Bible Study On: Book of Genesis, Chapters 2
by Russell J. Schmidt
Genesis Chapter Two ~ NKJV
1) Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
2) And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3) Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
The Story of Adam
4) This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
5) before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;
6) but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
7) 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 living being.
Life in God’s Garden
8) The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
9) And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10) Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads.
11) The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12) And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
13) The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.
14) The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
15) Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
16) And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
17) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
18) And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
19) Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
20) So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
21) And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
22) Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23) And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
24) Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25) And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
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Bible Study: Book of Genesis, Chapter Two
Verses 1-7:
Creation
As God finished creation in six days, He establishes a law concerning the seventh day; He sanctified it and made it Holy. And sanctify means just that; to make something Holy. Why did God sanctify this seventh day? Well, there are a few reason’s for this and although it sounds as though God ordains this for selfish reasons, the benefits, as we will see, for mankind, far outweigh those benefits that God gets out of this.
As much as some detractors will try to point to this issue, God does not need to gratify Himself. Sure, God’s whole intention with creation is to establish fellowship with like minded people. He did not create mankind just so He can feel good and have them bow down to Him on His throne.
We must remember what God Himself had to suffer as He lowered Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, and died a gruesome death on the cross for the same people who were crucifying Him. We get a picture from Isaiah, on how gruesome this crucifixion was.
In Isaiah 52:13-14, we read that Jesus was disfigured beyond human likeness. "13) See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14) Just as there were many who were appalled at him — his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.“
According to what we read here in Isaiah, Jesus was unrecognizable as a man. Although many said he went overboard with the gory details, the depictions that were portrayed in Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of the Christ, of Christ’s torture, may have been mild as compared to what Isaiah says. So, to think that God would go through all that just to gratify Himself is ludicrous.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of this seventh day of rest. First and foremost, it is a day to set aside and worship God for all He has done for us. Again, this sounds like gratification to God Himself, but the benefits here for us far outweigh the benefits to God.
God was well aware for the beginning that man had a spirit that was corruptible. You say, why would He create us this way? There’s a very good reason, and it wasn’t that God was in error. This was an intentional design. God created man with freedom of choice. So, freedom of choice is one of the natural laws that governs creation. This law of freedom of choice is the law that gives our spirit of man the potential for corruption.
If we choose wrong, we corrupt our relationship with God. You see, we know that God created us in perfect communion with Himself; we see this back in Genesis 1:31, where God says, after He finished creating all things including man, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”
If God made things “very good,” He is giving it His stamp of approval; a far cry from how He felt when He was so angry with the way creation was going in the days of Noah, when God flooded the earth; and with Sodom and Gomorrah, when He destroyed both cities when He rained down burning sulfur. No! When God creates something He creates it perfect.
Now, how do we benefit? Well, God knew when designing creation, that the law of freedom of choice could and would create a problem for man. The only way possible for man to make every perfect decision was to focus his complete attention on God at all times, and learn how to tune into the Holy Spirit, by acknowledging His presence and believing the blessings that are in this spirit realm, far outweigh and overcome any potential obstacles in the physical realm.
That’s why 1 Corinthians 10:13, tells us, “but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” Every single problem that is known to man is the cause of a poor decision. Maybe not their own, but the consequences of poor decisions do not discriminate. You can be the undeserving party of someone’s poor decision. I don’t think I have to give you an example for you to know what I am talking about. We’ve all experienced this sometime in our lives, if not on a daily basis.
But, God knew that man would be susceptible to this law of freedom of choice. I will go as far as to say, He knew exactly what was going to take place. Many do not believe this, some believe God was not sure which way Adam and Eve would choose to go. Based on what we will see in Scripture, if you stay with me through the entirety of our study together, you will prayerfully see a trend develop, that I believe is clear through Scripture, that God knew exactly what man would choose and knew the result of that choice would be disastrous.
We will see in Genesis chapter 3, that God already had a plan of action before man was created. Isn’t that amazing, and further proof that this life we suffer through now was known by God beforehand. This trend, for lack of a better word, that I mentioned, will show you that it would be the only way possible to have mankind genuinely love Him and spend eternity with Him in peace and harmony; without the potential of another Lucifer coming along to take advantage of this freedom of choice law.
Confused? Well, stay with us here as we continue our trek through the Bible and dissect chapter-by-chapter what God would have us get out of it.
To touch a bit on verse 7, we read that, “God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Notice man was created, but it wasn’t until God breathed into His nostrils the breath of life that man became a living being.
