Genesis ii. 17 | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 31, 1863

THERE are in the Hebrew, as in all other languages peculiarities, upon some of which theories have been built which gradually grew up to doctrines. In fact, however, these peculiar expressions were not intended to teach anything else but that which the whole sentence or passage intended to convey to the mind of the reader. One of these peculiar expressions is the word “b’yom,” in the day; and another, in the same verse, is “moth-tamath,” thou shalt die.

Some theorists say that, as the Lord God said to Adam, In the day thou eatest thereof—that is, of the tree of knowledge—thou must die; and as we see that Adam did not die on that very day when he ate of the tree of knowledge, but still lived on many hundreds of years, and saw multitudes of his descendants; consequently, the threatened death must not mean the death of the body, but a spiritual death. We cannot understand what a “spiritual death” means; if the spirit of man dies, surely the whole man is dead, and returns to the ground from which he was framed. A man may be dead in trespasses and sin; that is, sin and transgression hold the sinner in their clutches, just so the grave holds the dead whom it has received; and, as the dead body can and shall only be released from the tomb by the voice of the world’s Redeemer, so the sinner cannot free himself from the iron grasp of sin and trespasses, except through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. What can “spiritual death” mean? We are informed by the wisest of men that, when man dieth, the spirit returns unto God who gave it, and the body returns unto the dust. Or does it mean that Adam was morally dead as soon as he transgressed the command of God? This, again is impossible. In the first place, God himself explained what he meant by the phrase: “Thou shalt die,” by saying (v. 19.) “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread, until thou returnest unto the ground, for from it thou wast taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

Secondly, the conduct of Adam after the fall does not prove that he was morally dead, because he felt ashamed; and, as long as any of Adam’s family can blush, that individual is not yet morally dead. The true meaning of the sentence: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die,” is this: As soon as thou eatest of the fruit of that tree which I forbid thee, thou art guilty of death. Now, Adam, thou knowest the command, and the penalty for its transgression. Be on thy guard! Adam transgressed the command of God; his life was forfeited; but the Judge delayed the execution of the sentence more than nine hundred years.

A similar passage we find in 1 Kings ii, 27, when Solomon says to Shimei: “And it shall be, in the day that thou goest out—from Jerusalem—and crossest the streamlet Kedron, know that thou shalt die.” We know however, that Shimei left Jerusalem, and went to Achish, the king of Gath, from whom he recovered his fugitive slaves, and returned. Now this journey to and from Gath must have taken several days, so that Shimei did not actually die on that day, when he left Jerusalem, and crossed the Kedron; but as soon as he did that, he was under the sentence of death. In both cases Hebrew translators say: “As soon as thou eatest,” “As soon as thou goest out.”

The other peculiarity, viz., “Moth-tamath,” is so frequently employed that the cases might be enumerated by hundreds. Some modern translators say, “dying thou shalt die,” which, in our opinion, has no sense at all. What will these translators do with so many other subjects expressed in the same way? In Gen. ii, 16, they must translate, “eating thou shalt eat,” and in Exod. xxi, and xxii, where the words, “Moth-Yumath,” He shall be put to death, occur many times, how will they translate it—“killing he shall be killed?”

In this case, the translation of our common version is much better than the modern. It says: Thou shalt surely die; but they might have spared the word surely, and the expression would have remained strong enough because it was the Creator of the universe who spoke it.—Israelite Indeed.

Genesis ii. 17.