Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.“
Genesis 2:8

The garden was not Eden. The garden was IN Eden, in the eastward part of it. God didn’t move trees here, but it was this spot where He caused the garden to grow up. This spot where He had determined was THE spot to put humanity, the spot where they would be equipped and enabled to fulfill their purpose in the divine image so they would be able to fulfill their intellectual tasks of dominion (godly stewardship). Based on the language of the verse, the sages teach it was not at this time that He created the garden, but that He had previously created it (when all other vegetation was called forth) and it was at this moment that humanity entered it.

The man (plural, a male/female whole) was not created in the garden. The man was created elsewhere and then transported to Eden. This is borne out by Genesis 3:23 “Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.” Man was created in a separate place from the Garden and placed inside of it for his benefit. This was not a garden of pleasures, but a pleasurable garden where man was to fulfill His purpose to multiply, be fruitful, have dominion, and spread the garden until it filled the Earth and all living creatures were shepherded to their full potential. At that point, I suppose humanity would have received their second direction from God for the next step. However, humanity rebelled and did not finish their first task.

The sages teach that this more detailed creation account is interrupted by this segue with the garden and humanity in order to show that the garden had been planted in humanity’s honour. So that it was clear the garden was for humanity and humanity was to function in the garden. Otherwise, we may have thought the garden was for any of the living creatures or even for angels. Instead, God focuses our attention to the UNIQUE place humanity has on Earth and the UNIQUE position humanity was to inhabit. Following this focus, the account returns to the rest of the creation process.