Sorry I am running late
posting our weekly notes from the Chronological Bible study. This week
has been just a little off. Anyway, Following are the notes form Genesis
2:19-3:6.
Genesis Chapter 2
V 19-20. 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[c] 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 sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.
·
Brought
them to Adam to see what he would call them: Adam intelligently named all the animals. If he was able to
intelligently assign names to all the various animals then the argument that he
may have miss understood God's command not to eat if the tree does not make
sense.
·
So
Adam gave names: We can see that Adam
had at least some understanding that he was essentially different from all the
animals because he did not name any other animal after himself, calling
any other animal “man” or “human.”
·
But
for Adam there was not found a helper: It was obvious to Adam that the animals came in pairs and he had
no mate. Since God deliberately had Adam name the animals after seeing his need
for a partner (Genesis 2:18), God used this to prepare Adam to receive the gift
of woman.
V 21-22.
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.
·
The
rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman: God used Adam’s own body to create
Eve to forever remind him of their essential oneness. The must never
forget that they are essentially one and that they are made of the same
substance. They are more alike than they are different.
a. There is a beautiful Jewish tradition
saying God made woman, not out of man’s foot to be under him, or out of his
head to be over him, but “She was taken from under his arm that he might
protect her and from next to his heart that he might love her.” (Barnhouse)
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.’”
·
This
is now bone of my bones:
By stating bone of my bones and
flesh of my flesh Adam
recognized that Eve was like him. But then again she was also very different so
Adam gives her a name like his woman . . . taken out of man.God could have spoken Eve into begin as he did the animals or He
could have formed her from dust as He did Adam but instead he created her from
man’s flesh and blood.
V24-25. 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.
·
They
were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed: Before the fall, Adam and Eve were both naked . . . and not ashamed. The idea of “nakedness” is far more than mere
nudity. It has the sense of being totally open and exposed as a person before
God and man. To be naked
. . . and not ashamed means you have no
sin, nothing to be rightly ashamed of, nothing to hide.
V1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
·
The
serpent: The text here does
not, by itself alone, clearly identify the serpent as Satan, but the rest of the Bible makes it clear this is
Satan appearing as a serpent.
a. In Ezekiel 28:13-19 tells us that Satan was
in Eden. Many other passages associate a serpent or a snake-like creature with
Satan (such as Job 26:13 and Isaiah 51:9). Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 speak of the
dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan.
- The serpent was more cunning than any beast: Satan’s effectiveness is often found in His cunning,
crafty ways. We can’t outsmart Satan, but we can overcome him with the
power of Jesus.
a. It was the craftiness
of Satan that made him successful against Eve: as the serpent
deceived Eve by his
craftiness (2 Corinthians
11:3).
- And he said to the
woman: Apparently, before the curse
pronounced in Genesis 3:14-15, the serpent was different than what we know
today as a serpent. This creature didn’t start as a snake
as we know it, it became one.
a.. The woman wasn’t surprised at the serpent’s
speaking maybe because Adam and Eve had free conversation with angelic beings
that often appeared in the form of men. If this is true, it wasn’t so strange
to Eve that an angelic being might appear to her in the form of a beautiful
pre-curse serpent
- To the woman: Satan brought his temptation against the woman
because he perceived she was more vulnerable to attack. This is because
she did not receive the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil directly from God but through Adam (Genesis 2:15-17).
- Has God indeed
said: Satan’s first attack is
leveled against the Word of God. If he can get Eve confused about what God
said, or to doubt what God said, then his battle is partially won.
a. From the beginning, Satan has tried to undermine God’s people by
undermining God’s Word. He can undermine just as effectively by getting us to neglect God’s
Word as by getting us to doubt it.
- . “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the
garden’?” Satan took God’s positive
command (Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat [Genesis
2:16-17]) and rephrased it in a negative way: “God won’t let you eat of
every tree.”
V 2-3 And the woman said to the
serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat
it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ “
·
And
the woman said to the serpent: Eve’s first mistake was in even carrying on a discussion with
the serpent. We are called to talk to the devil, but never to have a discussion
with him. We simply and strongly tell him, “The Lord rebuke you!” (Jude
9)
·
We
may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: Eve’s knowledge of what she should not do is
partially correct, but what she doesn’t seem to know makes her all the more
vulnerable to deception.
a. Eve does not seem to know the name of
this tree; she only calls it the tree in the midst of the garden, instead of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil (Genesis 2:17).
b. Eve misquoted God’s command to Adam. Her
words, “you shall not eat it” and “lest you die”
are close enough, but she added to the command and put words in God’s mouth
when she said, “nor shall you touch it.” Of course, it was a good idea to completely
avoid the temptation; no good could come from massaging the fruit you’re not
supposed to eat. But it is a dangerous thing to teach the doctrines of man as
if they are the commandments of God (Matthew 15:9).
V 4-5. Then the serpent
said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you
eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil.”
- You will not surely die: Satan effectively laid the groundwork. He drew Eve into a discussion with him and planted the seed of doubt about God’s Word, and he exposed Eve’s incomplete understanding of God’s Word. Now he moves in for the kill, with an outright contradiction of what God said.
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