JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today, Jason and Tom go through the first half of Genesis 2. Topics include the new name Moses uses for God in this chapter, the special statement Moses uses to divide Genesis, and the importance of the four rivers.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. Tom and Jason here, and today we’re going to be in the Book of Genesis. Hi, Jason.

JD: Hey Tom, glad to be back.

TK: Yeah, this will be really good. We’re continuing a conversation we had in one of our text or event podcasts. We talked about Genesis 1. And Jason, you were suggesting that when we think about Genesis 1, we should actually move beyond that chapter as a unit, correct?

JD: That’s right. The structure of Genesis 1 is given to us as God’s work week. Six days He works and the seventh day he rests. But the seventh day isn’t found until 2:1–3. So even though a chapter boundary occurs in the middle of this extended episode, we need to treat the entire episode together, and that means covering Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 as a unit. Then in 2:4 we get a key heading, and there are ten of these headings throughout the rest of the book: “These are the generations.” These “generations” headings that we see throughout the book really are Moses’s way of bringing structure to the whole. But what it means is that first chapter, Genesis 1:1 through 2:3, is separate from those headings and very intentionally placed as a preface to Genesis, a preface to the whole Pentateuch, and indeed a preface to the whole of the Christian Scripture.

TK: So would you say that in some ways then, if that’s a preface, then Genesis 2 is really the first chapter of this book we have? Is that a fair way of saying it?

JD: You know, it really is. The very story that’s going to carry all the way to Revelation 22 begins in Genesis 2:4. Now, that may sound strange because mankind was created in Genesis 1:26. God says, “let us make man” and then he makes them in his image. But when we get to Genesis 2:4, the story recapitulates. It starts over again. Mankind is not yet created in the beginning of Genesis 2:4. So the story then picks up right here as if from the start and then carries all the way to the end of Revelation. So indeed this is like the first chapter of the Bible. But we’re not supposed to read it as the first chapter as if it’s standing alone. It’s been given a preface. And we’re supposed to read the preface in order to read everything else that follows rightly.

TK: Alright. I’m thinking of a couple things. One, wondering what you want to tackle first—that statement you said in 2:4, “These are the generations of” and then it’s followed by, in this case, “the heavens and the earth.” You say there’s ten of those. Do you want to go down that road or do you want to go a little further and just talk about some other differences between 1:1 through 2:3 and this chunk we’re in?

JD: Well, why don’t we just start there with the generations title? It doesn’t have to take long. You could look in probably most study Bibles and see that there are these 10 generations headings, but what’s often missed is that of these 10 generations headings, 5 of them begin with “and.” And that means that you actually get 5 groupings of headings rather than 10 independent units. These five groupings—so you have a heading that is just standing alone, “These are the generations of,” then in 5:1 we see the next heading, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” But when we get up to chapter 6, verse 9, it says, “These are the generations of Noah.” And so it connects certain generations headings.

Now of these 10 headings, 5 of them introduce genealogies, and five of them introduce narratives. All the narratives, like this one in Genesis 2:4 through chapter 4, focus on God’s work among a remnant people, those who were believing in him. Now in this first generations unit, we have this story about Adam and Eve and God’s commission, clarifying their role and their function. We read about their Fall. We read about God’s response to the Fall, and we get Adam and Eve’s expression of faith in God after the Fall, and it really sets the context then for the rest of the story. We have the global problem of sin and curse, and the rest of the story beyond this point is going to unpack God’s response to that global problem. Is there hope of seeing blessing overcome curse? And the answer is yes. Yes, there is.

Now of the other 4 generations headings that introduce stories, all four of them are focused on the believing remnant. Then we consider the other five that all introduce genealogies, like in 5:1. What follows is an extended genealogy, and it’s the genealogy of Adam and it happens to be a certain type of genealogy. We see this in Chapter 5 and in Chapter 11—we call it a linear genealogy because it only focuses on one offspring in each generation. Adam gave birth to Seth and there were other kids. Seth gave birth to Enosh or fathered Enosh, and there were other kids. One specific descendant in each generation.

