And the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden for serving and for keeping. Genesis 2:15
Adam and Eve. There’s lots of hubbub about Adam and Eve these days (partly in thanks to Christianity Today’s new article). Can humankind all come from the same gene pool? What about all those other people in the land of Nod that Cain was afraid of…Where did they come from? Did God really want Adam and Eve’s Big Life Plan to be gardeners? Does that mean I should be a gardener? These are serious questions.
So you may look at this Genesis 2:15 verse I put up and squinch your nose and say something like, wait a second, my NIV says, …Put him in the garden to work it and take care of it. “It,” of course being the garden. Interesting titbit I found. The Hebrew of “to work and care” literally translates to say, “to serve and to keep”. The “it” was added by translators but was not part of the original text. So what is Adam supposed to be “serving and keeping?” It seems rather ambiguous.
So I looked deeper. In Hebrew, the idiomatic interpretation of the phrase “to serve and keep” is “to worship and obey.” It seems, then, that God put Adam in the garden for the express purpose of worshipping and obeying. This strain sounds vaguely familiar. I also found that the literal translation of “to put” means “to set aside” or “to dedicate.” Adam was set aside and dedicated for the express purpose of worshipping and obeying God. What does this sound like? It sounds like what Israel was supposed to be. A people set aside in the Promised Land, wholly dedicated to worshipping God and obeying the Mosaic Law. It makes sense that Adam was basically the first priest, a proto-Israel- God set him aside in a beautiful land to serve and obey Him. Adam and Eve did not obey the law that God set up for them and so Adam and Eve were exiled out of the Garden. The Israelites did not obey the Law and so were exiled to Babylon. Noteworthy correlations, ay?
So what does this mean? Does it even matter if God’s original intent for Adam and Eve was to “work and tend [the garden}” rather than “to worship and obey.” I think so. I think it emphasizes that people were chiefly made to have intimacy and relationship with God. Something along the lines of the Westminster Catechism…The chief end of man is glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
