Verse by Verse

If you were reading my blog a year ago, you may remember a series of posts on the correct interpretation of Genesis 2:15. In short, the question is whether the verse should be understood in the traditional way, as the NIV has it — The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Or should it have been translated something like this — “God caused man to rest in the garden for the purpose of obeying and worshiping Him.”

I won’t rehash my entire argument again. You can read the whole thing here: Part One — Part Two — Part Three — Part Four — Part Five — Part Six — Part Seven — Part Eight.

Finally, I got a chance to discuss the issue with the Bible professor from whom I first heard the alternate “obey and worship” interpretation. I asked him the questions at the bottom of Part Eight. Here is his answer: (The rest of this post is his answer verbatim.)

My reasoning regarding Genesis 2:15, which in my view is truly a crucial verse with respect to properly understanding our pre- (and hence post-) Fall purpose, is as follows, in logical sequence:

1) The traditional (though not the only, or even the oldest) translation/understanding of Genesis 2:15 is that “the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to guard it.”

2) Premise: how one understands/translates one of the boldface expressions inevitably influences and informs how one understands/translates the other.

3) Observation 1: The verbal root used for “put him” in v. 15 (nu’ah) is not the same as the verbal root used for “put him” in v. 8 (sim).

4) Observation 2: The verbal root used in v. 8 (sim), when used with either God or man in Scripture, almost always refers to a physical “putting (down) or placing.”

5) Observation 3: The verbal root used in v. 15 (nu’ah), when used with God as the subject in Scripture, is predominantly used to indicate the “setting at rest,” which comes to represent one of the standard biblical idioms for being brought into full relationship with God.  In the Old Testament, this is evident in the oft-repeated promise of God “to give you [i.e., His people] rest” (cf. Joshua 1:15; 2 Samuel 7:11; Psalm 95:11) — which is clearly not simply physical “putting down” or even “physical” at all, since He continues to hold out this “giving of rest” as a yet to be realized promise even after Israel has achieved complete physical rest from war and strife under David (cf. 2 Samuel 7:1 with 7:11).

6) To be biblically consistent, therefore, it must be CONCLUDED that the use of rest in Genesis 2:15, in which God is the subject, is intended just as everywhere else when God is the subject — i.e., as an indication of Him giving spiritual rest to the specified object — in this case Adam (and later Eve).

7) This being so, it stands to reason that the rest of the verse should also be read in a “spiritual” context.  I.e., if the first part of the verse establishes a significant spiritual/theological idea, this is clearly the vein in which the rest of the verse will/should be read.

8 ) Observation: “cultivating” and “guarding” a garden are not clearly spiritual — or spiritually significant — concepts. (This is distinct from the concept of work as valid and positive — to assume that one must be denying the value of “work” to agree with this statement/observation is a logical non sequitur.)

9) Observation: the pronominal object “it” after “cultivate” and “guard” is feminine (if taken as a pronominal object) — literally, “her”.

10) The term “garden” (gan) in biblical Hebrew is not feminine (“her”), but masculine (i.e., “him”).  Some lexicons of biblical Hebrew suggest that the term “garden” (Heb.: gan) may in fact be both masculine AND feminine, but this is begging the question and not at all borne out by the evidence — in fact, this is circular lexical reasoning based EXCLUSIVELY on the view that garden in Genesis 2:15 is feminine and because the pronominal object on the verbs “cultivate” and “guard” is feminine — yet as I will show in following, a more consistent, grammatical, and hence natural reading is that that there is no pronominal object at all!

11) In all of the instances where the word for garden (gan) is predicated by a verb or adjective, it is clearly treated as masculine (e.g., Isaiah 58:11, Jerermiah 31:11, Song of Solomon 4:12, and Song of Solomon 4:16).  Not surprisingly, therefore, it is identified as an exclusively masculine noun in the standard Concordance of the Hebrew Bible by A. Even Shoshan (Heb. edition [Qonqordantsya Hadasha], p. 240c).

12) The most grammatical — and therefore natural — reading of the clause in question, therefore, would be to take what has been mistakenly thought to be a pronominal object suffix (“her”) as in fact an alternate feminine affix to an infinitive noun — which is attested elsewhere in biblical Hebrew — and may be intended to denote emphasis.