Of the five major genealogies that are introduced by generations headings within the Book of Genesis, two of them are linear genealogies, and both of those genealogies focus on this line of promise within the Book of Genesis. As soon as we get to Genesis 3:15, we see there’s two different lines of descent that come forth from the Book of Genesis. There is the offspring of the serpent, and they’re going to get their own genealogies and their own stories. And then there’s the line of promise that is hoping in the offspring of the woman. The offspring of the woman is a male descendant who in this book is a royal figure in the line of Shem, in the line of Abraham, in the line of Judah. So we learn all that—he’s going to be a royal figure and he’s going to be the agent of blessing. And there’s an entire line in this book of those believing—we would call them the believing remnant—standing against the unbelieving majority in the world. This remnant, believing remnant minority, who are hoping in that offspring promise, and two of these genealogies connected with generations headings focus on that believing remnant.

But then there’s three genealogies that are focused on the rebel line, and in this book they’re included in order to clarify who it is—they’re all of Israel’s neighbors. It clarifies who it is that needs the blessing, who it is that becomes the mission field that Abraham’s offspring is to target. So 2 lines of descent and this is a book dominated by offspring language, dominated by generations headings, and we get the first clue of that in Genesis 2:4.

Intriguingly, this is the only generations heading that’s not connected to humans. This is the generations of the heavens and the earth—that is, the products of the heavens and the earth. And this book starts out excessively broad, focused on the whole universe, then the next heading narrows in on Adam, and then the next heading that doesn’t begin with “and” is focused on Noah. So now we move from the representative of all humanity to the remnant amidst a whole sea—literally in the flood—of rebels who God is judging. Then God narrows it in to the offspring of Shem who is in the preserved line, Noah’s son, who’s preserved, and then at the end of the book we’ve narrowed all the way to Jacob, who’s going to be called Israel.

So the book starts out universally, then moves through Adam, narrows all the way down to Israel and gets us ready for the rest of the Pentateuch, which is focused on Israel, and indeed the rest of the Old Testament story. But it starts broad, focused on the heavens and the earth, and on the whole world, in order to set a context for the mission of Israel to the world.

TK: It reminds me of what we talked about in 1 Peter 1:10-12, that chunk where it says the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours. And Moses is different from later ones because he’s not searching earlier pieces of scripture because there are none. But what you’re saying is he knows exactly what he’s writing about as he’s narrowing this funnel down.

JD: He knows exactly what he’s writing about, and even Moses, who gives us his Scripture, he has something called “The Book of the Generations of Adam.” He has a book, he has sources. He has documentation, most likely written down, of the promises given to the Patriarchs, and he’s able to look and search and inquire, even in that material, and interpret it by the power of the Spirit to give clarity to future generations that the Messiah is coming. So he doesn’t have written Scripture as we know it—he’s the first one who gives us Bible. And yet there was still authoritative documentation he’s looking at. He’s looking at something and he’s engaging with a long history of tradition that was maintained, most likely in written form, among a believing group that’s been passed on from generation to generation. The promises given to Adam, the promises given through Noah, the promises given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, these were carried on all the way into Egypt and retained by Moses, and then brought together in what we know of as the Pentateuch.

TK: OK, so this is a marker that divides Genesis 2:4. It kind of starts out this—you said really the start of the story even though you said we have a preface. I’m looking at this chunk of Scripture right now looking at 2:4 and going just a little bit further. Can you help us understand a little bit? Because in Genesis 1:1 through 2:3, we see the name God in English.

JD: 35 times. Yep.

TK: And we talked about why that’s so significant, why no pronouns are used, for instance “He”. But then in 2:4 we switched to Lord God. So can you talk a little bit about what’s going on there? Because then in 2:4, I read Lord God, Lord is in all capitals, 2:5 Lord God, 2:7 Lord God, it clearly Moses is doing something different here.

