Perhaps the Tree of knowledge is tied to death because the only way to truly know the depths of evil or “bad” is to see death. To understand it. To succumb to it. To see that disobedience undoes the work God did in Genesis 1.
Tag: Genesis 3
Three
I don’t spend much time thinking about biblical numerology, but it’s striking to me that in the 3rd verse of the 3rd chapter of Genesis, the woman makes 3 imperfect statements:
1. She does not identify the tree
2. She adds “not touch it”
3. She does not use God’s finality to describe death
The Tree of Good and Evil Knowledge.
The “good” & “evil” of the Tree of Knowledge are Hebrew adjectives, not Hebrew nouns.
It’s not “knowledge of good & evil,” but rather “good & evil knowledge.”
“Good & evil” knowledge describes a kind of knowledge.
Most Crafty
There is a ranking of cleverness in the creatures God created.
The serpent (a creeping thing) is more crafty than the wild beasts, but not described as more clever than the cattle/livestock.
God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so.
God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good.
Genesis 1:23-24 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)
Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that God יהוה had made. It said to the woman, “Did God really say: You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?”
Genesis 1:23-24 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)
Some translations render this as “more shrewd than all…”
Darkness
Darkness is mentioned at the start of Genesis 1, and the rest of the chapter continues in a description of days, and of things we see in the Light.
Darkness isn’t mentioned in Genesis 2. Or Genesis 3. In fact, we don’t get this word again until Genesis 15, when God makes covenant with Abram. It starts in darkness, and then God shows up. That is the story of our relationship with God.
Trust the Story
In Christianity, we’re taught “first you must know that you’re a sinner,” but this is not the pattern of Genesis.
Genesis doesn’t tell you about sin and death until after it establishes that you are beloved.
God is asking you to trust Him in the story.
FIRST, He loves us
Genesis 3 is heavy. It’s about sin. It’s about death. So much of theology surrounds the events of this chapter.
But this is why reading Genesis 1 and 2 is so critical. It establishes first that we are loved. If you first trust that you are loved dearly by a good God, the rest of the story begins to make more sense.
The Name of the Creeping Things
In Genesis 3, we’re going to be introduced to the Serpent. He’s a “creeping thing,” unlike “wild animals” or “livestock.” All three are listed specifically in the creation account of Genesis 1.But when Adam names in the animals in Genesis 2, notice what’s missing. It’s the “creeping things” of Gen 1:24-25.
Why?
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
Genesis 2:19-20 (NASB)
I’m not sure, but perhaps it’s tied to this:
Now concerning everything which I have said to you, be careful; and do not mention the name of other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth.
Exodus 23:13 (NASB)
The creeping things point to the serpent of Genesis 3. The serpent points to all the false gods.
God’s Name and a Burning Bush
Jumping forward to Exodus, we learn that Moses doesn’t know God’s name until Exodus 3:15 when he meets God at the burning bush.
But WE are given God’s name in Genesis 2:4, right before the Tree of Life is described:
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 2:4 (NKJV)
God’s name and the Burning Bush seem linked, both in Exodus and in Genesis.
I wonder if Moses was given a vision of the Tree of Life, barely obscured by flaming swords (Gen 3:24).
So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:24 (NKJV)
Perhaps the imagery is that the Tree of Life can only be accessed by Fire. This could point to following the Pillar of Fire, or being refined by Fire, or perhaps being “burned in the Fire” as a Living Sacrifice.
It could be many things, but it seems to be linked… to dying.