Eden(garden)
“Delight, pleasure”
Summary
The region where God planted the garden in which Adam and Eve were placed, described as a place of perfect provision and communion with God until their expulsion after the fall.
☩The Name and Garden
Eden means 'delight' in Hebrew, and the Septuagint translated 'garden' with the Persian word 'paradise,' denoting an extensive tract of pleasure land. Eden was a region, and in its eastern portion God planted the garden where He placed man. Scripture calls it 'the garden of God' and 'the garden of the Lord,' where all animals lived in friendship and man enjoyed uninterrupted communion with God. The garden was luxuriously furnished with every tree pleasant to sight and good for food, including the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man was placed there to dress and keep it, naming the animals and receiving the woman as his companion.
☩The Rivers of Eden
A river issued from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided into four head-streams. Two are identified with certainty: the Hiddekel is the Tigris, and the Perath is the Euphrates. The identity of the Pishon and Gihon has generated countless theories. Some place Eden near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates in southern Babylonia; others locate it in the Armenian highlands where these rivers originate, identifying the Pishon and Gihon with the Araxes and Oxus rivers. The Pishon surrounded the land of Havilah, noted for gold, bdellium, and onyx stone; the Gihon surrounded the land of Cush. Despite explicit description, Eden's precise location remains unknown, and all efforts to identify it have failed.
☩The Fall and Expulsion
Upon man was placed one prohibition: not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, lest he die. Through the serpent's guile, the woman was deceived and ate, giving also to her husband. Deprived of innocence, they hid from God, who pronounced judgment upon the serpent while promising eventual victory for the woman's seed. Man was driven from the garden lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever in his fallen state. At the garden's eastern entrance, God placed cherubim and a flaming sword turning every way to guard the path to the tree of life. The earthly paradise belonged to the time of innocence; as that has gone, the garden of Eden long ago ceased to exist.
☩Prophetic and Typological Use
Eden became Scripture's standard of comparison for fertility and blessing. Desolate lands restored are said to become 'like the garden of Eden.' Ezekiel uses 'the trees of Eden' to symbolize the nations placed by God in the earth, with the king of Tyre described as having been 'in Eden, the garden of God.' Traditions of an original paradise of innocence appear in nearly all ancient cultures—Greek, Persian, Hindu, Chinese, and Teutonic—testifying to a universal memory of mankind's primal state. The paradise regained through Christ can never be lost by those who overcome, for to them is promised access to the tree of life in the paradise of God.
Related Verses12 mentions
See Also
References
- 1.John McClintock and James Strong, "Eden," in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. III (Harper & Brothers, 1867–1887).
- 2.Philip Schaff and Johann Herzog (ed.), "EDEN," in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. IV (Funk and Wagnalls, 1908–1914).
- 3.George Morrish, "Eden," in Morrish's Concise Bible Dictionary (George Morrish, 1898).
- 4.Andrew Robert Fausset, "Eden," in The Englishman's Critical and Expository Bible Cyclopædia (Hodder & Stoughton, 1878).