JD: Right, right. So we know “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” God is the most generic title for the Ultimate Supreme One. He is the Creator of everything, the upholder of everything, but the title is the most general title for spiritual, divine Lord over all things. When we get to what in most of our English translations is “Lord God”—Lord in all capitals—Lord is representing the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh. And so we read, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens.”

Now what that does for Israel—we’re told in Exodus 6 that prior to the exodus, prior to God’s intrusion into space and time to capture his people out of Egypt, like in the days of Abraham, they didn’t know God as this new generation is going to know him. God didn’t disclose himself as Yahweh. We’re told in Exodus 6, but we can read all throughout Genesis, including right here in Genesis 2:4, where Yahweh’s name shows up. And it’s Moses writing on the other side of Mount Sinai, who gives us the Book of Genesis.

So we have to be thinking, OK, what has Israel learned about Yahweh and what is Genesis 2:4 then signaling for them? Well, Yahweh, the very name is connected to the verb of being—am, is, are, was, were, be, being and been. In Hebrew it’s “haya” and we read that verb in Exodus Chapter 3 when God says “I am who I am.” “Ehyeh asher ehyeh“—I am who I am. And he says tell Israel—and then he uses the verb as if it were a proper name—tell them “I Am” has sent me to you. But then in the very next verse, he says “Yahweh has sent me to you” and Yahweh—if “I am” is in first person, where God’s talking about himself, then God says, “Yahweh has sent me to you,” and that’s the same verbal form, but in third person. “He is”—but that vowel “Yahweh” or “Yahweh” signals something else. It signals that we’re not just talking about “He is.” We’re talking about “He causes”—the causer of all things.

And this is God’s covenant name with Israel. And he says it’s supposed to be memorialized, remembered forever, and Moses’s audience sees this name and it’s connected to the God who created all things. And it’s giving them a signal: “Yes, Yahweh, the one who’s redeemed us from Egypt, the one who met us at Mount Sinai, is the one who created heavens and earth. He did it all. It’s the very same being.” And that being that we read about in the Book of Genesis is the general God of all the world there. He’s the one to whom they’re supposed to look, but he’s also our specific God, who’s entered into our history, called us to himself.

This God, who has caused all things—I think about the difference like this: C.S. Lewis, when he would talk about himself, he could say “I am Jack Lewis” and he was much more than the author of the Chronicles of Narnia. But had he written himself into the story like our God has written himself into our story, all the Narnians would see Jack Lewis and simply call him “the causer.” He is the author of all things from their perspective. That’s what they know about him—only what he has disclosed of himself within the story. So God is much more than the causer of space and time, but from our perspective the reason we use this name in association with him is because he is indeed the causer of all, and that’s directly connected within Genesis 2:4 to his creation of the Earth and the heavens.

TK: The words there—“the Lord God made” in 2:4 and it says in 2:5 “for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land”—it’s all talking about what you’re talking about, God being the one who causes things to be.

JD: It’s an amazing name and we see it all throughout the Old Testament. They did not hesitate to write God’s name over and over again, and then they even included that name in other people’s names, like Elijah—the “jah” at the end, pronounced “yah” in Hebrew is a shortened form of Yahweh. “El” is a shortened form of Elohim—God. “Eli” is “my God.” “My God is Yahweh”—that’s what Elijah means. Or Zechariah—“zakar” is “to remember”, “Yahweh remembers me”, or my son’s extended name Azariah (shortened form of Ezra)—“azar” is “help”, “Yahweh has helped.” That’s what we’re seeing here. And Israel celebrated this name. It’s a name of hope for all who are desperate because God is able to cause new things to come where they do not exist. He is able to heal and help and bring wholeness. He is able to transform and restore. And we celebrate that he’s a God who’s able to make dead people live. And that is our spiritual hope, our eternal hope. He is the causer of all things.