13) This reading solves/avoids the clear gender disagreement noted above by effectively eliminating an object from the infinitive verbs (“to cultivate … to guard”).  The verbs thus become “intransitive” (not taking an object) rather than “transitive” (taking an object).

14) When a) used intransitively, b) used in a clearly spiritually focused context, and c) when used together, the Hebrew infinitive verbs traditionally translated “cultivate” and “guard” in fact mean “worship” and “obey.” Thus writes G.K. Beale, “Eden, the Temple, and the Church’s Mission in the New Creation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48/1 (2005), pp. 7–8: “The two Hebrew words for ‘cultivate’ and ‘keep’ (respectively, ‘?bad and sh?mar) can easily be, and usually are, translated ‘serve and guard.’  When these two words occur together later in the Old Testament, without exception they have this meaning and refer either to the Israelites ‘serving and guarding/obeying’ God’s word’ (about 10 times) or, more often to priests who ‘serve’ God in the temple and ‘guard’ the temple from unclean things entering it (Numbers 3:7–8; 8:25–26; 18:5–6; 1 Chronicles 23:32; Ezekiel 44:14).”

15) Not only does this translation/understanding flow smoothly from the spiritual focus of the first part of the verse, but — contrary to the usual rendering as “cultivate it and guard it” — it also sets up and flows smoothly into v. 16, which proceeds to give the content of obedience — i.e., to answer the obvious, implied question with which v. 15 thus ends — to wit, “So how do I [Adam] obey?”

16) This translation/understanding is not new, but well established in early Jewish exegetical thought, as attested in a) Midrash Genesis Rabbah, xvi.5, b) Targum Jonathan ad Genesis 2:15, and c) Targum Yerushalmi ad Genesis 2:15.

17) The “traditional” translation, we suspect, is a carry-over by late medieval Christian-English translators who, along with their knowledge of Hebrew, are taking this particular exegetical view from their Jewish teachers.  In Jewish tradition, though the proper reading of “worship and obey” was early recognized, it was set aside in favor of the ungrammatical and contextually problematic reading “cultivate it and keep it” due to the essential theological emphasis of Rabbinic Judaism on fully attaining God’s “rest” (i.e., approval) through worship and obedience rather than expressing such as a result of having already been “set at rest” by God (thus the reason for the “setting at rest” coming before the “worship & obedience” in 2:15). This theologically motivated misreading eventually carried over into Christian English Bible translation history, was consolidated within Jewish exegetical tradition as the monolith of Pharisaically-based Judaism (i.e., Rabbinic Judaism), became entrenched over time and crystallized in the corpus of early Rabbinic literature.

I turned next to a friend of mine who wishes to be a Semitic language authority. She is currently studying etching on pottery shards from ancient Assyria.

I sent her my original lesson with this request: “Don’t tell me what the commentaries and translations say — I don’t really care. What I want to know is whether the original Hebrew allows this interpretation without twisting things around too much.”

Here’s her reply: (Much of this is over my head, but I get the general gist and I think you will too.)

On “put” meaning “rest”:

The verbal form you’re referring to here is actually ?????? (wayyanihayhu) which is a composite form consisting of a temporal marker, a prefix (which indicates that the subject is masculine, singular, 3rd person), the three-letter root (which carries the meaning), and a pronominal suffix at the end (which indicates that the object of the verb is masculine, singular, 3rd person).  In other words, the English “(He) put him” comes from one lexical unit in Hebrew. The form yanach is, therefore, inaccurate, because that’s not the form used here and when one refers to Hebrew “verbs” in general, one should always use the naked form which is nothing but an unvocalized (no vowels) three-letter root, in this case nwh. That’s the dictionary form. If you add any vowels to make it pronounceable, you also add a meaning to it. It may sound complicated, but it’s not.

As far as the meaning, you’re right on. The form of nwh in Gen. 2:15 is in the Hiphil stem which is causative. The general meaning of the root nwh is “to rest,” “to repose,” or “to be quiet.” In the causative sense, it means X causes Y to rest. I don’t have any problem with this part at all, other than the yanach thing.

So far, so good. She supports the first part of the RWO interpretation and disagrees with the theologian from Part Six.

