Every Woman's Bible Genesis sampler - Flipbook - Page 17
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ground and watered all the land. 7 Then the Lord
God formed the man from the dust of the ground.
He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils,
and the man became a living person.
8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in
the east, and there he placed the man he had made.
9 The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from
the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he
placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.
10A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering
the garden and then dividing into four branches.
11 The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around
the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. 12 The
gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic
resin and onyx stone are also found there. 13 The
second branch, called the Gihon, flowed around the
entire land of Cush. 14 The third branch, called the
Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asshur. The fourth
branch is called the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of
Eden to tend and watch over it. 16 But the Lord God
warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every
tree in the garden—17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure
to die.”
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the
man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right
for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground
all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He
brought them to the man* to see what he would call
them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He
gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the
GENESIS 3
sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no
helper just right for him.
21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a
deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took
out one of the man’s ribs* and closed up the opening.
22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib,
and he brought her to the man.
23 “At last!” the man exclaimed.
“This one is bone from my bone,
and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man.’”
24 This explains why a man leaves his father and
mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are
united into one.
25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but
they felt no shame.
The Man and Woman Sin
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild
animals the Lord God had made. One day he
asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not
eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the
garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from
the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not
allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even
touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the
woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened
as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree
3
2:19 Or Adam, and so throughout the chapter. 2:21 Or took a part of the man’s side.
2:7 God personally formed the first human (adam in Hebrew)
from the dust of the ground (adamah in Hebrew) and brought
him to life with divine breath. This description emphasizes God’s
personal attention, and it reinforces the representative role
of humans as God’s image. In ancient Mesopotamia, artisans
would craft an idol (or “image”) and wash the statue’s mouth
in a garden ritual, preparing it to be inhabited by the divine
presence. Similarly, God placed the first human in a garden and
breathed life into him so that he could carry out his role as God’s
representative (2:15), a fitting role for someone made in God’s
image (1:27).
2:18-20 For the first time, something in creation was “not
good,” namely, the lack of a partner for the human. The man
could not carry out all his work alone. He needed “a helper . . .
just right for him.” The Hebrew word ezer, translated “helper”
here, is not a term of subservience, as though the man needed
a servant. In fact, the term ezer most often describes God as
Israel’s helper (see Genesis 49:25; Exodus 18:4; Deuteronomy
33:7; Psalm 146:5). The human needed a true partner who
would be just like him.
2:21-22 While the first human came from the ground, the
second human came from the first. This origin emphasizes their
essential unity. They are “of the same kind.” The word “rib”
may be misleading. The Hebrew term (tsela) denotes the “side”
of something or a “supporting beam” (see Exodus 25:12). The
verbal form of the word (tsala) means “to limp” (Genesis 32:31).
One might even imagine that God divided the first human in
half, making each half into a whole.
2:23-25 Woman (ishah in Hebrew) was from man (ish) just
like human (adam) was from the ground (adamah). The wordplays in Hebrew underscore the connectedness of humans
to the earth and to each other. Unity in marriage is possible
because man and woman share the essential characteristics
of humanity, including the status as God’s image-bearer and
representative (1:27). Their relationship began in mutual trust
and honor.
3:1-7 Did the serpent ask the woman because she would
be more easily deceived? She was not present when God
instructed Adam. This may explain Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy
2:11-14 that women be allowed to learn so that they will not
be easily deceived. But even though the woman is the first to
appear in this scene, the man was clearly present and culpable
as well. Neither resisted the temptation to define good and evil
for themselves. Every temptation begins with casting doubt
on the goodness of God. Cultivating trust in him is the surest
defense against temptation.
