Study Guide for GENESIS: Chapter 2:7-18

Copyright 2019 by JWA

The normal Hebrew word for soul (living being) is nephesh, corresponding to psyche in the Greek NT. “The soul is, properly speaking, the animating principle of the body, and is the common property of [both] man and beast.” Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, 56. See Gen. 1:21, 24; 2:19 and Lev. 24:18 [lit. He that smiteth the soul of a beast].

The word ‘soul’ is frequently translated ‘person’ in English since the soul represents the person. [Girdlestone, op. cit.] Sometimes it is translated ‘life’ (Ex. 21:23). ‘Blood’ is sometimes used to represent the life of someone and the soul is the seat of life.

The spirit and soul of man are not synonymous terms. However, the spirit of man comes from God’s Spirit and is seated in the soul in such intimacy that speaking of the human soul includes that ‘space’ occupied by the divinely implanted spirit. A good analogy is this: The human soul is kind of like a lockbox that contains the spirit. Thus, when we speak of the “soul,” we refer to both the “soul” (the lockbox) and the “spirit” (what’s contained inside it)

So, in the Fall of man, it was not the soul (the animating life principle of the body) that was so corrupted, but what happened was the ‘death’ of the human spirit. Hence the need for a rebirth (the body did not die, the soul did not die, but the spirit died in the sense that the umbilical cord of communion between God and man was broken).

It is the gift of the human spirit, created by God’s Spirit, that creates in man his personhood, that invisible life whereby we are “enabled to feel, think, speak, and act in accordance with the Divine will.” Girdlestone, Ibid, p. 60

Lower animals have a soul like man only in the sense that they are living beings. What they lack, man possesses, which is an everlasting spirit embedded in that soul, a spirit which bears the image of God, a likeness in the form of personhood.

Note that for the first time (v.7), the Hebrew word Elohim (God) is combined with Yahweh (the Lord) to form “The Lord God.” This compound term identifies God more specifically in terms of relationship. “The God we are talking about is this God, and no other who may be called a god.” In other words, the God who is, and was and ever shall be is none other, Moses is telling us, than Yahweh (Lord in English), the God who entered into a covenant relationship with Israel in the time of Moses. Without elaboration, God established that relational connection by this double name.

“gan” = Hebrew connotes normally “an enclosed garden”

“Eden” = Hebrew means “delight, pleasure.” Thus, Eden was a district wherein God created this enclosed garden of exquisite beauty and perfect provision.

God tested Adam and Eve by putting two trees in the middle of the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We must not misunderstand this nomenclature. The “tree of life” does not mean a tree whose fruit is magically invested with chemical potency that imparts to the eater the gift of fullness of life (which implies also unending life). Rather we are to understand this tree as a testing tree, a tree that tested whether the original pair would choose God’s promise of the fullness of life by refraining from consuming its fruit or would they bypass that particular tree (tree of life) to which that reward was attached (full and unending life in communion with God) in favor of tasting of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so they could experience God-like wisdom—i.e. the perfect knowledge of good and evil, knowing independently, without recourse to God, what is favorable and disfavorable to their existence on this planet? Would they elect to be independent of God and self-sufficient or would rely strictly on Him, not only for moral knowledge, but functional knowledge of the best way to run their lives? This was the one and only law God gave them in the beginning, not to eat from this tree.

When Moses says that God “planted” a garden, this is an example of anthropomorphic language, which means that God is described from the human standpoint to help our finite minds understand Him and also for elegant simplicity.

The word Mesopotamia means “between two rivers,” namely the Tigris and the mighty Euphrates, where God placed the Garden of Eden. The Tigris runs somewhere in the neighborhood of ancient Ashur, the capital of ancient Assyria (the words are related).

Study Guide for GENESIS: Chapter 2:15-3:1

Copyright 2019 by JWA

Review from previous program:

The Hebrew word Adam means “man” or “mankind” (generically). It was also the “proper name” we call the first male human, Adam. He named his wife Eve.

God tested Adam and Eve by putting two trees in the middle of the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to test whether they would obey God’s command and enjoy fullness of life with Him or they would taste of the forbidden tree to experience God-like wisdom—independently of Him.