On “dress” meaning “worship”:

Inaccurate. See above. Also, the second letter can be b or v depending on whether or not it’s doubled. In this case, it’s not, so it should be a v. Granted, the letter beth is often transliterated as b in English. But Hebrew speakers will pronounce the beth in this verbal form like a v. Your best bet is to say that the Hebrew verb used here is abd without suggested pronunciation. The actual form used here is ????? (le-av-dah).

Your interpretation [PWO] would have been legitimate if the object suffix hadn’t been 3rd person, feminine, singular. I actually like your interpretation a lot, and I don’t think it’s wrong to think of rest/serve/obey as the pre-Fall command at all. It’s just that this verse cannot be used to back up that idea. I tried to help you, but there doesn’t seem to be any way you can get this interpretation out of this verse. You know I don’t use commentaries. I don’t use Word Study aids either. I approached this from a purely philological stand point and tried to go as far back as I could – even beyond the vocalized texts back to the consonantal texts. I even looked at translations which were done before the fifth century AD when the Hebrew texts became vocalized to see whether there might have been some variants of the consonantal texts which back up my hypothesis. This is because the Masoretes – the guys who superimposed vowels on the consonantal texts – are known to have made quite a few mistakes. When the consonantal texts can be vocalized more than one way, the Masoretes were actually the people who interpreted the texts for all of us by assigning vowels which they thought made the most sense to the unvocalized texts. In other words, when the consonantal texts allow for multiple possibilities, they were the ones choosing one possibility for us and declaring that reading authoritative (as is “thus saith the Lord,” done deal – no further questions). I don’t necessarily think they had the right to do that, but I’m not going to go into that. Nonetheless, as evident in ancient translations done prior to the Masoretic era, not all Hebrew readers read the consonantal texts the same way as the Masoretes. In the case of what appears to be irreconcilable differences between the Masoretic texts and other versions (that are based on the consonantal texts), philologists/exegetes (at least the responsible ones) always bypass the Masoretic vocalization and go back all the way to the consonantal texts.) I did all that and found nothing that would help you.

Your interpretation would only make sense if you could establish that the object of serve and obey is God, not the garden. That’s the ONLY way you can justify the meanings “serve” [actually, I said “worship”] and “obey” which you have chosen out of the whole range of things these two verbs can mean.

However, no matter from how many angles I look at this, I just don’t see anything in the linguistic realm that allows for that possibility. You see, the object in Hebrew is built-in; it’s attached right onto the verbs. When Hebrew speakers look at these verbs, there’s no confusion whatsoever that the object of these two verbs (the “rest” verb doesn’t apply here as it is intransitive, requiring no objects) is the garden, not God. “Garden” in Hebrew is feminine in gender and serves as the antecedent of the object suffixes which are attached to these verbs (also feminine singular). If the object suffixes on these verbs were masculine, singular, then, no doubt, the antecedent would definitely be God, and you would have yourself a very, very solid case.  If the word “garden” were masculine, then one would have two ways of understanding this verse due to the ambiguity revolving the antecedent, i.e., “till it” vs. “serve [worship] Him” and “guard it” vs. “obey Him.” (Both interpretations would be grammatically possible, because a 3rd person, masculine lexical unit in Hebrew can be translated “he/him” or “it” in English depending on what it is.) Now, as for which reading one decides to go with, that depends upon one’s judgment. Syntactically, you can make a case for either view.

However, as the verse stands, whether in the vocalized texts or the consonantal texts, there just isn’t any possibility that the object of the two verbs would point to God. This has made the rendering of the verbs as “serve” [worship] as opposed to “till/work” and “obey” as opposed to “guard” implausible.  True, the meaning range of both abd and shmr covers “serve” and “obey,” but when you see that the built-in object is inanimate (garden), “serve” [worship] and “obey” have no relevance. You cannot serve [worship] and obey an object. A general rule: a verb means what it means according to how it’s used and the context in which it’s used; it doesn’t mean everything it can mean.

That seemed to be that. The RWO interpretation won’t work. I may have to admit that I’m wrong or at least that the issue can’t be definitively resolved.

But I still want to pursue it a bit further.

1. I want to track down the professor from whom I first heard this interpretation and see what he has to say about all this. He’s a good friend of a good friend of mine, so I think I’ll be able to do this sometime.

2. It still makes no sense to me that God put man in a perfect place for the purpose of keeping it nice.

3. Resting in, worshipping and obeying God is our purpose now, after the fall. I have to believe it was our purpose before the fall too.

