Genesis 2:13

_AND THE NAME OF THE SECOND RIVER IS GIHON: THE SAME IS IT THAT COMPASSETH THE WHOLE LAND OF ETHIOPIA._ Gihon (bursting forth). The name denotes a rapid river issuing impetuously from its fountains. COMPASSETH THE WHOLE LAND OF ETHIOPIA, [Hebrew, the land of Cush]. There is more than one country indicated by this name in Scripture, which, signifying 'black,' and applied to people of sable or dusky complexion, is commonly considered as including Egypt and African Ethiopia. Hence, many who are of opinion that Eden embraced a very extensive territory, as the language of the sacred narrative evidently implies, place Gihon in the Nile, which takes the course indicated in this passage. But since the sons of Cush seem to have, by various successive migrations (cf. Genesis 10:1-32) wandered into regions widely removed from each other, the Hebrews used the term

8-14 The place fixed upon for Adam to dwell in, was not a palace, but a garden. The better we take up with plain things, and the less we seek things to gratify pride and luxury, the nearer we approach to innocency. Nature is content with a little, and that which is most natural; grace with less; but lust craves every thing, and is content with nothing. No delights can be satisfying to the soul, but those which God himself has provided and appointed for it. Eden signifies delight and pleasure. Wherever it was, it had all desirable conveniences, without any inconvenience, though no other house or garden on earth ever was so. It was adorned with every tree pleasant to the sight, and enriched with every tree that yielded fruit grateful to the taste and good for food. God, as a tender Father, desired not only Adam's profit, but his pleasure; for there is pleasure with innocency, nay there is...

- XI. The Garden 8. גן _gan_ “garden, park,” παράδεισος _paradeisos_, “an enclosed piece of ground.” עדן _‛__ēden_ “Eden, delight.” קדם _qedem_ “fore-place, east; foretime.” 11. פישׁון _pı̂yshôn_ Pishon; related: “flow over, spread, leap.” חוילה _chăvı̂ylâh_ Chavilah. חול _chôl_ “sand.” חבל _chebel_ “region.” 12. בדלם _b__e_

EXPOSITION GENESIS 2:8 In accordance with a well-known characteristic of Hebrew composition, the writer, having carried his subject forward to a convenient place of rest, now reverts to a point of time in the six days antecedent to man's appearance on the earth. In anticipation of his arrival, it was needful that a suitable abode should be prepared for his reception. Accordingly, having already mentioned the creation of plants, trees, and flowers, the narrative proceeds to describe the construction of Adam's early home. AND THE LORD GOD (Jehovah Elohim) PLANTED—_i.e._ specially prepared—A GARDEN (_gan_,_ _a place protected by a fence, from _ganan_,_ _to cover; hence a garden: cf. Deutero

AND THE NAME OF THE SECOND RIVER [IS] GIHON,.... There was one of this name in the land of Israel, which, or a branch of it, flowed near Jerusalem, 1 Kings 1:33 this Aben Ezra suggests is here meant, and which favours the notion of the above learned man, that the garden of Eden was in the land of Israel. Josephus h takes it to be the river Nile, as do many others; it seems to have been a branch of the river Euphrates or Tigris, on the eastern side, as Phison was on the west; and so Aben Ezra says it came from the south east. The learned Reland i will have it to be the river Araxes: it has its name, according to Jarchi, from the force it goes with, and the noise it makes. And it seems to have its name from גוח, which signifies to come forth with great force, as this river is said to do, when it pours itself into the Baltic sea. The same [is] it that compasseth the whole land of

Genesis 2:1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a...

II. THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH Man in Innocency before the Fall Genesis 2:4-45 _ 1. The earth his abode (Genesis 2:4)_ 2. The creation of man (Genesis 2:7) 3. The garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8) 4. Man in the garden. His commission (Genesis 2:15) a. To keep the garden b. The commandment 5. No helpmeet for Adam found (Genesis 2:18) 6. The formation of the woman (Genesis 2:21) 7. The un

J'S STORY OF CREATION AND PARADISE LOST. This story does not belong to P, for it is free from its characteristics in style, vocabulary, and point of view. It is distinguished from P's creation story by differences in form and in matter. The regular and precise arrangement, the oft-repeated formulæ, the prosaic style are here absent. We have, instead, a bright and vivid style, a story rather than a chronicle. The frank anthropomorphism would have been repugnant to the priestly writer, and a marked difference is to be observed between the two accounts. P starts from a watery chaos, this narrative from a dry waste. P represents the development of life as moving in a climax up to the creation of man and woman, while here man seems to be created first, then plants and animals, and woman last of all. The use of Yahweh, the anthropomorphism, and several characteristic expressions combine to sho...

VERSES 8-14 Figure of speech _Parecbasis._ App-6. GIHON. the river E. of the Tigris. The modern _Kerkhah,_ and ancient _Khoaspes,_ rising in the mountains of the _Kassi. Kas_ has been confused with the Heb, _Cush._ It is not the African Cush or Ethiopia, but the Accadian _kas._...

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