Genesis 2:10

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden,.... Before man was created, as Aben Ezra observes, this river went out of Eden and watered it on every side; but what river is here meant, is hard to say.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. A river went out of Eden to water the garden.

A river, or, rivers, by a common enallage. Eden, the country in which Paradise was; where those rivers either arose from one spring, or met together in one channel. From the garden, it was divided into four principal rivers, concerning which there are now many disputes. But it is no wonder if the rise and situation of these rivers be not now certainly known, because of the great changes, which in so long time might happen in this as well as in other rivers, partly by earthquakes, and principally by the general deluge. And yet Euphrates and Tigris, the chief of these rivers, whereof the other two are branches, are discovered by some learned men to have one and the same original or spring, and that in a most pleasant part of Armenia, where they conceive Paradise was. See my Latin Synopsis.

Genesis 2:10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.Ver. 10. And a river went out.] Pliny writeth, that in the province of Babylon there is burning and smothering a certain lake or bog, about the size of an acre. And who knows, whether that be not a piece of Paradise now drowned and destroyed? Plin., l. ii., c. 106.

(10) A river went out of Eden.—Out of the large region of which the garden formed a part. The tenses, too, are present, as if the main features of the country remained unchanged: “a river goeth forth from Eden, and thence outside of it is parted, and becometh four main streams.” The idea is that of a stream rising in Eden, and flowing through the Paradise, and at some distance outside of it divided into four great rivers. This has made many suppose that the site of Paradise was in the Persian Gulf, in a region now submerged; and the Babylonian legends actually place it there, at Eridu, at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. The two other rivers they suppose to have been the Indus and the Nile, represented by the two coasts of the Persian Gulf. Sir H. Rawlinson suggests the Babylonian province of Gan-duniyas, where four rivers may be found; but in neither case could the ark have floated against the current of the flood up to the highlands of Armenia. We must add that many authors of note have regarded the whole as symbolical, among whom is the famous Syriac writer, Bar-Hebraeus, who regards it as a description of the human body.

Verse 10. A river went out of Eden, c.] It would astonish an ordinary reader, who should be obliged to consult different commentators and critics on the situation of the terrestrial Paradise, to see the vast variety of opinions by which they are divided. Some place it in the third heaven, others in the fourth some within the orbit of the moon, others in the moon itself; some in the middle regions of the air, or beyond the earth's attraction; some on the earth, others under the earth, and others within the earth; some have fixed it at the north pole, others at the south; some in Tartary, some in China; some on the borders of the Ganges, some in the island of Ceylon; some in Armenia, others in Africa, under the equator; some in Mesopotamia, others in Syria, Persia, Arabia, Babylon, Assyria, and in Palestine; some have condescended to place it in Europe, and others have contended it either exists not, or is invisible, or is merely of a spiritual nature, and that the whole account is to be spiritually understood! That there was such a place once there is no reason to doubt; the description given by Moses is too particular and circumstantial to be capable of being understood in any spiritual or allegorical way. As well might we contend that the persons of Adam and Eve were allegorical, as that the place of their residence was such. The most probable account of its situation is that given by Hadrian Reland. He supposes it to have been in Armenia, near the sources of the great rivers Euphrates, Tigris, Phasis, and Araxes. He thinks Pison was the Phasis, a river of Colchis, emptying itself into the Euxine Sea, where there is a city called Chabala, the pronunciation of which is nearly the same with that of Havilah, or חוילה Chavilah, according to the Hebrew, the ו vau being changed in Greek to beta β. This country was famous for gold, whence the fable of the Golden Fleece, attempted to be carried away from that country by the heroes of Greece. The Gihon he thinks to be the Araxes, which runs into the Caspian Sea, both the words having the same signification, viz., a rapid motion. The land of Cush, washed by the river, he supposes to be the country of the Cussaei of the ancients. The Hiddekel all agree to be the Tigris, and the other river Phrat, or פרת Perath, to be the Euphrates. All these rivers rise in the same tract of mountainous country, though they do not arise from one head.

10–14. A Geographical Description of the Garden This is very probably a later insertion. It interrupts the sequence of thought.

10. A river went out of Eden — This river, like the trees just named, constituted a part of the perfection of the earthly paradise. Comp. Revelation 22:1-2. From thence — From the garden.