Genesis 2

Genesis 2:1-3:
Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Finished=completed. God was done with what he had planned to do in creating the heavens and the earth. However, man was not listed in this comment about being finished.

The pattern of Sabbath rest comes from the creation rest of God. God's work has a finished character: it has no open ends, unrealized potentialities and possibilities outside of God's decree, nor any independence from His purpose. As a result, man can have rest and peace in that certain world which is in its every atom circumcised and determined by the word of God. To believe in God is to believe in the reality of rest and peace; there is no Sabbath apart from God, and to break the Sabbath is to question or challenge God's reality and government.

God crowns his six days of work with a day of rest. While creating humanity was the climax of God's creative work, resting on the seventh day was the climax of God's creative week. Why does God rest? The majesty of God’s creation by word alone in chapter 1 makes it clear that God is not tired. He doesn’t need to rest. But he chooses to limit his creation in time as well as in space. The universe is not infinite. It has a beginning, attested by Genesis, which science has learned how to observe in light of the big bang. Whether it has an end in time is not unambiguously clear, in either the Bible or science, but God gives time a limit within the world as we know it. As long as time is running, God blesses six days for work and one for rest. This is a limit that God himself observes, and it later becomes his command to people, as well (Exodus 20:8-11).
--[SOURCE: Theology of Work: God limits his work (Genesis 2:1-3)]

Modern science has revealed so much about the wonders and the size of the physical universe that human beings may seem almost to be nothing. The Bible takes a different view. Human beings are its main concern, for they alone are made in God’s image. The story of creation is but an introduction to the story of God’s dealings with the human race. The Bible demonstrates this order of importance from the outset by fitting the story of creation into a mere week, into the opening page of a 1,000-page Bible. (Study Light)

After six days, God ceased from all works of creation. In miracles, he has overruled nature, but never changed its settled course, or added to it. God did not rest as one weary, but as one well pleased. Notice the beginning of the kingdom of grace, in the sanctification, or keeping holy, of the sabbath day. The solemn observing of one day in seven as a day of holy rest and holy work, to God's honour, is the duty of all to whom God has made known his holy sabbaths. At this time none of the human race were in being but our first parents. For them the sabbath was appointed; and clearly for all succeeding generations also. The Christian sabbath, which we observe, is a seventh day, and in it we celebrate the rest of God the Son, and the finishing the work of our redemption. --Matthew Henry's Commentary

Well, it was some months ago when we were in the gospel of Mark early in the summer that we covered the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3 in which Jesus violated the Sabbath by the standards of the Jews. And when they confronted Him, He said two things, He said, "Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man." Which was to say that the Sabbath was not to be a burden which men had to conform to but the Sabbath was to be a delight which men could enjoy. The Jews had turned it in to an almost unbearable burden.

The second thing He said which was even more shocking was, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath," and thus He declared His sovereignty over the Sabbath.

How are we to understand the place that the Sabbath plays, if any, in the life of the people of God? Turn in your Bible for a moment to Exodus chapter 20. This is the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. And near the middle of the Ten Commandments is the fourth commandment. We begin to read about it in verse 8. "Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servants, or your cattle or your sojourner or stranger who stays with you, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

There is no question about the other nine commandments being permanent and binding. We are to have no other gods. We are never to make an idol. We are to worship only the true and living God. We are never to take the name of the Lord in vain. We are not to dishonor our father or mother, but rather give them honor. We are not to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet. Those are all moral mandates, moral commands, with the exception of verses 8 through 11, the fourth command regarding the Sabbath. And the question that is often posed is a simple one. If all the other commands are permanent, is not this one permanent as well? --John MacArthur

Genesis 2:4:
This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens

The word "history" is from the Hebrew toledoth, literally generations . The word "generations" usually refers to the time between a persons birth and parenthood. This could possibly make the 24 hour-days of creation as unviable by some translators.

