And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
A river flowed out from Eden to water the garden God had planted for the newly formed man, then divided outward into four separate branches. That home was a glorious, well-watered and fruitful garden of perfect purity and beauty, pronounced good at creation and in full harmony with the character of God. Though abundantly supplied with everything needed, Adam and Eve were placed there to dress and keep it, with pleasant useful labor as their safeguard. By disobedience in eating the one forbidden fruit they lost Eden and opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. What was lost will be regained through Christ, and the faithful will be brought back to that restored Eden home to cultivate it again under God.
Eden's Watered Perfection
God planted a garden eastward in Eden and put the formed man there, causing every pleasant tree and every tree good for food to grow including the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, with a river going out of Eden to water the garden and from thence parted into four heads, so that four rivers ran by the Garden of Eden. That Eden home was a glorious, well-watered, beautiful and fruitful garden, with blooming gardens, bubbling fountains, running streams and beautiful lakes, with fruits and flowers and beautiful lofty trees flourishing, including giant forests that scarcely decayed.
The whole land was enriched with gold and silver and precious stones and rich minerals, given by God to enrich the earth for the good of men and to keep the Giver in remembrance. It was a garden planned in counsel with the Father before the world was. It was part of the finished creation that God pronounced good, whose atmosphere was undefiled and whose fountains and streams that watered the garden were holy, clothed with spotless purity and unexcelled loveliness, where from the beams of the sun that blessed the earth to the waters all was in harmony with the character of the Father and the Son, perfect and complete and needing no undoing.
As the Garden of God it was a faultless place that cannot be expected or found on this sin-desecrated earth, where something will always mar even the most desirable place, yet even after sin marred Eden the curse rested lightly so that the world before the Flood still resembled Eden in beauty and abundance. After men treated those gifts as their own and forgot the Giver and used them to indulge sin and disobedience, God sent the Flood after 120 years of warning, breaking up the fountains of the deep and sending torrents of rain, uprooting idolized trees and sweeping away groves and gardens and palaces and places of idolatry, burying the loveliest places under rubbish and earth and upthrown rocks, and turning the fruitful, lovely home into a broken, uneven, frightful solitude of deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks. The verse stands in the creation account in which, after this planting and watering, God rested on the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it as the sign designating His people.
Innocence, Labor, and Fall
Genesis 2:10 belongs to the account of humanity's beginnings, when Adam, created in God's own image with finite mind and will and moral faculties after the similitude of God's mind and will, and Eve began in purity, holiness and holy innocence. Nothing was interposed between them and their Maker, for they were connected with God and beloved by God, enjoying communion with God and sinless angels. They were abundantly supplied with everything required, and in every way were more favorably situated than Christ. The garden God prepared for them in Eden was beautiful and supplied what was useful, but its abundance did not remove the need for work, for Adam and Eve were given useful employment in Paradise.
They were placed there to dress it and keep it, with the pleasant employment of caring for the garden, caring for fruit trees, and cultivating and training vegetation. They were the first to labor together with God and not apart from God and opposed to His law. Useful labor was their safeguard, and that arrangement was to be perpetuated through all generations to the close of earth's history.
They were given permission to eat from every tree but one, the smallest test the Lord could devise to prove obedience and loyalty by prohibiting the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Satan used it to insinuate doubts of God's wisdom and to accuse their heavenly Father and Sovereign of selfishness. Eve fell under temptation and Adam accepted the forbidden fruit from his wife's hand because he listened to the enemy, though furnished with a holy, sinless, pure, undefiled nature. By that sin they lost Eden, the floodgates of woe were opened upon the world, posterity became depraved, and by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.
The passage describes man's holy and happy estate in Paradise. Adam lived for nearly a thousand years among men as a witness to the results of sin and, having been commanded to instruct his posterity in the way of the Lord, carefully treasured what God had revealed to him and repeated it to succeeding generations. To his children and children's children, to the ninth generation, he described that holy and happy estate, repeated the history of the fall, told of the sufferings by which God had taught him strict adherence to His law, and explained the merciful provisions for salvation. Yet few gave heed to his words, and often he was met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity.
