Hebrew Word Study – Pleasure – Eden   Ayin Daleth Nun

Genesis 2:15: “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

Now just pause a moment after reading our study verse and think about what you just read. The Lord took the human being He created and put him into a garden and told him to dress it and keep it.  What is wrong with this picture?  

Just what is this dressing business and keeping the garden all about?  Most commentators say that God did not just put man into the garden to sit around and do nothing, he gave him a job to do to keep him busy.  That job was to tend to the garden.  So, I am to believe that God’s grand plan for the human creature was to make him a gardener?  How quaint. So, this human being was created by God with the powers of creativity, intellect, and inventiveness to just plow a field, sow some seeds and trim the hedges? 

First, consider this, agriculture is built on death. Seeds die so the plant can grow, the plant dies to provide nourishment for the human creature so that He cannot die. Yet, until sin entered the world, there was no death.  Even the simple labor of pruning a tree involves removing dead branches.  Flowers need a gardener to attend to them so they do not get choked out by weeds and, yes, die. But if there is no death, then what is there to tend to?  Did he protect the garden from adverse weather, did he have to water the plants, lest they die? Without death, there was nothing for the old boy to really do. 

Let us start with the first word, “took.”  The Lord took the human.  Took him from where?  Was he in some primal swamp and then God carried him off to the garden?  It is interesting that the word in Hebrew for took is laqach which is the word used by a man when he has reached an agreement with the father of the woman he wants to marry.  When the agreement is made, the man will go out into the town and declare “Laqach” that is “I have taken myself a bride.” In fact, the word laqach is sometimes used, especially in extra-Biblical literature for marriage. We could translate this as: “And the Lord God took the man as His bride and put him in the garden.”  In fact, the word for garden in Hebrew is gan which is a word figuratively used for a bride and/or her bridal chamber.  Hebrew is a picturesque language and this whole thing could be a picture of a bride and groom coming together in marriage.

The ancient picture is that of a bridegroom who prepares a place or house for his bride.  When he is finished, he then comes to the house of the bride’s father where he snatches his bride away and carries her to his father’s house where they consummate their marriage.  

The word in Hebrew for “put” as God putting the human in the garden is yanach which is from the root word nuach which means to rest. It is in a Hiphal form so you could render this as “God caused the human to rest in the garden, that is to dwell in peace and calmness. It is also used for a completion and consummation.  God causes the human to consummate their marriage in the garden or bridal chamber. 

So, we could render Genesis 2:15 as: “And the Lord God took the human as his bride to His house (the earth that He created) where He consummated his marriage in their bridal chamber the gan or garden. 

Then we come to the word “dress” or labor.  The word in Hebrew is ‘avad which has a wide range of usages. It basically is a word for service and one use is worship. The word that the human was to perform in the bridal chamber or garden was to worship God.  I have a book out called “Swimming in the Presence of God” which is a book on worship.  Worship is just surrounding yourself with God, with you and God just enjoying being in each other’s presence.  You see the earth was created by God to be a house, His house.  But a house is not a home until a man takes a bride and creates a family. So too, God created a house but it was not a home until He created the human being to be His bride and create a family for Him.  We are put on this earth to make God’s house a home.  

However, sin entered this world and we were evicted from the house but God still could make a home here on earth.  He cannot dwell in the darkness of this world but He can make us, His bride, sinless through the death of His Son, and by so doing He is able to dwell in us and we are His home here on earth. 

But we are also created to not only be the home of God but to shamar, keep it, watch over it continue to keep it pure so He can dwell within us.  Sin can create a barrier between us and God in this home just as the contention in a marriage creates a barrier between a husband and wife.  They are still married, and they still dwell together in the house, but it is not truly a home until there is harmony between them. We must guard our bodies, and our physical lives so that God can dwell in harmony with us to fulfill our purpose in this life which is to provide a home for God. 

Why?  Well, there is one last word we need to look at.  This place, this bridal chamber is called Eden. Eden means pleasure.  We live in this world to provide and bring pleasure to our bridegroom.   

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