Genesis 2:7:
"The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul"

God created man in a particular way. This verse shows the tripartite being of man. The dust from the ground was formed into his physical body so that he could possess world-consciousness to contact the material universe. The breath of life breathed into his nostrils became his human spirit so that he could possess God-consciousness and contact the divine and mystical realm of God who is spirit. The Hebrew word for breath in this verse is neshamah. Proverbs 20:7 says that "the spirit (neshamah) of man is the lamp of the lord." This shows that the breath of life breathed into man is the spirit of man. The issue of the breath of life being breathed into man's nostrils; that man became a living soul. Man's soul possesses self-consciousness for him to have his personality and contact the things of the psychological realm. The organ that makes man distinct from the other creatures is his human spirit.

In the creation of the "first man Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45), God as a potter "formed" (yasar, "molded") some "dust" (`aphar, "clay") into the shape of a human being, and "breathed" (naphah) "the breath of life" into the dead clay, "and the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7).

The soul first enters the Biblical stage in Genesis 2:7, when God breathed life into Adam.
“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
Unlike an organ or personality trait, the soul is not just a small piece that helps the overall machine function. Your soul is you; it’s what gives you your individuality. As George MacDonald once said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. -Christian World Review

What does the Bible have to say about the human soul? To answer this, we have to look at what the Bible says about human life. All life comes from God, but not all life is created equal. There are different “qualities” of life. Plants are alive - they grow and reproduce - but certainly we could say that animals have a superior kind of existence. And of course, there is a category of life that is superior to both of these: human life. What sets human existence apart from other life? What makes us souls? The answer is found in Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being [nephesh].” God spoke all the other living creatures into existence, but He placed His own breath - His own life - into humans. A soul is the life of God, breathed into a material body. -Daughters of Sarah

God formed man’s physical body with the dust of the ground. Then God breathed into his nostrils, and man became a living soul. This, of course, points to man’s soul, which consists of the mind, emotion, and will.
Now, where is the human spirit in this verse? We don’t see the words human spirit, but what we do see is the breath of life. In Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament, the word translated as breath is neshamah. This same Hebrew word is translated as spirit in Proverbs 20:27, which says:
“The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah.”
By this we can see that when God breathed into man, man’s human spirit came into existence. Our human spirit is the deepest part of our being. -Bibles For America

Genesis 2:8-14:
The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.
14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

Genesis 2:15:
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

This was just his initial task. His wife was to assist him in his prime calling: to be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, and exercising dominion.

Much as we might picture paradise differently, the Garden of Eden was a delight not because of a lack of work but because of the presence of the Lord as they worked. Adam and Eve worked alongside God to cultivate creation and they walked with him in the cool of the day. Their work, pre-fall, was free of frustration, futility, failure, and pain.
Imagine, for a moment, gardening alongside the Creator before the fall, before sin tainted it all. No swatting away mosquitoes to harvest the last of the tomatoes, pockmarked by the other garden pests. No toiling over tulip bulbs only to have them eaten by the squirrels. Human work was only good, as God intended.
As Gene Edward Veith Jr. writes in his book, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life, this means, “human work is an imitation of God’s work, a participation in God’s creation and His creativity. Ruling, subduing, multiplying, causing plants to grow, making things—these are what God does, and yet God gives them as tasks to human beings.” -Whitney Pipkin; Gods Discipleship

The Lord God took the man. - The same omnipotent hand that made him still held him. "And put him into the garden." The original word is "caused him to rest," or dwell in the garden as an abode of peace and recreation. "To dress it and to keep it." The plants of nature, left to their own course, may degenerate and become wild through the poverty of the soil on which they alight, or the gradual exhaustion of a once rich soil. The hand of rational man, therefore, has its appropriate sphere in preparing and enriching the soil, and in distributing the seeds and training the shoots in the way most favorable for the full development of the plant, and especially of its seed or fruits. This "dressing" was needed even in the garden. The "keeping" of it may refer to the guarding of it by enclosure from the depredations of the cattle, the wild beasts, or even the smaller animals. It includes also the faithful preservation of it as a trust committed to man by his bounteous Maker. There was now a man to till the soil. The second need of the world of plants was now supplied. Gardening was the first occupation of primeval man.
--Albert Barnes Notes on the Bible

God has clearly placed humans in a position of responsibility over the creation. (1) Genesis 2:15 says “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”(2) We recognize that all created things belong to God (3) and that we are accountable to Him as stewards of the creation. God commissions us to rule over the creation in a way that sustains, protects, and enhances his works so that all creation may fulfill the purposes God intended for it. We must manage the environment not simply for our own benefit but for God′s glory. -CHRISTIANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

By the "garden of Eden" are signified all things of the celestial man, as described; by to "till it and take care of it," is signified that it is permitted him to enjoy all these things, but not to possess them as his own, because they are the Lord’s.