TK: If you were preaching through Genesis, preaching, teaching, doing a Sunday school class, something like that—would you note this difference in the names of God between Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4 through the end of—we’re just talking about 2 today, but would you note it? Would you talk about it or would you have any thoughts of “Oh, that’s complicated, I’m not going to go down that road”? How would you sort that out?

JD: It seems that Moses is being very intentional. It’s kind of like Paul when he went in Acts 17 and he arrives at the Areopagus and he says, “I can tell you’re a very religious people and I’m going to tell you about the God that is on this statue, the Unknown God.” And that’s kind of like where Genesis 1 stands—this is the generic name for the God that’s over all things. And yet in Genesis 2 he becomes very specific. He’s given a name. We move from just a title to a name with that title—he is Yahweh God.

And it makes it more personal, I think. This is the God who’s entered in and saved Israel’s lives from the slavery in Egypt and he wants them to call him by his name—to call him by his name. He’s a personal God who is present, who said to Moses, “Who’s made man’s mouth? Who makes him deaf and dumb and seeing and blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?” He’s the very God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart, who turned the Nile into blood. And when he said “Let the lights turn out,” everything became darkness. He’s the God who controls nature and who redeems a people and discloses himself and his will in a way that they can understand. This personal God, Yahweh, whose name is an ever-present reminder that he is in charge.

So I think it’s important to know. It’s kind of like—God is not from a distance. He is present. This is not the deistic God, who’s just in the abstract. Yes, there is a God above, Allah. No, he has a name and he’s made himself personally known to creatures whom he should have—whom rather than destroying them, he didn’t destroy the rebels. Instead, he gave them his word in a book and sought to save them. So it’s an amazing step and so yes, I think I would preach it. I wouldn’t want to miss it.

TK: I think just reading—looking at I’m looking at this chunk now from 2:5 down to about 9, even how God relates to creation in this chapter, in 2:4 through 25, versus what we see in chapter one, where in chapter one “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth”—it’s all at a distance, but we’re not seeing his, if you want to use language like this, his—we’re not watching him use his hands or breathe. Using language like this, 2:7 says “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” We’ve come close to God in doing his work. In chapter one we’re at a distance watching it happen, but here we are right up close, personal with this Redeemer God that you’re talking about.

JD: Yes, it’s very much like we hop into the sixth day of Genesis 1 and we see it unpacked now with clarity and with a personal edge. This God is not just in the heavens doing all that he pleases. He is also in a very tangible way coming to Earth, forming man from the dust and breathing into his nostrils the very breath of life so that he becomes a living soul, a living creature, this being whose responsibility it is to display the greatness of God. He alone as the image of God. It’s a personal unpacking that is somewhat distant from the previous chapter.

TK: What do you notice if we just took now—Moving from there, so verses 5 through 9 in Genesis 2, what do you notice here that you would highlight—say, “Hey, this is significant in this chunk of scripture here”? So this is the part that’s talking about that there’s been no rain yet. There was no man to work the ground. It talks about a mist was coming up from the land. And then it says the Lord God formed the man of dust. He planted a garden, put the man in the garden. And then trees are springing up. And then we have two trees that we talked about. What would you notice here, highlight for us, Jason?

JD: Well, for starters, anyone who’s read Genesis 1 might be a little bit arrested by the fact that in Genesis 1 the plants sprout on day three. Mankind is not created until day six, but in 2:5, it says there’s no bush of the field yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up because there wasn’t a man to work the ground, and because God hadn’t caused it to rain. That might seem like there’s a tension between these.

So the first thing I’d want to draw attention to—our people are going to see that and what do we do with it? And here’s what I do with it. I note that the field is the sphere that in 3:18 we’re told that thorns and thistles would bring forth—God would bring them forth for the man and he would eat the plants of the field. Not only that, the field is the place where the beasts are. It’s 3:1: the serpent is more crafty than any of the beasts of the field. This is the sphere outside of the garden.