4. The professor, Krell and my friend (here) all agree that “put” means “rest.” If that’s the case, the rest of the verse doesn’t make sense if interpreted as “dress” and “keep.”

That’s where it stands at present. If I discover more, I’ll post it. As for the original lesson that started this all — I rewrote it. I made the exact same point — that man’s purpose is to rest in God and worship and obey Him. I didn’t use Genesis 2:15 as a proof text, but relied on other Scripture. Everybody liked it just fine.

The rest of this post consists of a couple questions that my friend wants me to ask the professor when I see him. They don’t add anything new to the discussion, so you don’t need to read them. I’m including them here so I’ll have everything together in one place.

Based on the Masoretic text, the pronominal suffixes on both abd and smr are clearly feminine singular which point to gan as their antecedent. Even if one was to override the masoretic vocalization, the consonantal text would still support the feminine/singular reading. One could argue that, according to the consonantal text, the waw immediately following the two infinitives could have originally been part of the pronominal suffixes attached to the two verbs (thus making them masculine/singular), but that is highly unlikely given the fact that the first waw would be needed to link the two infinitival phrases at the end of 2:15 and the other waw would be needed to form a waw-consecutive form at the beginning of 2:16. To make God the object of abd and smr (which is the only way to justify translating these verbs as serve and obey respectively as opposed to till and guard as required by the context), one has to argue very convincingly that the consonantal text is corrupt or that the Masoretes, for whatever reason, intentionally altered the consonantal text and vocalized the emended text in such a way that the object of these two inifinitives is the garden (or a feminine/singular entity), not God. This position would be considered strong only if the hypothesized reading is supported by pre-Masoretic versions such as the transliteration in the second column of the Hexapla or the translation of the LXX (which probably wouldn’t lend much help since “garden” in Greek is masculine, thus adding to the ambiguity).

Unless a strong case is made for God as the object of the two verbs, the context demands that the verbs be understood according to their object, garden. This has significantly narrowed down the semantic range of these two verbs. Undoubtedly, “serve” and “obey” are part of the semantic range of abd and smar, but can one “serve” and “obey” a garden? Elsewhere in the OT where abd and smar are used to convey the meanings “serve” and “obey,” they’re never used in conjunction with an object like a garden. Therefore, again, the only way to justify translating the two verbs as “serve” and “obey” is to prove that the originally intended object is God, not the garden. Can this be done without violating the Hebrew syntax or clearly demonstrating that this is indeed a case of textual corruption and religiously-motivated vocalization? And if so, on what bases can this be done?

While all this was going on, I was also working on a Bible survey series and found myself right back in Genesis 2. I took a different angle this time and didn’t bring up the PDK/RWO issue. But during the course of my study, I was reading in The Genesis Record, by Henry M. Morris. (Creation-Life Publishers, 1976)

He has this to say on Genesis 2:15:

Before explaining to Adam the terms of his “probation,” God first assigned him the specific duty of caring for his garden home. Apparently it was later, after God had formed Eve, that He gave the two of them the much broader commission to exercise dominion over the entire creation (Genesis 1:28-29). At this point, Adam was instructed merely to till the ground in the garden of Eden, to dress it and keep it. Even though there were as yet no noxious weeds, the ground was so fertile and the plant cover so luxuriant that its growth needed to be channeled and controlled.

It is noteworthy that, even in the perfect world as God made it, work was necessary for man’s good. The ideal world is not one of idleness and frolic, but one of serious activity and service. Even in the new earth to come, after sin and the curse have been completely removed, Scripture says “that his servants shall serve Him” (Revelation 22:3).

Adam was told to “keep” the garden. The word means actually to “guard” it. There is no thought involved of protecting it from external enemies, of which there were none, but rather that of exercising a careful and loving stewardship over it, keeping it beautiful and orderly, with every component in place and in harmonious relationship with the whole.

First of all, Genesis 1:28-29 is after Genesis 1:27, which says male and female He created them. So the idea that Adam was tilling the ground but not exercising dominion until Eve comes along is simply wrong. The last sentence of the first paragraph is total speculation based on his PDK interpretation.