After God had formed Adam, he put him in the garden. All boasting was thereby shut out. Only he that made us can make us happy; he that is the Former of our bodies, and the Father of our spirits, and none but he, can fully provide for the happiness of both. Even in paradise itself man had to work. None of us were sent into the world to be idle. He that made our souls and bodies, has given us something to work with; and he that gave us this earth for our habitation, has made us something to work upon. The sons and heirs of heaven, while in this world, have something to do about this earth, which must have its share of their time and thoughts; and if they do it with an eye to God, they as truly serve him in it, as when they are upon their knees. Observe that the husbandman's calling is an ancient and honourable calling; it was needful even in paradise. Also, there is true pleasure in the business God calls us to, and employs us in. Adam could not have been happy if he had been idle: it is still God's law, He that will not work has no right to eat, 2 Thessalonians 3:10.
--Matthew Henrys Commentary

Genesis 2:16-17:
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

By this is meant that the tree may have differed from other trees only in this respect, that the prohibition attached to it made it a moral test. It was the tree of or for the knowing of good and evil because eating or not eating meant obedience or disobedience to Gods command. There is no reason to think that there was anything in the tree itself which had the power to make them wise--that was the devils lie which the woman believed

Adam and Eve were well aware of the results of their sin and yet they did it willfully. They had been told that the wages of sin is death (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 6:23). And they also understood that they would be under God’s wrath when they sinned (hence they hid from him). And so if you asked the man and his wife, “Why?” they would have appealed to their appetite, but not to their sense of logic or reasoning. Logic and reason were completely against the sin of taking the fruit that had been forbidden.
Death and separation from God are still the consequences of sin, and yet we still do it. The wrath of God against sin hasn’t gone away. It still doesn’t make sense for our belly to be our god instead of Yahweh, and yet on a daily basis we continue to make irrational decisions that are personally destructive and which incur the wrath of God. But we still do it, don’t we?
No, sin cannot be made sense of. Sin is literally irrational.
-Adam Parker; Bring the Books

Genesis 2:18:
"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him."

It looks like God is making it up as he goes along. He makes Adam, then realizes that something is wrong. Adam is alone. He improvises to correct the problem. He makes Eve. Eve is… an afterthought. Nonsense.
Eve’s creation has been planned from before creation. Eve’s creation is unique in all creation. Eve is the only creature made from another creature. She is made from Adam.
Adam calls her what she is, Eve: “Life, the Mother of all the Living.”
An afterthought? Far from it! Eve is the genesis in Genesis. Without her there is only Adam. With her, there is humanity.
Moreover, without this woman, there is no “woman’s seed;” there is no Jesus. With her, there is Jesus, the new Adam, the New Creation. Eve, you’re not an afterthought. You’re the Mother of the Promise.
----The Bare Bulb

A frequently misinterpreted verse in the Bible is Genesis 2:18, where God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (ESV). From the immediate context, where God creates Eve as a helper for Adam, many people understand the state of being single to be “not good” and marriage as the only real solution to loneliness.
Common as this interpretation is, it cannot be squared with the full witness of Scripture. Take Matthew 19, for instance. After Jesus had just finished making an argument from Genesis about divorce, the disciples assert that it is better not to marry. If the common understanding of Genesis 2:18 were correct, Jesus would have immediately brought it up. He didn’t, but instead basically said that it can be better to remain unmarried, just not for everyone. He mentioned three categories of people who would remain celibate, only the third of which would have any explicit choice in the matter.