Loss, Restoration, and Life
The river that watered the garden marks humanity's true home, the Paradise of God amply watered and provided for, from which Adam and Eve were shut out by transgression of the law. What was lost through that disobedience can be regained, for the price has been paid to ransom humanity from the hands of Satan. Those who place themselves in right relation to God, search the Scriptures, refuse to transgress as Adam and Eve did, and obey all requirements will be brought back to that Eden home. Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, by that same obedience His followers overcome, and by bending their own footsteps heavenward they point others toward that home.
Garden life will be lived again on the restored earth. The Eden home will be restored in grand beauty and the earth shall be filled with the praise of the Lord. It belongs to the faithful to have that beautiful garden to cultivate under the supervision of God through sincere service at Christ's call. Before entering Paradise there is faithful cultivation of the vineyard of the soul without boasting, receiving instruction and grace and extending His vineyard, using every spiritual advantage to become a skillful worker in His vineyard with faith and love and patience.
The things of nature described in the watering of Eden still speak of that home, though marred by sin, as an expression of God's love. Christ used them to teach, and they remind of the coming restoration. The land of Canaan with God's blessing upon it in Israel's possession would become a second Eden like that well-watered, beautiful, fruitful garden. It would be clear, distinct and beautiful, with cedar-covered mountains, olive hills and vines, green plains bright with flowers and rich in fruitfulness, palm trees, wheat and barley, valleys with brooks and birds, cities and gardens, lakes, flocks on the hillsides, and honey even amid the rocks.
With the presence of Christ, who turns the common waters of life into the wine of heaven, a home becomes as an Eden of bliss. Then the family becomes a beautiful symbol of the family in heaven. Full education therefore means more than studying books and requires exercise of both physical and mental powers by combining science with practical labor. Children are to be trained from infancy to do what is appropriate for their age and ability, encouraged to become independent, to amuse themselves, and to exercise their minds in devising useful plans, so they can meet the serious troubles soon to come upon the earth.
A river flowed out from Eden to water the garden God had planted for the newly formed man, then divided outward into four separate branches. That home was a glorious, well-watered and fruitful garden of perfect purity and beauty, pronounced good at creation and in full harmony with the character of God. Though abundantly supplied with everything needed, Adam and Eve were placed there to dress and keep it, with pleasant useful labor as their safeguard. By disobedience in eating the one forbidden fruit they lost Eden and opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. What was lost will be regained through Christ, and the faithful will be brought back to that restored Eden home to cultivate it again under God.
Eden's Watered Perfection
God planted a garden eastward in Eden and put the formed man there, causing every pleasant tree and every tree good for food to grow including the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, with a river going out of Eden to water the garden and from thence parted into four heads, so that four rivers ran by the Garden of Eden. That Eden home was a glorious, well-watered, beautiful and fruitful garden, with blooming gardens, bubbling fountains, running streams and beautiful lakes, with fruits and flowers and beautiful lofty trees flourishing, including giant forests that scarcely decayed.
The whole land was enriched with gold and silver and precious stones and rich minerals, given by God to enrich the earth for the good of men and to keep the Giver in remembrance. It was a garden planned in counsel with the Father before the world was. It was part of the finished creation that God pronounced good, whose atmosphere was undefiled and whose fountains and streams that watered the garden were holy, clothed with spotless purity and unexcelled loveliness, where from the beams of the sun that blessed the earth to the waters all was in harmony with the character of the Father and the Son, perfect and complete and needing no undoing.
As the Garden of God it was a faultless place that cannot be expected or found on this sin-desecrated earth, where something will always mar even the most desirable place, yet even after sin marred Eden the curse rested lightly so that the world before the Flood still resembled Eden in beauty and abundance. After men treated those gifts as their own and forgot the Giver and used them to indulge sin and disobedience, God sent the Flood after 120 years of warning, breaking up the fountains of the deep and sending torrents of rain, uprooting idolized trees and sweeping away groves and gardens and palaces and places of idolatry, burying the loveliest places under rubbish and earth and upthrown rocks, and turning the fruitful, lovely home into a broken, uneven, frightful solitude of deep gorges and seamed and cleft rocks. The verse stands in the creation account in which, after this planting and watering, God rested on the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it as the sign designating His people.
