Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help-meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. NOW the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made; and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise; she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband, with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked: and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, amongst the trees* of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden; and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. * So our version reads it, but the original Hebrew has it, which the Septuagint and other translations בתוך צץ הגן seem to render rightly Εν μεσω το ξυλο το παραδεισο.-Gen. iii. 8. "In the midst of the tree of Paradise." And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden, Cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." - * Gen. iii. 24. "And the Lord God ɔw caused to dwell, or placed in a tabernacle, at the east of the garden of Eden, the Cherubim." The word w, here expresses that there was a tabernacle (resembling doubtless the Mosaic) in which the Cherubim, and emblematic fire or glory, were placed from the fall; (see Wisdom ix. 8. Solomon addressing God in prayer, says: "Thou hast commanded me to build a temple upon thy holy mount, and an altar in the city wherein Thou dwellest, a resemblance of the holy tabernacle which Thou hast prepared from the beginning." Miμnμa ΣΚΗΝΗΣ ΑΓΙΑΣ ην προητοίμασας ΑΠ' ΑΡΧΗΣ) and which perhaps continued in the believing line of Seth. Whether this same sacred tabernacle was preserved by Noah in the ark, and remained in the family of Eber, till the descent of the children of Israel into Egypt, and was brought up by them from hence, is hard to determine. Certain it is from Exodus xxxiii. 7. 9. (compare Exodus xvi. 33, 34. 1 Samuel iv. 8.) that the Israelites had a tabernacle or tent (see 2 Samuel vii. 6.) sacred to Jehovah, before that erected by Moses; and it appears from Amos v. 26, and Acts vii. 42, that soon after the Exodus, the idolaters and apostates had such likewise for their idols.-Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. vox sɔw. Now in this account of the inspired historian, there appear four grand and leading features, accompanied with some particulars of comparatively minor import. We have displayed before us the garden of Eden, with its trees in the centre, too important to be ever forgotten; and the whole watered by a river, of which many vestiges will be discovered in the memorials of mythology: all this is only, however, the scene of transactions the most awfully. interesting of any which have affected the race of man. The shameful defection from their covenant of obedience to God, is then laid before us in the narrative of the fall of our first parents, from their original righteousness, whereby they and all their posterity were involved in the guilt of sin; while death and sorrow entered the world, together with the necessity of manual labour for the future subsistence of the sons of Adam. But scarcely is this dark shade of horror thrown over the picture, when the gloom is gilded by the delivery. of that great promise of a future Saviour, "who should bruise the serpent's head;" connected with which, is all the following institution of the mysterious Cherubim, and the sacrifices typical of an atonement to be therefan after made by the blood of the Redeemer C |