And then that language of “bush”—the bush is associated with the wilderness in Genesis 21:15, in Job 30:4 and 7. It’s this particular bush that is associated with a region not of fertility. It’s a bush that shows up in the wasteland. And it raises the question for me—huh, that’s the imagery of the sphere of the curse. We learned that there was no small plant of the field that had not yet sprouted, so the seed may be there but it had not yet sprung. And then we learned that God had not yet caused it to rain.

This suggests to me a handful of things. There’s no man to work the ground. This is the very thing that we read in 3:23 when God casts Adam and Eve out of the garden. They are supposed to work the ground from which he was taken. I think that Moses is giving the reader a signal that the curse that you and I are living in—Moses is saying to his readers—had not yet happened. The curse had not yet happened. We’re living in a day when the waste associated with the sphere of the field, things like thorns and thistles, had not yet sprung up. We’re also living before the rainy season had started, and before God had kicked mankind out to work the ground.

So I think it’s a signal right up front in Chapter 2 for the reader to know where do we fit in the story as we start this story—we’re starting before the curse. Before it was anything like we have it today. The regular cycles of seasons have not been initiated yet or we’re jumping into the season before the rainy season. We’re entering into where there was not yet the curse of waste, bushes of thorns and thistles, and before mankind had been set apart to—and kicked out of the garden, potentially to work the ground in that way.

TK: OK. I think that would be different from how a lot of us would see that, but that really helps there. So Moses is writing obviously, you said, on the other side of Sinai and he’s just prepping the people—this is what’s going on in human history at this point, the curse hasn’t happened yet.

JD: That’s the best that I can do right now with trying to understand what he is saying and how it relates then to Genesis 1. The second thing I would draw attention to is verse 7. The Lord formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Then the Lord planted the garden in the east, and there he put the man. So the man is formed from the dust of the ground, the very ground that verse 5 said he would be working, and yet he’s not created in the garden. Humanity is created outside of the garden or separate from the garden and then put into the garden and shaped from the very dust of the ground.

So God is shaping from the dust—it’s like a little sand castle, but it’s a person—shapes him and here he’s also called “the man” in contrast to Genesis 1, where it simply said God created man, mankind in general, humanity. Here it’s “the man” in contrast to the woman. So the man is the one who’s shaped first, and he’s shaped outside of the garden. And then he’s placed into the garden.

Now with respect to Israel as readers, this is exactly what happened in their existence. They were shaped outside of the promised land and then put into the promised land. And like Adam will be kicked out of the garden, Israel will be kicked out of the garden. Very similarly to the church today—God is shaping his people and readying us to place us into our new paradise called the new heavens and the new Earth. The people are shaped before the property, and then we are placed into the property. It’s the pattern that’s set throughout Scripture and we see it first right here—placed outside of the garden and then placed into the garden as a living soul who is supposed to, according to Genesis 1, be displaying the greatness of God.

TK: So he’s put in a garden in Eden and he’s going to have work there, but what we first get is that there are trees that are springing up pleasant to the sight, good for food. And then we mentioned two specific ones, the Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How should we think about these trees?

JD: Well, the author, Moses, is clearly setting up the story, isn’t he? He’s wanting us to gain focus. We have a tree that is related to life and then a tree that’s related to knowledge. And this knowledge pertains to both good and evil. The fact that good and evil are side by side here suggests that we’re talking about moral realities. Another element that is very significant is the very fact that we can call something good and call something evil. That necessitates that within God’s world, as Genesis is being given, there’s a framework or standard. There’s a framework of a reality that includes a standard. God is the measure.

In chapter one, what did we hear? It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was very good, sfter humanity was created. We read that in Genesis 1:31 it was very good. But now, for the first time, we read about something that is the potential for evil—a tree by which will come a knowledge. And I think that in this story, this knowledge is something God intends humanity to gain, but they can gain it through obedience, or they can gain it through disobedience. But there’s going to be a discernment between what is right and what is wrong, what is good, and what is evil.