Second, in the second paragraph, Morris uses Revelation 22:3 as proof that man will still be working after the curse has been removed. Revelation 22:3 reads: There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him. On a hunch, I looked up the meaning of the word “serve,” the basis for Morris’s entire argument here. It comes from the Greek word latreuo, which means — you already guessed it, didn’t you? — it means “worship.”

Thirdly, in Morris’s third paragraph, he comes up with yet another definition of “keep” as used in Genesis 2:15, which means that the word must allow separate interpretations — including the RWO interpretation, perhaps. The rest of that third paragraph is just speculation.

So now what? I’d heard from several different sources, all of them leaning toward the traditional PDK interpretation, although a few of them dabbled with the RWO interpretation. Taken all together, almost every aspect of the RWO interpretation was allowed by somebody.

Instead of convincing me that I was wrong, everything to this point just made me more convinced that there was something to it.

I just had to find an answer to the issue of the garden and not God being the object of  “dress/worship” and “keep/obey.”

Meanwhile, I sent my lessons to another reviewer. He is a “theologian” with an M.Div. from Trinity and a good grasp of the original languages and all the tools to consult. Here is his reply.

On “put” meaning “caused to rest”: Checking my Hebrew-English reference works I find that “rest” is one of the meanings of this word, but the particular form of the Hebrew verb in this verse and the fact that it is used in association with a person (him) and a location (in the garden) strongly points to the meaning “put”, as all the translations (including the Septuagint) render it in this verse and the two standard Hebrew reference works I checked confirm (with examples of verses with similar grammatical construction).  The solution to the problem posed is not to get work removed from Gen 2 (and thereby make it a consequence of the fall and a part of the curse — which I think biblically is a false idea, for work is an inherently good thing, for God himself worked in creation).  But the work before the fall was not burdensome and sweaty.  After the fall it was so, because of hindrances to productive work (in the sinful nature of man, and in the cursed creation).  When we finish the verse the way they have rendered it, it makes no sense.  He “made him rest in the garden to till it and keep it” (the Hebrew construction here clearly means that “to” means “for the purpose of”) So, He made Adam rest to work?  That is not what God is saying here.  And we certainly don’t want children to get the idea that work is a result of the curse!

I’m no scholar, but this seems to be largely circular reasoning again. There are also other issues:

• God’s work in creation certainly wasn’t work in the sense of obligation, so it’s not really the same thing at all.

• There’s no support for the idea that there was non-burdensome, non-sweaty work before the fall except this verse.

• I never said God “made him rest in the garden to till it and keep it.” The first part of my lesson is linked to the rest of the lesson. It’s all one argument.

• He agrees that this verse serves as a purpose statement. But what makes more sense — That God put man in the garden for the purpose of working, or that God wanted man to rest in Him and worship and serve Him. As I showed in the lesson, resting in God and worshiping and serving Him are our purpose after the fall. It makes no sense that man had a different, less-meaningful purpose before the fall.

The theologian continues on the subject of “dress”:

But the same word is use in Gen. 2:5 and 3:23 and it does not mean there “worship the ground” but till or cultivate the ground.  Context rules out the translation “worship,” again as all the Bible translations would confirm, including the Septuagint.

I’ve already addressed the Genesis 2:5 usage, and 3:23 was post-fall and obviously a different activity. I disagree with his context argument in Genesis 2:15.

He goes on to discuss my conclusion:

Work wasn’t needed to fight weeds, but work was perhaps given to man for man’s sake (as the ruler of creation), not for the ground’s sake, and could have prepared the ground to receive seeds from the plants that God made and possibly to prune them to bear more fruit.  We can’t be certain of the nature of the work.  But this [my RWO interpretation] way of rendering Genesis 2:15 finds almost no scholarly support that I can see (though one of my OT profs, argued this way about the verse as part of his old-earth interpretation of Genesis and John Gill (on-line Bible) indicates that a few rabbis may have viewed it this way, although the Septuagint doesn’t.

He starts his comment by saying “perhaps” and later says “We can’t be certain,” which makes his interpretation as much speculation as mine is. He goes on to say that the RWO view has almost no scholarly support, then proceeds to state two people (plus however many rabbis) who do support it.

Here’s another response from one of my reviewers.

