4. The Institution of Marriage (2:23-25)
23The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called WomanHebrew: אִשָּׁ֔ה (ishsha) because she was taken out of ManHebrew: אִישׁ (ish).”[23] 24For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother, and be united with his wife, and they will be one[24] flesh. 25The man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.
2. Hebrew: וַיִּשְׁבּת֙ (way·yiš·bōṯ) (“He ceased, from שָׁבּת shabbat, to cease or desist from, or put an end to, labor). The traditional translation of the Hebrew word in this verse as “rested” is, I believe, unfortunate because it suggests that the Almighty was tired from “from all His work which He had done.”
The omnipotent Almighty can never become tired. Haven’t you known, haven’t you heard that the everlasting God, ADONAI, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not grow tired or weary? His understanding cannot be fathomed, (Isaiah 40:28).
He had finished His work of creation, so He ceased from creating, just as DaVinci ceased from working on the Mona Lisa and set down his brush. His masterpiece was finished! [BACK]
3a. Hebrew: קָדַשׁ, qadash, to consecrate, sanctify, prepare, dedicate, be hallowed, be holy, be sanctified, be separate; to be set aside for a singular purpose. To commemorate the occassion of having finished creation and declaring it to be “very good,” He made the seventh day of every week a consecrated, holy day for our ceasing from all our our labor and spending the day in particular fellowship with Him. Also, please note that this is approximately 2500 years before the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, so to say that Sabbath observance is “part of the Torah” (the falsely-called “Mosaic Law”) and therefore not applicable to Gentiles is patently absurd.
The institution of the Sabbath is as old as creation, giving rise to that weekly division of time which prevailed in the earliest ages. It is a wise and beneficent law, affording that regular interval of rest which the physical nature of man and the animals employed in his service requires, and the neglect of which brings both to premature decay. Moreover, it secures an appointed season for religious worship, and if it was necessary in a state of primeval innocence, how much more so now, when mankind has a strong tendency to forget God and His claims? [Jamieson, Fausset & Brown] [BACK]
3b. Note that on days one through six “there was evening and there was morning …” yet on day seven there was no evening and morning specified. So are we now living in the “seventh day”? I find this significant because it hints at the idea that the seventh day has no firm beginning nor end. The Shabbat (seventh-day Sabbath) is given to humanity as a day to set aside the work of our hands and relax in fellowship with our Creator. The Shabbat points us to the Great Shabbat, the Millennial Kingdom of a thousand years which, instead of ending, runs into the Eternal Shabbat of the Olah Haba.[GN] [BACK]
4. In most English Bibles, when rendered in all capital letters (LORD or GOD) or small capital letters (LORD or GOD) is the translation of God’s Proper Name (יְהוָ֥ה, yud-heh-vav-heh, YHVH), inasmuch as it can be said the Almighty has a Proper Name. I almost always use the word ADONAI or ADONAI (LORD) to indicate the Sacred Name, יְהוָ֥ה (YHVH), and HaShem when otherwise referring to Him. See also יְהוָֹה Elohim. [BACK]
5a. “Shrub שִׂ֣יחַ (śî·aḥ) of the field” refers specifically to cultivated plants as distinguished from wild vegitation. “Plant עֵ֥שֶׂבּ (‘ê·śeḇ) of the field” refers to cultivated herbs and grasses. HaShem created wild vegitation on day three, but “there was no man to cultivate the ground.” [BACK]
5b. It did not rain on earth until approximately 1,656 years after creation, when the first rain fell to begin the Great Flood. (Gen. 7:10-12) [BACK]
7a. Note that adam, אדם, man, mankind, humanity, was created from adamah, אדםה, earth. Hebrew names are nearly always significant. [BACK]
7b. Breath: Hebrew נִשְׁמַ֣ת (niš·maṯ), breath or spirit; not רוּחַ (ruach), wind, or spirit. As God did not breathe this “breath” into the animals that He created, this “spark” of life from God is apparently that very thing which separates humanity from the animal kingdom, and is perhaps that which returns to Him when we leave the mortal realm. [BACK]
7c. “Adam” and “man” (or “human”) are spelled with the exact same consonants in Hebrew (אָדָם), so this can be correctly translated either way. [BACK]
7d. Being, Hebrew נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh), a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion. [BACK]
  Pangea Source: https://www.meteorologiaenred.com/en/pangea.html |
8a. The Garden of Eden (Hebrew עֵדֶן גַּן, Gan Eden) has been believed to be a myth by many scholars, because on a modern map of the Tigress/ Euphrates basin there are not four rivers flowing into one. However, modern satellite imaging has discovered two dry ancient river beds (wadis) that would have joined the Euphrates as shown in this illustration. It is now believed that this fertile plain was inudated as sea levels rose and as water rushed in through the Strait of Hormuz to fill up the Persian Gulf. (More here.)