And then next to this tree is associated a tree of life, and I’m not certain whether this was like one tree, a single tree, or something more like when we say “the apple tree.” And by that we’re talking about a type of tree that there could have been many of. I say it this way because when we get to Revelation, what we find is that the tree of life is on both sides of the great river in Revelation 21. And it’s nourishing people, but the tree of life is like there’s this shoot of life. We can talk more about what’s going on there, but it’s sprouting everywhere.

But what’s right is that there’s life and at this point, Adam and Eve probably wouldn’t have known what death was, but they’re going to learn about it. They’re going to—I mean, God’s going to talk about it very shortly, and they’re getting categories that experience will then fill in. But there is ground from which God causes every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for food. This is exactly what we’re going to read about in Chapter 3. This is how the temptation is going to happen, because there’s attraction to these spheres, but there’s two contexts. There’s a tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the rest of the story we’re going to have to look into to figure out why are these important.

Another element that is significant is the Lord planted the garden in the east. And there he put man, the man whom he had formed—the garden in the east. That’s toward the sun. And we know that temples were always faced—I mean, it was consistent—toward the sun in the ancient world. But outside of Scripture, that was because the gods would sleep at night and the sun would rise in the east and shine into the Holy of Holies, and their idol would begin to glow. But in Israel’s temple there were all these curtains that were set up so that the glory that was emanating from the Holy of Holies was known to be actual glory, actual light from God, and not reflected from the sun.

But even this eastward context may be anticipating, for example, the fact that Israel is going to enter the promised land from the east, and it’s a signal—it’s a connection that is setting up the reader. Adam and Eve are going to be kicked out of this garden and not allowed to enter into the paradise. Just that eastward comment may be one more connection that Israel is supposed to be making to see some link between what God’s doing in the garden that’s in Eden and what he has done or is doing in relation to the Tabernacle and the promised land that they are enjoying.

TK: And we haven’t even talked about that yet and we’re getting close to wrapping up here, but that idea—just connecting the garden with the Tabernacle. Can you make a comment about that? We’ll get back to that. But the temple, the Tabernacle, the garden, new heavens, new Earth.

JD: Yes, right. The portrait that’s given of the Tabernacle and then of the temple—it’s all, it always includes fruitful imagery, pomegranates, trees, almond blossoms. Life and light and it’s as if they’re portraying that what the Tabernacle is, it’s a restored Eden. It’s where God would meet with man. It’s the original vision set forth of this paradise garden where the Lord dwelt with humanity, even with people.

Even the very next verses where we say a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers, and these four rivers stretch out across the ancient world, so that the rivers of life flowing from Eden, where the presence of God—it was designed to take life to all the world. But what that means is that Eden was up on a mountain, and that’s exactly where the gods of the ancient world dwelt.

TK: And you’re saying that because the river is flowing down, right? That’s why you’re saying it’s on a mountain?

JD: Because the river is flowing down. That’s right. It’s on a mountain. And from this point forward, whether it’s the mountain in Jerusalem—well, beginning with Mount Sinai, then the mountain in Jerusalem or Mount Zion, this future portrait of where God will meet his people, it’s always portrayed as a mountain. And from the start here in Genesis 2 there is a mountain with known rivers in regions stretching all the way to Africa that God is intending to bring the rivers of life to these various spheres.

TK: So this is a question for me as we’re preaching, teaching, thinking—we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 verses on these rivers and where they are and gold being there and things like that. And it almost seems—can seem like random details that you just took me outside of the story. Why do I care? Why is Moses making this point here and what should I do with it?

JD: I think he’s setting up the reader to think about Eden in a certain way, to recognize that something was supposed to be happening from Eden as the rivers of life flowed. With that would go humanity. And it’s setting us up because we’re going to see this, the specific instructions that follow given to Adam and Eve. What are they supposed to do? But already from Genesis 1, we know they’re supposed to fill the earth, multiply and subdue it. It’s as if God is—wherever he started planting the first man and the first woman, they’re supposed to be a Kingdom family, God’s Kingdom oriented on God’s Kingdom, and that Kingdom family will become a Kingdom community that is supposed to fill the earth.