At first glance, I think the interpretation is a little speculative … The interpretation of “dress” bothers me, because in the English text, the object of it is “it” — the garden. However, you indicate the object of “dress” (worship) is God, not the garden.  The only way this would work is if “it” is not in the original Hebrew.  Is it? My thought is that you are hanging too much on this — i.e., the whole point of the lesson.  That might be too risky. 

You know that I deeply respect you and your knowledge of Scripture — and your ability to write.  This one seems to me to go a little too far.  But I’ll listen to a rebuttal.

I responded:

When I look up “to dress it” in Strong’s, the three words translate into Hebrew as just one word, “abad,” one of the meanings of which is “worship.” My guess is that the translators added the “it” to make it clearer according to their understanding of the verse. But I’m no Hebrew scholar and could be wrong.

I didn’t come up with this idea on my own. I heard it from [a professor] who taught an adult Sunday school class at my church. He went on to say that the translators used the words they did because they had a works-based theology and couldn’t deal with the fact that God didn’t require anything from man. I thought he made a lot of sense.

The clincher for me is that the verse seems to be a purpose statement.  It just makes more sense to me that God put man here to worship and obey Him rather than that He put man here to trim the trees, or whatever. Otherwise, there’s no statement (before the fall) that explains man’s purpose or what his relationship with God was supposed to be.

The reviewer’s reply to my reply

I still don’t buy it.  For me, a critical issue is what is said in Genesis 3:17.  You’ve written the lesson, based on the premise that work is the curse of that passage, but I don’t read it that way; I think that the curse is pain and sweat in work, not work itself. Throughout the Bible, work is considered to be a good thing.  In what you say below, I don’t get [the professor’s] connection between the more traditional interpretation and a works-based theology. There is a huge difference between “work” and “works” — as a means of pleasing God.

In looking at my Strong’s, I don’t see “observe the rules” as you say is there as a meaning for “shamar.”  “Observe” is there, but in the sense of “watch out for”, rather than “obey”.  I also don’t see the redirection of the object in regard to “abad”; both terms seem to have the garden as the object, not God.

I see this statement as specifically addressed to Adam, and not applicable to all humankind.  I agree that there is no statement as to God’s purpose for all of us found in the first chapters of Genesis.  But let’s not make one out of something that isn’t clearly seen in the text.  Other passages can be used to clearly support that we are all here to worship and obey God; but a critical issue that many will wrestle with is, “but what does that look like for me?”  I see that this command to Adam is more closely parallel to God’s calling on Moses’ life to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, Paul’s calling to take the gospel to the Gentiles, etc.

I have to admit that was a decided speed bump on the RWO interpretation. Obviously, I had to find out if “dress” and “keep” could refer to Adam’s relationship with God.

Here’s the way another of my reviewers responded.

I like the way you have explained this verse in the lesson, but I still think God had Adam and Eve doing important, meaningful work in the garden while also worshiping, resting, and obeying. Otherwise, why does God tell us to subdue the earth — the earth was perfect when He said this, but it still needed subduing. Adam and Eve helped God to spread the seeds around the land and further the multiplying process, among other things. Also, why do all modern translations not translate the words in the ways you have said? Maybe there is both a literal and spiritual meaning to Adam’s work …

I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea that God needed help. I have to think the garden was perfect, as this reviewer says. Again I ask — What if Adam hadn’t eaten the forbidden fruit but also hadn’t done any work in the garden? Without the knowledge of good and evil, it couldn’t have been sin.

I think this would be a good point to look at the first two chapters of Genesis and see what exactly God did tell Adam to do. As I read it, I come up with three things.

1. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth (Genesis 1:27-28).  God told Adam to have a lot of children. I’m guessing that Adam didn’t exactly consider this an obligation — God probably meant it more as encouragement.

2. … And subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Genesis 1:28). This is the whole “have dominion/be in charge” issue again, and again, I think it refers to Adam’s position, not his obligation. “Subdue” is also tied to multiplying, so it may simply mean that for man to rule the earth, there had to be men to rule. It obviously wasn’t God’s intention for earth to be empty. For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited : I am the LORD; and there is none else (Isaiah 45:18).

3. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:16-17). Here’s the obedience issue. This is the entire law that Adam lived under. It’s all about Adam’s relationship with God, not about his role in the garden. Adam was in a position of fellowship with God and could do no wrong (except to eat the fruit) because he didn’t have the knowledge of good and evil. But once he understood the difference, he was required to do good.