NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible CBSB_Digital Sampler | Page 13
Genesis 3:5 | 11
it runs along the east side of Ashur. And
the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The L ord God took the man and put
him in the Garden of Eden to work it and
take care of it. 16 And the L ord God com
manded the man, “You are free to eat from
any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not
eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, for when you eat from it you will
certainly die.” s
18 The L ord God said, “It is not good for
the man to be alone. I will make a helper
suitable for him.” t
19 Now the L ord God had formed out of
the ground all the wild animals u and all
the birds in the sky. He brought them to
the man to see what he w
ould name them;
and whatever the man c alled each living
creature, v that was its name. 20 So the man
gave n
ames to all the livestock, the b
irds
in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam a no suitable helper was
found. 21 So the L ord God caused the man
to fall into a deep sleep; and w
hile he was
sleeping, he took one of the m
an’s ribs b
and then closed up the place with flesh.
22 Then the L ord God made a woman from
the rib c w he had taken out of the man, and
he brought her to the man.
2:17 s Dt 30:15,
19; Ro 5:12;
6:23; Jas 1:15
2:18 t 1Co 11:9
2:19 u Ps 8:7
v Ge 1:24
2:22
w 1Co 11:8, 9, 12
23 The
man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh; x
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That
is why a man leaves his father and
mother and is united y to his wife, and they
become one flesh. z
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, a
and they felt no shame.
The Fall
Now the serpent b was more crafty
than any of the wild animals the L ord
God had made. He said to the woman,
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat
from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may
eat f ruit from the t rees in the garden, 3 but
God did say, ‘You must not eat f ruit from
the tree that is in the middle of the garden,
and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent
said to the woman. c 5 “For God knows that
when you eat from it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, d know
ing good and evil.”
3
2:23 x Ge 29:14;
Eph 5:28‑30
2:24 y Mal 2:15
z Mt 19:5*;
Mk 10:7-8*;
1Co 6:16*;
Eph 5:31*
2:25 a Ge 3:7,
10‑11
3:1 b 2Co 11:3;
Rev 12:9; 20:2
3:4 c Jn 8:44;
2Co 11:3
3:5 d Isa 14:14;
Eze 28:2
potamia (e.g., Nile, Indus, Ganges), or larger bodies such
as the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. Recent investigations
have attempted to identify the Pishon as a major river
that dried up in antiquity. This possibility emerges from
the analysis of sand patterns and satellite photography,
which have revealed an old riverbed running northeast
through Saudi Arabia from the Hijaz mountains near
Medina (which contains one of the richest gold mines in
the region) to the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, near the mouth
of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. As mentioned in note
on vv. 10 – 14, others have identified the Pishon and Gihon
as rivers in the area of Urartu. A final suggestion is that the
Pishon and Gihon refer to the encircling cosmic waters.
None of these options may be adopted with any confi-
dence, though some are more plausible than others.
2:15 to work it and take care of it. In the rest of the ancient
world it was believed that humans had been created to
serve the needs of the gods; the gods had grown tired
of the drudgery of providing for themselves. In Genesis
people also serve God but not by meeting his needs.
When people are assigned their function here, priestly
terms are used in contrast to the royal functions given in
1:28 – 29. In the rest of the ancient Near East, caring for the
needs of the gods was also a priestly function. In the OT,
the priestly function involved maintaining the status of
sacred space and providing for the proper worship and
obedience to God’s requirements.
2:20 names. Names were not given randomly in the
ancient world. A name may identify the essential nature of
the creature, so that giving a name may be an act of assign-
ing the function that creature will have. In Mesopotamia
the assigning of function is referred to as the decreeing
of destiny. Decreeing destiny by giving a name is an act
of authority. In the ancient world, when a king conquered
another country, the king he put on the throne was given a
new name. In other cases, the giving of a name is an act of
a 20 Or the
man b 21 Or took part of the man’s side
c 22 Or part
discernment in which the name is determined by the cir-
cumstances. In either case, Adam’s naming of the animals
is his first step in subduing and ruling (see 1:28 and note).
He is fulfilling the role that he had by virtue of being in
God’s image (see the article “Image and Likeness,” p. 8), but
it also leads him to realize that among the animals there is
no social equal to share his function and place.
2:22 rib. In Genesis the woman was built from the side
(Hebrew tsela) of the man (see NIV text note on v. 21). The
Hebrew word is usually architectural, and is used anatomi-
cally only here in the OT. In Akkadian, the cognate term
tsela is also both architectural and anatomical. Its anatomi-
cal uses generally refer not just to bone, but to bones and
flesh (cf. v. 23).
2:24 leaves . . . united . . . one flesh. The text establishes a
“flesh-line,” which is stronger than a bloodline and causes
the man to seek her out. Woman is recognized as being
of the same essence as man and therefore of serving as
his ally in sacred space.
2:25 naked. In Genesis the nakedness of the humans does
not appear to be a negative comment, though it is con-
trasted through wordplay to the craftiness of the serpent
in the next verse (3:1), so it may refer to a relative naïveté.
In contrast, ancient Near Eastern texts indicate that the pri-
meval nakedness of people is a sign of a primitive, uncivi-
lized condition. When Enkidu is civilized in the Gilgamesh
Epic, he is clothed by the woman who civilizes him. The
Sumerian text Ewe and Wheat opens with a description
of primeval humans who are clearly primitive, and the
text apparently considers that a negative. In this way there
are similarities in how Genesis and the Mesopotamian
texts describe early humankind, but there is a contrasting
assessment of how their condition should be interpreted.
3:5 be like God. One can imagine a variety of ways in which
people might desire or strive to “be like God” — some com-
mendable, others inappropriately ambitious or subversive.