Troublesome Topic: The First Covenantal Relationship

Genesis 2:16

Translation

And YHVH

ELOHIM (read Adonai Elohim) commanded the

adam saying, “Of every tree

of the protected enclosure, eating you may eat,

Paraphrase

And THE PERSONAL AND ETERNAL GOD who is also THE CREATOR AND OWNER OF ALL THINGS, commanded the man saying,

“From every source

in the protected enclosure

you may eat freely without reservation,

Genesis 2:17

Translation

but of the tree

of the knowledge

of good

and evil

you shall not eat,

for in the day you eat from it, in dying you will die.

Paraphrase

but you should not eat from the source of wisdom that gives discernment about what will bring about pleasing results and what will bring about unpleasant results, for on the very day you eat of it you will definitely suffer separation; there will be no escaping it, no alternatives, no “ifs, ands or buts.”

The First Covenantal Relationship

The consequence of death is the primary thing that points to this initial relationship of God with man as being a covenantal relationship. An ancient covenant was a carefully defined relationship leading to life or death. This was a covenant because it had this primary characteristic of resulting in either life or death. Other elements of later covenants were not present in this one but were developed as the years went by. (I encourage you to read my study series on covenants.)

The next lesson is: Marriage Is a Covenant

Footnotes

1

A “tree” was viewed as a source of many things. It was a source of shade, of fire wood, of lumber, of food (fruit, nuts, roots, leaves, and even bark), and of a pleasant odor (such as cedar). We have learned that it is also a source of oxygen.

2: “eating you may eat”

As a form of emphasis the Hebrew phrase used here employs the same word twice in a row in slightly different forms, once as an infinitive and once as a primary verb. Literally it means, “eating you will eat,” or “eating you may eat.” Many translations have rendered it “You may freely eat,” while one commentator explained it as “you may eat to your heart’s content.”

3

Was it an apple tree? NO! We can be confident that it was not any of the fruit trees we are familiar with. According to the writer of the Jewish blog Chabad.org, the myth of the apple got started because the Latin word for “evil” sounds similar to the word that Latin borrowed from Greek meaning “apple.”

4

The word I have rendered as “knowledge,” means “knowledge” and also “wisdom.” It is often used in the proverbs for wisdom, although it is not the only word for “wise or wisdom” used in Proverbs. This word focuses on the knowledge needed to make good choices, whereas the other word for wisdom focuses on the act of choosing well between the choices available. One is the knowledge necessary to make a good choice, but you have to want to make the right choice; the other one is a demonstration of that desire by having made the right choice. The word “discernment” can be used of each of them and is thus the point where the two words overlap.

5

The word “good” is the most commonly used Hebrew word for “good.” It is usually not moral in connotation, but it can be moral goodness depending on the context. The word means “pleasant, pleasing, agreeable, favorable, advantageous, and right.” God is calling this choice of action good because it will bring pleasing and favorable results, not just “because I said so.”

6

The Hebrew word I have translated as “evil” means “disagreeable, unpleasant, unhappy, evil, and malignant.” It is more often used of moral issues than is the word for “good.” Once again the emphasis is on the consequences of the action.

7: “In dying you will die”

For emphasis the author uses two forms of the word “die” back to back, just like he did with the word “in eating you will eat” in the previous verse. The Hebrew text is beautiful in its balance and symmetry, but it is hard to render such phrases in English without using a long and cumbersome explanatory clause, which I have done in my paraphrase. It is a struggle to know how to convey the power of the Hebrew phrase without sounding ridiculous in English. In my paraphrase column I have shown what I think is the true intent of this emphatic phrase, while I admit that it is cumbersome.

Notice that this command was given to Adam before Eve was separated from him. It was his responsibility to communicate it properly to her later.