Genesis 2:17

2:16,17 Let us never set up our own will against the holy will of God. There was not only liberty allowed to man, in taking the fruits of paradise, but everlasting life made sure to him upon his obedience. There was a trial appointed of his obedience. By transgression he would forfeit his Maker's favour, and deserve his displeasure, with all its awful effects; so that he would become liable to pain, disease, and death. Worse than that, he would lose the holy image of God, and all the comfort of his favour; and feel the torment of sinful passions, and the terror of his Maker's vengeance, which must endure for ever with his never dying soul. The forbidding to eat of the fruit of a particular tree was wisely suited to the state of our first parents. In their state of innocence, and separated from any others, what opportunity or what temptation had they to break any of the ten commandments? The event proves that the whole human race were concerned in the trial and fall of our first parents. To argue against these things is to strive against stubborn facts, as well as Divine revelation; for man is sinful, and shows by his first actions, and his conduct ever afterwards, that he is ready to do evil. He is under the Divine displeasure, exposed to sufferings and death. The Scriptures always speak of man as of this sinful character, and in this miserable state; and these things are true of men in all ages, and of all nations.

Of the name of this tree, and the reasons of it; see Gill on Genesis 2:9 . thou shalt not eat of it; not that this tree had any efficacy in it to increase knowledge, and improve in science and understanding, as Satan suggested God knew; and therefore forbid the eating of it out of envy to man, which the divine Being is capable of; or that there was anything hurtful in it to the bodies of men, if they had eaten of it; or that it was unlawful and evil of itself, if it had not been expressly prohibited: but it was, previous to this injunction, a quite indifferent thing whether man ate of it or not; and therefore was pitched upon as a trial of man's obedience to God, under whose government he was, and whom it was fit he should obey in all things; and since he had a grant of all the trees of the garden but this, it was the greater aggravation of his offence that he should not abstain from it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die; or "in dying, die" (z); which denotes the certainty of it, as our version expresses it; and may have regard to more deaths than one; not only a corporeal one, which in some sense immediately took place, man became at once a mortal creature, who otherwise continuing in a state of innocence, and by eating of the tree of life, he was allowed to do, would have lived an immortal life; of the eating of which tree, by sinning he was debarred, his natural life not now to be continued long, at least not for ever; he was immediately arraigned, t

Genesis 2:17 . Of the tree of knowledge thou shalt not eat — Hitherto God has been manifested as man’s powerful Creator and bountiful Benefactor: now he appears as his Ruler and Lawgiver, and, as such, enters into covenant with him. He gives him but one positive precept, to try his obedience, which, as his Sovereign Lord, he had a right to do, annexing death to the breach, and, of consequence, life and immortality to the observance of it. It is evident, however, that this was not all God required of man, but that a law was written on his heart, requiring him to love God to the utmost extent of his capacity, and to imitate him in all holiness and righteousness. Thou shalt surely die — The death here threatened is evidently to be considered as opposed to the life (or lives rather, Genesis 2:7 ) which God had bestowed on him. This was not only the natural life of his body, in its union with his soul, but the spiritual life of his soul, in its union with God, and the eternal life of both. The threatening then implies: Thou shalt not only lose all the happiness thou hast, either in possession or prospect, and become liable to the death of thy body, and all the miseries which precede and accompany it; but thou shalt lose thy spiritual life, and become dead to God and things divine, and shalt even forfeit thy title to immortality, and be liable to death eternal. And all this in the day thou eatest thereof.

17 . of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ] See above, on Genesis 2:9 . Here only one tree is mentioned, as in Genesis 3:3 ; and it seems not unlikely that the mention of “the tree of life” did not belong to the main original version of the story, but was derived from a separate source. thou shalt not eat of it ] In this prohibition man is apprised of another element in the discipline to which he is subjected in the garden of the Lord God. In Genesis 2:15 it is his physical and intellectual powers which are to be exercised: in this verse he receives warning of a moral discipline. His moral being is to be tested by a simple injunction for which no reason is assigned. No hardship is imposed: but a limitation to self-gratification is required. He who makes the requisition has given freely the enjoyment of everything beside. Man’s character is to be tested in the simplest manner. Will he shew obedience to the Divine will and trust in the Divine goodness? in the day that … die ] Literally, in the day that Adam ate of the fruit, he did not die. This is one of the minor inconsistencies in the story which are not explained for us.

Either we are to assume that, in some fuller version of it, the Lord God was described as “repenting” of the sentence of immediate death, as changing His mind and sparing man in His mercy: or the words “in the day, &c.” are to be regarded as metaphorical, and the doom, “thou shalt surely die,” merely means “thou shalt become mortal.” We must not infer from this verse that the Lord God was considered, to have made man other than mortal. It is clear from Genesis 3:22 , that man was created a mortal being. Perhaps, in one version of the story, he was intended to eat of the tree of life “and live for ever.” Genesis 2:17

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 {m} die. (m) By death he means the separation of man from God, who is our life and chief happiness: and also that our disobedience is the cause of it.

With a threefold death. 1. Spiritual, by the guilt and power of sin: at that instant thou shalt be dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2:1 . 2. Temporal, or the death of the body, which shall then begin in thee, by decays, infirmities, terrors, dangers, and other harbingers of death. 3. Eternal, which shall immediately succeed the other.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying. - This is a pregnant sentence. It involves the first principles of our intellectual and moral philosophy. I. The command here given in words brings into activity the intellectual nature of man. First, the power of understanding language is called forth. The command here addressed to him by his Maker is totally different from the blessings addressed to the animals in the preceding chapter. It was not necessary that these blessings should be understood in order to be carried into effect, inasmuch as He who pronounced them gave the instincts and powers requisite to their accomplishment. But this command addressed to man in words must be understood in order to be obeyed. The capacity for understanding language, then, was originally lodged in the constitution of man, and only required to be called out by the articulate voice of God. Still there is something wonderful here, something beyond the present grasp and promptitude of human apprehension. If we except the blessing, which may not have been heard, or may not have been uttered before this command, these words were absolutely the first that were heard by man. The significance of the sentences they formed must have been at the same time conveyed to man by immediate divine teaching. How the lesson was taught in an instant of time we cannot explain, though we have a distant resemblance of it in an infant learning to understand its mother-tongue.