New content for today’s program:

The Hebrew word “ish” means man. Adam named his wife “woman” (“issha”) to indicate that she was part of him.

Important note: During his series in Genesis, Pastor Jim used the 1984 NIV version as one of the translations he read from. He does not use or endorse the 2011 NIV version due to its unbiblical use of gender-neutral language. See this article for details: https://krisispraxis.com/archives/2015/07/the-niv-2011-gender-neutral-translation-controversy-and-new-gold-standard-bible/ .

Study Guide for GENESIS: Chapter 3:1-5

Copyright 2019 by JWA

Here is the relevant passage in 1 Tim. 2:9-15 that Pastor Jim refers to:

9Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, 10but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. 11A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org

Here is part of today’s quote from this TFW program:

“As much as feminists rebel at this, the Apostle Paul cites two independent but compounding reasons why ONLY men are allowed to lead churches and preach: 1) Adam was created first, as the head of the species and the home, and 2) Eve’s deception proves a greater susceptibility among women than men (who have their own susceptibilities) to spiritual deception.”

“more crafty” – the Heb. word (amod) means: negatively “crafty,” or positively “prudent”. Taken over by the power of Satan, prudence devolves into craftiness, a sneaky cleverness. The Devil turns every virtue into a vice when it comes under his power, as here.

“BTW: On a purely side note—In the interest of biblical accuracy, the text never says the fruit was an apple, just as the text never says a whale swallowed Jonah or that the Apostle Paul said that money is the root of all evil (he said it was a root, not the root). The last error is the most misleading.”

Editor’s note: Pastor Jim wrote an excellent article, “Boundaries without Bonds: How to Keep Headship from Becoming a Hardship,” on the biblical definition and parameters of male leadership in 2002: https://jimandrewsbooks.com/articles/

Study Guide for GENESIS: Chapter 3:9-21

Copyright 2019 by JWA

v. 10 “He [Adam] answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Explanation of Theophany (theophanies):

“I heard you in the garden. . .” The narrative is unfolded in the simplest terms so a child can understand, shorn of theological nomenclature that might bend the mind. Moses is telling us that by implication that in the garden the first couple enjoyed as God intended, familiar fellowship with their Maker, up so close and personal, that God would appear to them in theophanies, disguising His all-consuming glory, to converse with them as He did with Abraham (prior to the destruction of Sodom) and as the glorified Christ did in the vision His disciples witnessed on the sacred mount when Christ conversed with Moses and Elijah or with His disciples in His post-resurrection appearances.

v. 15 “He” () The masculine pronoun is first seminal hint of a coming Redeemer in God’s plan. “He” the Redeemer, will conquer the Serpent (capital S), while the serpent will do not more than strike His heel—damage but not kill (in the final sense of the term).

20 “And Adam named his wife, Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” Explanation of Eve, (Heb. chavvah = life).

In the wake of a curse involving the formal imposition of the promised penalty in case of disobedience to God’s command, here is a ray of hope for redemption. In the face of it, Adam is so bold as to give his wife (naming was an act signifying Adam’s authority over the woman) the hopeful name Eve (Heb. chavvah = life). Whereas Adam should have expected the extinction of his kind, based upon the curse, the Lord God allowed for the merciful survival (in temporal terms) of his race through Eve, his wife. And in faith in God’s mercy and grace, it appears Adam embraced God’s redemptive seeking of them rather than casting them to the wind after their disobedience and fall.

Study Guide for GENESIS: Chapter 3:21-4:3

Copyright 2019 by JWA

22 “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

“become like one of us” Though scholarly opinion differs, I don’t think ‘us’ is to be identified with the heavenly court in general, but is the same as ‘us’ back in 1:26 — a seminal reference to the Trinitarian nature of the divine being. ‘Seminal’ in the sense that biblical revelation has a tendency to at first drop seeds or hints of truth that, as revelation progresses, the light gradually becomes fuller or more developed until at last in the NT the truth matures. Thus, the truth in the OT is fully truth (so far as it goes), but not truly full (especially at the beginning of the stream, but in the NT the truth disclosed is fuller). That is what we mean by the phrase the progress of revelation. First, an eye dropper, then a cup, and at last a hose or fulsome stream of better light.