However, and much more importantly, most modern critics refuse to accept the idea of a literal global flood over thousand years after Eden, which totally changed the geography of the earth. It is impossible that all of the waters of “Noah’s” Flood were the result only of it raining for 40 days and 40 nights. It is much more likely that the Flood was the result of the global cataclysm that broke Pangea into the seven continents that now exist. So nobody has any way of determining with any degree of certainty where Gan Eden was. Because “the Fertile Crescent” is thought by most scholars to have been “the cradle of civilization,” it has simply been assumed for millennia that Eden was located somewhere in that area. [BACK]
8b. “In the east,”
“formerly,” or “in antiquity” is מִקֶּ֑דֶם (miq·qe·ḏem):
1) east, antiquity, front, that which is before, aforetime
1a) front, from the front or east, in front, mount of the East
1b) ancient time, aforetime, ancient, from of old, earliest time
1c) anciently, of old (adverb)
1d) beginning
1e) east
adv 2) eastward, to or toward the East.
(Strong's
Hebrew 6924)
[BACK]
8c. Not all the earth was Eden. God created a very specific portion of His world, identified by specific geographical boundaries (which no longer exist in our time), and it was there that He planned to be the place where He would establish His earthly throne and dwell physically with the beings that He had created in His own image, to be His partners in ruling over creation and subduing the rest of the planet to make it like Eden. Mellennia later God would establish the Tabernacle, and then the Temple, to be where God would dwell on earch and commune with His people. In the Olam Haba, this place of communion will be the New Jerusalem. See Eden and Its Free Imagers. [BACK]
9a. In New Jerusalem, the Tree of Life sits between “Main Street” and the River of the Water of Life. (Rev. 22:1-2) [BACK]
9b. Note this is not the “Tree of Knowledge” as some have interpreted, making the pursuit of knowledge itself a pursuit of evil. It is the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” It is this specific knowledge which separates humanity from the animal kingdom. [BACK]
10. four branches The geographical details positioning Eden in relation to a river that branches into four rivers do not help pinpoint Eden’s location. Two of the rivers named here are unknown (the Pishon and Gihon). The references to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers suggest a connection with Mesopotamia. [John D. Barry, Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Michael S. Heiser, Miles Custis, Elliot Ritzema, Matthew M. Whitehead, Michael R. Grigoni, and David Bomar, Faithlife Study Bible, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016)]. However, see note 8a. [BACK]
11. Havilah is “circle,” a part of Eden through which flowed the river Pison (Araxes); it was possibly the Grecian Colchis, in the northeast corner of Asia Minor, near the Caspian Sea. However, it is important to remember that no present geography existed before Pangea was broken into the present continents. The majority opinion is that Havilah is the ancient name for the Arabian Penninsula in present Saudi Arabia. Watch this video. [BACK]
12. An aromatic resin. [BACK]
15. Hebrew-speaking people translate Gan Eden into English as “Paradise,” not to be confused with the Christian concept of “heaven.” As Yeshua HaMashiach was dying on the cross, He turned to the repentant criminal and (speaking His native language of Hebrew) said, “…today you will be with Me in Gan Eden” (Luke 23:43). [BACK]
17a. It was not the Tree of Knowledge, it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve’s sin was not the desire for knowledge. Their sin was disobedience. [BACK]
17b. Literally, “dying, you will die.” Clearly Adam and Eve did not die immediately upon eating the forbidden fruit. They were, however, placed under a death sentence. So I have paraphrased this as “doomed to die.” [BACK]
18a. At every step of creation, HaShem declared that it was good. Yet for the man to be alone was not good. [BACK]
18b. The idea behind “suitable helper” is a “sustainer.” We are not complete unless we are in a meaningful relationship with others of our own kind. [BACK]
19a. HaShem created all of the land animals and the birds out of the same dust from which the man was created. The difference was that HaShem breathed this “breath” (niš·maṯ) into the animals. [BACK]
19b. HaShem has the man participating in the very act of creation and bestows a wonderous authority upon him. Whatever name the man gives to an animal, HaShem agrees that He will call it by that name. [BACK]
23. Adam has the responsibility of naming his sustainer, just as he named the animals. In naming her, he establishes his own identity as ish (אִישׁ). He was not able to clearly identify himself until he had identified her. And just as adam (אדם) was created from adamah (אדםה) so ishsha (אִשָּׁ֔ה) was created out of ish (אִישׁ). Words matter! [BACK]
24. One: Hebrew אֶחָד (echad), a compound unity as echad bunch of grapes or echad school of fish. It is the word used to decolare the “oneness” of God in the Sh'ma and the oneness of Messianic Believers in John 17:11,22. [MORE HERE] [BACK]
Other commentaries on Genesis 2
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
Pulpit Commentary
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
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ANXIOUSLY WATCHING FOR MASHIACH’S RETURN,
SPEEDILY AND IN OUR DAY. MARANA, TA!