The only way I can reconcile Genesis 2:18 with Matthew 19 is that “being alone” and being married are not the only choices: there must be a third option. This makes a good deal of sense even in the context of the Genesis passage: after all, Adam was not merely single, he was the only human being on the face of the planet. It was through his relationship with Eve that the world was populated. In the New Testament, the Church plays a significant role as family for all believers. In my current situation and life stage, I find that fellow believers do fulfill this role for me, because I do have meaningful companionship and support from my Christian brothers and sisters.

On the other hand, it seems that particularly in our culture, many single people end up alone in a very real sense. As Americans, we have enough trouble giving our biological families priority over work and busy schedules. We thus often fail to fulfill our role as Christians in the lives of our single brothers and sisters – a failure I understand to be sinful, though I don’t always get it right. Many single people struggle deeply with loneliness. In addition, I’ve paid a lot of attention to the stories of other LGBT people. I’ve seen far more cases than I can count of people who were suffering from crushing loneliness—sometimes to the point of seriously contemplating suicide—before they found companionship and human connection through a gay relationship.

I’ve concluded that a lot of the time, these people are indeed facing the kind of “being alone” that God has called “not good.” However, in a lot of cases, marriage is not a viable option even for those who struggle with and do not feel a particular call towards celibacy. Rather than simply calling this a tragedy, I think we as Christians are called to figure out how to make sure our brothers and sisters have another real alternative to “being alone.”
--Jimmy Erickson: Spiritual Friendship: What Does Genesis 2:18 Really Teach?

God specifically created a help for Adam that was suitable for him. They were not equals (God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve) but rather complements; i.e., each possessed mutually affirming gifts, strengths and insights. Each was incomplete without the other. Each person had qualities that the other needed to fulfill his covenant duties before God.
The very essence of womanhood is relationalism. God's great design in creating a woman was to relate her to man (Gen 2:18). While this creation ordinance dictates subordination of woman to man in relationship, it in no way implies subordination of person hood (I Cor 11:3). In theological terms, woman is economically, but not ontologically, subordinate to man. She finds her life's joy and satisfaction in assisting man in his life's work--and principally her husband. Woman was given to man because it was not good for him to be alone; woman is called to assist man in his calling. She has no independent calling. Her life is lived out with main attention on her covenant head, ordinarily her husband. We do not hereby imply women have no direct contact with God, as though the husband is a medieval-style intermediary or confessor, only that woman's God-ordered calling in this life includes revolution around and investment in the life of her covenant head. She is primarily a domestic creature, while her man is primarily a dominion creature.
God tells us that it is not good for man to be alone and must make a suitable helper. Therefore, the start of the creation of women comes into play. While this statement seems small, there is a significance in the use of what we translate as helper. A deeper understanding of this word will lead us to a deeper understanding of what God was really looking for in women.

Dr. Leonard Zunin, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, said mankind’s biggest problem is loneliness. The English poet John Milton reminded us that loneliness is the first thing that God said was not good. In Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”

Genesis 2:19-20:
19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

Adam was immediately required to expand his vocabulary and begin classifying the natural world. God made Adam into an observer of the natural world, a scientist, and a lexicographer--an expander of language, a maker of dictionaries. This was God's first step in educating Adam, to make sure he knew that he was not an animal, that he was apart from the animal kingdom, with gifts that allowed him to dominate the animal kingdom. However, no matter what the task was, loneliness was still a problem. Man cannot cover up his loneliness with work. It appears to have been Adams discovery that he had this "lack" in his existence.

Genesis 2:21-22:
So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

The creator formed the woman from material taken from the side of the man. Ribs had nothing to do with it. Nowhere else is this word (tslea in Hebrew) translated rib. The other forty-one times it is used it is translated side, corner, chamber or flesh. As the church came from the side of Christ, the Lord God took woman from the side of man--a beautiful type and shadow. Eve was formed from Adam's substance. Both were of human substance, yet formed differently. She was the finishing touch and completion of God's creation of mankind.
---God's Word to Women