And the implication is follow the rivers of life to the various corners of the planet, taking the image of God there. It’s as if—I mean already this is setting us up to be thinking that an image—why does God use that language? That’s the very language outside the Bible of what an idol is—an idol in a temple. But in God’s temple there’s no physical image apart from humanity. It’s as if God is wanting his temple to be expanding and his image to fill the planet. That’s actually what I think Moses is indeed setting us up for, and we need to read the rest of the chapter to gain clarity.

But all of these spheres—and honestly, geographically, we don’t know where all of the areas are. Havilah—we know that name. The Pishon River—that’s a foreign name. But we have a sense from the rest of Scripture where Havilah was in the region of Saudi Arabia, northern Saudi Arabia. With respect to the Gihon, we know of the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem, which might be a testimony that there is an underground water source flowing from Eden. But we know where Cush is. Cush is in the northeast side of Africa. So and that was the southernmost area where humanity resided. The name of the river Tigris—we know that river and it flows east of Assyria. And then the 4th river, the Euphrates, that also is familiar.

Now what we have to remember is all of this is pre-flood. And yet there’s rivers that were already there, springs that were already there, that it seems as though the post-flood world was still able to identify sources, water sources that are connected to these various water links. But they are the very sources of water in the ancient world that gave life to humans. They characterize what we call the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia because—it’s fertile because that’s where the water is.

And so I would just pause and help our people know that these details—we don’t need to go beyond what they’re saying. But it’s identifying major corners of the ancient world, and God is taking his rivers of life there. And he’s already told us that mankind are supposed to fill the earth, and it suggests that he’s preparing the way for his image to be taken to the ends of the planet.

TK: And so if we would say something like “It’s too difficult, I can’t go there”—the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, is saying, “Wait a minute, I have already gone there. I have prepared the way for this.”

JD: That’s right. “I’ve already prepared the way. So take my image to the ends of the earth.” It’s really actually a very hopeful statement that God prepared the way for his image bearers to reach the ends of the Earth and to supply for them what they would need to flourish. He’s giving them the waters that are flowing out of the tree of life and the sphere of the tree of life.

And so those are elements that I would want to draw attention to if I were preaching the text. And what’s intriguing is when we get into the prophets, they talk about a river flowing from the new Zion, the New Jerusalem. They even talk about specifically this region of Cush being the very first place where, after the Tower of Babel incident dispersed all of humanity to the far reaches of the globe, that it was the region of Cush that would be the instigator of a new restoration and they would follow—it says—the rivers of life back to the presence of God. And Cush was ancient—what it was called in Greek—ancient Ethiopia. And it’s, I think, very intentional that in Acts 8 it is the Ethiopian eunuch who is the first Gentile convert, stressing the fulfillment of that prophetic vision. But anyway, that’s for another podcast.

TK: I love it. I love all these connections here. We obviously didn’t even talk about some things like verse 7 where it says “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The man became a living creature—from the book of John when Jesus was raised from the dead and breathes on his apostles and says “receive the Holy Spirit”—connections here that we’re saying wait a minute, you’re retelling…

JD: New creations.

TK: The story from—yep, and so even parts that we just talked about where we have people with the breath of life, a second Adam, if you want to say it. Faithful and we have to assume even going further that God’s River, God’s help is going so that we can fulfill this mandate we’ve been given—fill the earth.

JD: Very good. We’ll pick up here maybe on our next podcast.

TK: I love it. Thanks, Jason.

JD: Yes.

JY: Thanks for joining us for GearTalk. We’ve included a link to our preacher’s guide to the book of Genesis in our show notes. If you have any questions about biblical theology you’d like us to address on future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Also check out handstotheplow.org for resources designed to help you understand the Bible and its teachings.