The Story through the Bible Gen 2

A story

On vacation - recap the story of long vacation - water pump died - saw the “Cars” town went to Grand canyon and camped, went to the redwood forest and camped - had a wonderful time but by the end of the trip I had to have the water pump replaced and I replaced 7 of the 8 spark plugs and coil packs. Now, the spark plugs were a burden. Plugs and coils are kind of expensive and I didn’t have to pay for any labor because I did the work myself. I was in the parking lot of O’reiley’s with a borrowed set of their tools and a lot of heat give details about just getting it done quick by myself. Later when Konnor was helping me change spark plugs Jaime and the rest of the boys took a walk across the road to Walmart so they could walk around in the AC. Then I’m fixing the truck and the autozone didn’t actually have all the right tools and I kept having to go back in and see if they had a plug socket or better extension somewhere else on the loaner cart. We did all make it home though, and I think that eighth plug/coil still never had to be replaced.

Anyone notice anything interesting about that story?

I told the story a bit out of chronological order only because I wanted to emphasize the struggle I had with the car.

Chapter 2

Genesis 2:4 ESV

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

We’re not going to get into every verse but I will point first to 2:4 because I like that ESV translated it consistently so you can recognize the phrase as it comes up. “These are the generations of...”

Genesis 6:9 ESV

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

Genesis 10:1 ESV

These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

Genesis 11:10 ESV

These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood.

Genesis 11:27 ESV

Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot.

Genesis 25:12 ESV

These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant, bore to Abraham.

Genesis 25:19 ESV

These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac,

Genesis 36:1 ESV

These are the generations of Esau (that is, Edom).

Genesis 36:9 ESV

These are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir.

Genesis 37:2 ESV

These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

Numbers 3:1 ESV

These are the generations of Aaron and Moses at the time when the Lord spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai.

Ruth 4:18 ESV

Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron,

This is re-enforcing an Adam as first perspective. The generations of all humanity start with creation then Adam and all that followed. I don’t want to go into all the other theories out there so I’ll just cut them off by pointing out that Adam was first. We have the Chiastic structure that when so short is a little easier to see because it seems weird. A the heavens and the earth B when they were created (bārāʾ) B′ when the Yahova God made (ʿāśâ) A′ the earth and the heavens

This is also now the first time the divine name of God appears in Scripture. All of Chapter one only used Elohim which is just a generic word for God or gods. This uses Yahova Elohim.

Then we get to the story of the creation of Man.

But we already talked about man and woman being made last week how are we here again?

On the sixth day God creates the animals and man, male and female, in his own image he gives them dominion to rule over everything. He called it VERY GOOD.

What happens here in chapter 2 then?

Genesis 2:5–9 ESV

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Does anyone see or has heard before that this is a problem?

Plants were the third day… This is a legitimate complaint by those who want to discredit the Bible. We have to recognize that all knowing at some level comes down to a belief or pre-supposition. They can’t prove their thing, we can’t prove our thing if we don’t agree on the same presuppositions. Their argument is that this is a contradiction. Our argument is that this is

1 It’s not speaking of the entire earth but the special land set aside for the Garden that God makes here.

2 The brush was likely the kind that came after the fall with thorns and the plants are the cultivated things of a garden that fit with the story that’s being told. There was not yet anyone cultivating plants yet so there aren’t cultivated plants. The state of being for the plants, not the existence of the plants.

Discussion? - understand some disagree and it’s okay to disagree.

So we have a tree ehtz that’s in the middle of the garden, actually we have two trees. What are they?

The Life Tree and the Knowledge of good and bad Tree

Why do I say good and bad? tov and ra. Evil tends to have a connotation in English that is not necessarily conveyed with ra in Hebrew. If an apple is rotten would we call it evil or bad? Because evil is always a moral wrong while bad might be morally wrong or it could just be a rotten apple. I’ll probably call it good and bad most of the time. I mentioned it Sunday morning but this tree represents the experiential knowledge of good and bad, or deciding for yourself between good and bad.

Then the chapter continues on to have Adam continue on naming all the animals but there is no one there that is matched for him. Eventually God puts Adam to sleep and takes from his side to form the women.

Genesis 2:23–25 ESV

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Of course I usually joke this is why husbands never get rid of their inlaws because it only says the man will leave his father and mother not the woman.

Now, they were naked and not ashamed - must have also be fabulous weather.

Then we go straight into the problem of the serpent who is more crafty. There is a play on words here - arom is naked arum is crafty - but they’re exactly the same letters - it’s only the vowel markers that say these are different words.

We talked a bit about this Sunday morning but the serpent tempts Eve with something more than what she has or is now. She goes through a pattern we see elsewhere in scripture and probably our own sin failure moments.

1) Good for sustaining herself (food)

2) Delight to the eyes

3) Desirable to make one wise

Then we have their fall and God comes asking around right, “where are you?” Is this because God is not omniscient not all knowing? No… It’s like when you’re kids are hiding because they’ve done something wrong and they know it, but they’re not good at hiding because they just got somewhere they couldn’t see you and thought that would mean you couldn’t see them. You might ask… Caleb… where are you… because you’re giving them that opportunity to come forward, to stand up and confess. This was Adam’s chance to confess he dodged it a little then when confronted with it blames the woman who blames the serpent. God punishes all three, it’s not like the blame game worked here at all.

The serpent is punished for deception and the man for disobedience. This rebellion is in contrast to the woman who does not have a charge noted against her. Never the less she is punished in the pain of childbearing yet it will be through that very thing that redemption comes to the world.

Genesis 3:20–24 ESV

The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Hivah - Eve Hiyah -alive

God made the garments of skins and clothed them. What has to happen to get skins? kill an animal. I think we see here the first sacrifice that covers sin.

Lastly why is the Cherubim placed at the Garden? to guard the way to the tree of life.