Eve was created within the lush beauty within the of Eden's garden. But Adam, if you'll remember, was created outside the garden, in the wilderness. In the record of our beginnings,. the second chapter of Genesis makes it clear: Man was born in the outback, from the untamed part of creation. Only afterward is the he brought to Eden. And ever since then boys have never been at home indoors, and men have had an insatiable longing to explore. We long to return, its when we come alive. As John Muhr said, when a man comes to the mountains, he comes home. The core of a man's heart is undomesticated and that is good. "I am no alive in an office," as the Northplace ad has it. "I am not alive in taxi cab. I am not alive on a sidewalk." Amen to that. Their conclusion? "Never stop exploring." --John Eldridge (Wild At Heart)

Eve was created in Adam at the very beginning, but was not brought into existence as a separate entity until a later point in time. Adam was put to sleep, his side opened, and from this opened side God took one of his ribs and formed Eve. Eve was taken out of Adam and then presented back to Adam for "an helpmeet." Eve was a part of the very being of Adam; and resultingly, separate from Eve, Adam was incomplete. In this respect, Eve, being presented back to Adam for "an helpmeet," completed Adam. And in the highest sense, God looked upon the existing union as "one flesh." The significance of this was that male and female are originally one. In their present separated existence each needs the other for self-completion.

Rib (Hebrew = tslea) Normally translated as side, corner, chamber or flank not rib

We wonder why would translators choose to translate a word as rib since Young's Analytical Concordance shows that the other 41 times it it used it is translated as side, corner, chambers or flank. It seems unimportant until one realizes that the blood and water came from the side of the second Adam and by His death, we live.

In God's Word to Women Katharine Bushnell says that the originator of the "rib" theory was Rabbi Joshua, who wrote, "God deliberated from what member He would create woman, and He reasoned within Himself thus: I must not create her from Adam's head, for she would be a proud person, and hold her head high. If I create her from the eye, then she will wish to pry into things; if from the ear, then she will wish to hear all things; if from the mouth she will talk much; if from the heart, she will envy people; if from the head, she will desire to make all things; if from the feet, she will be a gadabout. Therefore, I will create her from the member which is hid, that is the rib, which is not even seen when man is naked."
We can thank Charles Trombley for stating the case, as follows, in his book Who Said Women Can't Teach. "The Bible says God made her from man's side, but Jewish fables said she was made from his rib."

It's amazing how theologians take one simple verse and work it over until any semblance of the original truth is gone. But that's the story of religious confusion, each theorist telling the world what God really meant since He couldn't, wouldn't or didn't say what He meant and didn't mean what He said. Why did Rabbi Joshua substitute the word "rib" for the "side" knowing it was an incorrect translation? Apparently to strengthen the low opinion most rabbis had of women and to justify masculine insecurities built upon the false premise that woman and not man was responsible for sin and death."
---God's Word to Women

Henry Handley Norris Files

On the sole ground that "in the beginning it was not so," He dismisses the cases captiously put to Him, making this the criterion of lawful marriage under His perfect dispensation; and, still keeping steadily before Him the primeval pattern, He pronounces the vital principle of marriage to be "the making of twain one flesh," and expressly declares, that it is by "God's joining them together," that this blending of their beings takes effect, and that the contract is inviolable; and farther, that it is an exempt jurisdiction reserved by God exclusively to Himself, and not to be modified, or, in any respect, invaded by human authority [Mat. 19:3,6]. Man's law indeed may "couple" male and female together; but as our Church affirms, it is their being "joined together by God, and as God's law does allow, that, in His sight, makes their matrimony lawful [Marriage Service.]." -- Rev. Henry Handley Norris

Genesis 2:24-25:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Heidi Vegh Files

