Genesis 2:16

And the Lord God commanded the man,.... Over whom he had power and authority; and he had a right to command him what he pleased, being his Creator, benefactor, and preserver; and this is to be

And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. No JFB commentary on these verses.

God commanded the woman too, (as appears both from the permission for eating herbs and fruits given to her, together with her husband, , and from , and from Eve’ s punishment), and that either immediately, or by Adam, whom God enjoined to inform her thereof. Thou mayest freely eat; without offence to me, or hurt to thyself. The words in Hebrew have the form of a command, but are only a permission or indulgence, as .

Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:Ver. 16. Commanded the man, saying.] God hath given man dominion over all the sublunary creatures; and lest he should forget that he had a Lord whom to serve and obey, he gave him this command to keep. Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.] The less need he had to have been so lickerish after forbidden fruit. προθεραπειαν hic adhibet, quod misericordiae est. But stolen waters are sweet; Nitimur in vetitum, &c.

(16, 17) The Lord God commanded.—Probation is the law of man’s moral condition now, and it began in Paradise, only the conditions there were different. (See Excursus at end of this book.) In the day. . . . —Used, as in Genesis 2:4, for an indefinitely long period. But just as on the third day God gave the whole law of vegetation, though trees as the highest development of that law may not have been reached until after the appearance of animal life on the earth, so the law of man’s mortal life came into existence with the eating of the forbidden fruit. Contemporaneously with that act, man passed from the paradisiacal state, with the possibility of living for ever, into the mortal state, with the certainty sooner or later of dying. It was a new condition and constitution of things which then commenced, and to which not Adam only, but also his posterity was subject. And thus this command resembles the words of Elohim in the first chapter. By them the fundamental laws of the material universe were given and established for all time; and the word of Jehovah-Elohim equally here was a law, not for the day only on which Adam broke the command, but for all men everywhere as long as the world shall last. A: UPON THE OF ADAM (Chap. 2:16).The great object for which the world is constituted such as we actually find it to be is evidently the trial and probation of man’s moral nature. We cannot wonder, therefore, at finding Adam subject to a probation; and even if he had remained innocent we have no right to suppose that his posterity would always have withstood temptation, or that the world would not finally have become such in the main as it is now. But the manner of Adam’s probation was different. In Paradise he had unlimited freedom, except in one small particular, and no promptings of his own nature urged him to take delight in disobedience and sin. But if thus he was free from passion, on the other hand his conscience was undeveloped, even if it could be said to exist at all in one who did not know the difference between good and evil. He was devoid, too, of experience, and his reason must have been in a state as rudimentary as his conscience. For as there was no struggle between passion and conscience, man had not then learned to choose between opposing ends and purposes, as he has now. Nevertheless, Adam was an intellectual being. He must have had a deep knowledge of natural history; for doubtless he called the animals after their natures. In Genesis 2:23 he calls his wife Ishah, and himself Ish. Now, this name signifies a being, and in so calling himself Adam seems to claim for man that he is the one creature upon earth conscious of his own existence.

16. Here, as in Genesis 1:29, man receives a command to eat the fruit of the trees: but this command is to receive one special limitation. “man,” LXX Ἀ ?äÜì = “Adam,” as a proper name, wrongly: see on Genesis 2:7.

16. The Lord God commanded the man — The Hebrew form of expression, ειφεςμδΰγν, and put a commandment upon the man, suggests the thought of an authoritative law coming down upon him from above.