Innocence, Labor, and Fall
Genesis 2:10 belongs to the account of humanity's beginnings, when Adam, created in God's own image with finite mind and will and moral faculties after the similitude of God's mind and will, and Eve began in purity, holiness and holy innocence. Nothing was interposed between them and their Maker, for they were connected with God and beloved by God, enjoying communion with God and sinless angels. They were abundantly supplied with everything required, and in every way were more favorably situated than Christ. The garden God prepared for them in Eden was beautiful and supplied what was useful, but its abundance did not remove the need for work, for Adam and Eve were given useful employment in Paradise.
They were placed there to dress it and keep it, with the pleasant employment of caring for the garden, caring for fruit trees, and cultivating and training vegetation. They were the first to labor together with God and not apart from God and opposed to His law. Useful labor was their safeguard, and that arrangement was to be perpetuated through all generations to the close of earth's history.
They were given permission to eat from every tree but one, the smallest test the Lord could devise to prove obedience and loyalty by prohibiting the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Satan used it to insinuate doubts of God's wisdom and to accuse their heavenly Father and Sovereign of selfishness. Eve fell under temptation and Adam accepted the forbidden fruit from his wife's hand because he listened to the enemy, though furnished with a holy, sinless, pure, undefiled nature. By that sin they lost Eden, the floodgates of woe were opened upon the world, posterity became depraved, and by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.
The passage describes man's holy and happy estate in Paradise. Adam lived for nearly a thousand years among men as a witness to the results of sin and, having been commanded to instruct his posterity in the way of the Lord, carefully treasured what God had revealed to him and repeated it to succeeding generations. To his children and children's children, to the ninth generation, he described that holy and happy estate, repeated the history of the fall, told of the sufferings by which God had taught him strict adherence to His law, and explained the merciful provisions for salvation. Yet few gave heed to his words, and often he was met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity.
Loss, Restoration, and Life
The river that watered the garden marks humanity's true home, the Paradise of God amply watered and provided for, from which Adam and Eve were shut out by transgression of the law. What was lost through that disobedience can be regained, for the price has been paid to ransom humanity from the hands of Satan. Those who place themselves in right relation to God, search the Scriptures, refuse to transgress as Adam and Eve did, and obey all requirements will be brought back to that Eden home. Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, by that same obedience His followers overcome, and by bending their own footsteps heavenward they point others toward that home.
Garden life will be lived again on the restored earth. The Eden home will be restored in grand beauty and the earth shall be filled with the praise of the Lord. It belongs to the faithful to have that beautiful garden to cultivate under the supervision of God through sincere service at Christ's call. Before entering Paradise there is faithful cultivation of the vineyard of the soul without boasting, receiving instruction and grace and extending His vineyard, using every spiritual advantage to become a skillful worker in His vineyard with faith and love and patience.
The things of nature described in the watering of Eden still speak of that home, though marred by sin, as an expression of God's love. Christ used them to teach, and they remind of the coming restoration. The land of Canaan with God's blessing upon it in Israel's possession would become a second Eden like that well-watered, beautiful, fruitful garden. It would be clear, distinct and beautiful, with cedar-covered mountains, olive hills and vines, green plains bright with flowers and rich in fruitfulness, palm trees, wheat and barley, valleys with brooks and birds, cities and gardens, lakes, flocks on the hillsides, and honey even amid the rocks.
With the presence of Christ, who turns the common waters of life into the wine of heaven, a home becomes as an Eden of bliss. Then the family becomes a beautiful symbol of the family in heaven. Full education therefore means more than studying books and requires exercise of both physical and mental powers by combining science with practical labor. Children are to be trained from infancy to do what is appropriate for their age and ability, encouraged to become independent, to amuse themselves, and to exercise their minds in devising useful plans, so they can meet the serious troubles soon to come upon the earth.