“become like one of us” Man was made in the image and likeness of the Godhead, but remember what this does (and doesn’t) mean:

“What does the phrase ‘image and likeness of God’ mean? By adding ‘likeness’ (Genesis 1:26), Moses indicates that this does NOT mean an exact one. Not ‘a little god,’ as heretical charismatics (esp. NAR) teach. Rather, a divinely designed similarity, including an ability to commune with God.”

“knowing good and evil” – Man had transitioned from a state of innocence where, like infants, he was for good reason unaware of the presence of evil. All was good until the Serpent entered his realm and his moral consciousness was awakened (no longer dormant) to the polar opposites. And he had chosen the worse (evil) as the better part. A fatal choice that disconnected him from eternal life that had been within his reach had he chosen good (eating of the tree of life).

“He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

To deny our original parents the gift of continuous eternal life is not hard to understand. That consequence is penalty of their sin, for the wages of sin was (and remains) everlasting death. But inasmuch as that life is a gift of God, for God is the source of everlasting life, it puzzles that eternal life seems to be a benefit that God has imparted to the tree itself, which benefit is inherited by those to partake of the fruit of the tree.

In that case, I am compelled to conclude that God as He wills, can impart life-giving or healing properties to anything he pleases (e.g. figs in the case of Hezekiah’s boil, manna in the wilderness (a type of the Bread of Life, namely, Christ, the waters of the Jordan (Naaman), the pool of Siloam (the blind man of John 9), etc.

To cut off Adam and Eve from access to the tree of life vested with the power of imparting everlasting life (i.e. living forever) was a severe mercy. Why? Because fallen man would have been destined to live forever, but imprisoned irredeemably in spiritual death as a consequence of sin.

Study Guide for GENESIS: Chapter 4:3-7

Copyright 2019 by JWA

This content from Chapter 4 not included with previous Study Guide:

  1. Now the man had relations with his wife, Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.”

“had relations” The Hebrew verb “yada” is (literally) “knew,” which includes a broad range of meaning from “know” in the ordinary sense, all the way to “sexual intimacy.” This means that sexual relations between a man and his wife is not an instinctual animal act, but a physical expression of marital intimacy.

By the way, sex is a gift of God for married people. It is not an expression of human corruption, but a pleasure that enhances its original purposes. The corruption of sex is when God’s gift is taken outside of His boundaries and is engaged in solely for recreation as its end, and not its benefit inside marriage. Everything God gave us in creation is good; what man does with God’s gifts due to his corrupted nature is to pervert them.

Eve’s statement (4:1) after delivering Cain was, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth (Hebrew can mean “acquired or created”) a man.

The prepositional phrase “with the help of the Lord” is accentuated. By inserting this statement on the part of Eve, Moses seems to tell us that in some manner not described to us in this compressed narration of events, that the Lord, merciful, gracious, ever compassionate, after spelling out the consequences of human transgression, reached out to them and restored them to His fellowship, after symbolically covering them physically and spiritually with the skins of animals that had to be sacrificed for the purpose. I take it that Adam and Eve were at that point reconciled to God in repentance and faith.

So here Eve acknowledges God as the One who helped her conceive and give birth.

New content from today’s program:

7 “But if you do not do what is right, sin (like a lion lying in ambush) is crouching at the door; it desires to have you (dominate and devour you), but [if there is any hope for you in conquering this threat], you must [recognize the peril] and rule it [check it] before it rules you.”

Sin was running loose in Cain’s life. It was unleashed in the Garden. Now it was running free and roaming about like a hungry lion seeking whoever it may devour. Such a threat demands defensive action; otherwise it will rule us rather than be ruled by us. If Cain turned his heart to God, and rejected sin as his master, God would have saved him and sustained him.

By the way, the language of 4:7 is similar to God’s words to Eve in 3:16b, “Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”