Man and Woman in the Garden

A new account begins before cultivated life appears on the earth. Into that still-unworked ground, God forms the man from dust and gives him life by his own breath.

T⁴his is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made them. ⁵Now no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, nor had any plant of the field sprouted, for the LORD God had not yet sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. ⁶But springs welled up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. ⁷Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

God plants Eden for the man and fills it with beautiful, nourishing trees, including the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The garden is then situated within a well-watered world of rivers and lands.

⁸And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ¹⁰Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it branched into four headwaters: ¹¹The name of the first river is the Pishon; it winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹²And the gold of that land is pure, and bdellium and onyx are found there. ¹³The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria.

The man is placed in Eden to work and keep it, and God gives him a generous command with one prohibition. Freedom and limit are both spoken into his life in the garden.

¹⁵Then the LORD God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. ¹⁶And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, ¹⁷but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

God names the man's aloneness as not good and declares the intention to make a fitting helper. The naming of the animals shows the man's place in creation while making his lack of a true counterpart clear.

¹⁸The LORD God also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.” ¹⁹And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

God makes the woman from the man's side and brings her to him, and the man receives her as his own kind. The chapter closes with the bond of one flesh and with the pair standing naked and unashamed before one another.

²¹So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the area with flesh. ²²And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him. ²³And the man said: ²⁴For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.