Sex was designed as a selfless act of deep intimacy with our spouse. We read in Genesis 2:24 that they shall become one flesh. God desires couples to experience this kind of pleasure with each other and no one else, not even an image.
Pornography is entirely self-focused. There is no need for a relationship and no requirement for love. However, acting out sexually without a spouse will end in deep dissatisfaction and leave them wanting more, entering addiction. This is a perfect tactic for the enemy. He comes to steal, kill and destroy John 10:10, and marriage is his number one target.
The act of pornography not only destroys marriage intimacy but can also lead to destroying families and societies as a whole.
A Focus on the Family article "How Pornography Impacts Marriage" states, "God-honoring and marriage-honoring sex is about self-giving love. Righteous sex is about self-sacrifice. It joins two people together in love and should always strengthen a relationship rather than weaken it. The opposite of God's design for sex between a husband and wife can be seen in the use of porn where satisfaction is always at the expense of your spouse — because it's all about you. God created sex to be about love, sacrifice, mutual respect, dignity, and care between a husband and wife. Great sex happens when the focus is on serving each other and not on getting our own needs met." Heidi Vegh; Crosswalk; 4 Ways Pornography Damages a Marriage

Neither Adam nor Eve had a father or mother. But before they had a child, before they could experience the passage of time leading to another generation beginning new families, the basic teaching was unfolded, the basic command in human relationships was set forth. The reason a person leaves father and mother is to enter into the new relationship of oneness, to start a new generation of family. The parent-child relationship was never meant to be permanent. It is striking that God took the trouble to make this clear in giving us evidence that this was His plan for human beings before there was any fall. This "leaving" does not mean the young couple should avoid contact with their parents. Rather, they should "let go" of their former lives as son or daughter in order to cement their partnership as husband and wife.
This verse (2:24) has three parts and mention three things which are essential to marriage: (1) a public act, "leaving" one's family with a view to establishing a new home; (2) a permanent bond, "cleaving" or being permanently bound in a new partnership as husband and wife; (3) a physical embrace, becoming "one flesh" physically through sexual union.

Eve was not given to Adam in fulfillment of a natural or merely sexual need, although this was recognized, but in fulfillment of his need as a “helpmeet,” or helper to Adam in his life work which was to exercise dominion and subdue the earth. Marriage is the normal state of man, for, “It is not good that man should be alone.” Unless men are physically incapacitated, or else called by God to the single estate, marriage is their normal state of life. Marriage is seen in scripture with tenderness, but it is very clearly described as a “yoke.” A yoke is a tie binding two creatures together in pulling burdens. Marriage is also described as “trouble in the flesh” so the "yoke" descriptive has multiple applications on this subject. Ideally, marriage is a working partnership of man and wife in the service of God, exercising dominion in their appointed positions or callings.

Adam - red, a Babylonian word, the generic name for man, having the same meaning in the Hebrew and the Assyrian languages. It was the name given to the first man, whose creation, fall, and subsequent history and that of his descendants are detailed in the first book of Moses (Gen. 1:27-ch. 5). "God created man [Heb., Adam] in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Adam was absolutely the first man whom God created. He was formed out of the dust of the earth (and hence his name), and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and gave him dominion over all the lower creatures (Gen. 1:26; 2:7). He was placed after his creation in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate it, and to enjoy its fruits under this one prohibition: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

The first recorded act of Adam was his giving names to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, which God brought to him for this end. Thereafter the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and while in an unconscious state took one of his ribs, and closed up his flesh again; and of this rib he made a woman, whom he presented to him when he awoke. Adam received her as his wife, and said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." He called her Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

Being induced by the tempter in the form of a serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, Eve persuaded Adam, and he also did eat. Thus man fell, and brought upon himself and his posterity all the sad consequences of his transgression. The narrative of the Fall comprehends in it the great promise of a Deliverer (Gen. 3:15), the "first gospel" message to man. They were expelled from Eden, and at the east of the garden God placed a flame, which turned every way, to prevent access to the tree of life (Gen. 3). How long they were in Paradise is matter of mere conjecture.

Shortly after their expulsion Eve brought forth her first-born, and called him Cain. Although we have the names of only three of Adam's sons, viz., Cain, Abel, and Seth, yet it is obvious that he had several sons and daughters (Gen. 5:4). He died aged 930 years.

Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the whole human race. Evidences of varied kinds are abundant in proving the unity of the human race. The investigations of science, altogether independent of historical evidence, lead to the conclusion that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26. Comp. Rom. 5:12-12; 1 Cor. 15:22-49).

The Bible does not give a philosophical or speculative account of the ultimate origin of evil. It describes the mode by which sin made its way into the sphere of human experience.