Man is constantly trying to figure out what actually gives us life. I remember growing up in the seventies and eighties, there always seemed to be a debate of what gave man life. Was it the brain, the heart, or the mind. I read a article, I believe it was in Time magazine, years ago; that science determined that the mind is what gives life, but could not put their finger on what the mind was.
The answer that has eluded mankind for so long is right in front of their eyes in the Bible; and comes from a farmer way back in biblical Old Testament times. His name is Job (pronounced Joe—b), and we find the simple answer in the book named after him; Job 32:8, “But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.”
Science spends millions of dollars in studies to try and determine what it is that gives life, and job here, sums it up in one sentence. The “breath of the Almighty,” is the same “breath” that we read of in Genesis 2:7. Job tells us that this breath of life is the spirit of man that God gave us. Again, I point to verse 7 where we are told that man was not a living being until he received this.
Verses 18-14:
Life in the Garden
As we continue in verse 8, we read, “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” There has been a lot of differing opinions in regards to where Eden may have been. As we move on here in chapter 2 we will get more information about its location, but the description we will read does not jive with today’s topography of the Middle East.
Before I get to far ahead of myself, let’s try to determine what God is telling us by “eastward” in verse 8. Eastward of what? Well, I believe that, Jerusalem being God’s Holy Land, He may have based His direction reference off of that. The only problem with that logic, is that Israel didn’t exist at this time, at least not in name. But, I still believe that God may have determined direction from that point.
With that said, when we take that into consideration with the remaining Scriptural references describing Eden. We can look toward the east and find that two of the four rivers described in verse 10, as parting from the one river that flowed through Eden, are in modern day Iraq. They would be the Tigris, and the Euphrates, which are named in verse 14.
The two other rivers, the Pishon, named in verse 11; and the Gihon, named in verse 13. Verse 11 goes on to say about the Pishon River that, “it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.” This territory of Havilah cannot be positively identified.
The name Havilah is mentioned 7 times in the Old Testament. Two times the name Havilah is associated as a son of Cush. They are in Genesis 10:7 and 1 Chronicles 1:9. Two times it is associated as a son of Jobab. These can be found in Genesis 10:29 and 1 Chronicles 1:23.
Havilah is also associated with Ishmael, who was Abraham’s son with Hagar, Abraham’s wife’s maid-servant. We find this mention in Genesis 25:18, “His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt, as you go toward Asshur.” 1 Samuel also mentions Havilah and Shur, and that they were near the border of Egypt. But, that is about as much information that is known about Havilah.
This reference to Havilah as being near Egypt, does not coincide with the idea of Eden being in either Northern Iraq or in Turkey which is where both the Tigris and the Euphrates originates. Some theologians have suggested that the Havilah referenced as being associated with the Pishon may not have been the same territory as the subsequent mentions of being near Egypt.
When we look back at our verse in Genesis 25:18, above, it does not necessarily tell us that Havilah is near Egypt, it just says, “the area from Havilah to Shur. It may be that Shur is near Egypt, but Havilah isn’t. As I’ve said with other things associated with our understanding; if God deemed it necessary for us to know where Eden was, He would have told us. So we must not get to caught up in the need to find the location of Eden.
With that said, the Pishon, say some experts, may be associated with an ancient dry riverbed that terminates at the Persian Gulf. This dry riverbed can be seen through satellite imaging; yet again, it is speculative.
David Rohl, who is a British Egyptologist and historian identified the Pishon with the Uizhun and placed Havilah to the northeast of Mesopotamia. The Uizhun is known locally as the Golden River. Rising near Mt. Sahand, it meanders between ancient gold mines and lodes of lapis lazuli before feeding the Caspian Sea. Such natural resources correspond to the ones associated with the land of Havilah in Genesis 2:11.
But, enough with trying to locate the Garden of Eden. My belief is that the Garden no longer exists in the physical sense, but now is spiritual in nature, and we must seek the spiritual nature of God to reap the fruit of the tree of life which, I believe, is now Jesus Christ. I will discuss this more in-depth as we continue on with our study in Genesis Chapter 3.
Verse 15-25:
In verses 15-17, God takes man and puts Him in the Garden to care for it. He also showed man all the food that He provided for Him that grew on all the trees and vegetation. We should take heed of this, and realize the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables as a major part of our diets.
I won’t go into the details of this principle here, since I already touched on that in our study in Genesis chapter 1. But, I just want to point out that God created us to eat fruits and vegetables as a 100 percent of our source of food; it was not until later on in the Bible, that God allowed man to begin eating the meat of animals.
Now, after God showed Adam all the food he provided, and all the beasts of the earth that He created, man was still not complete. We read in verse 21, that there still wasn’t any companion or helper that was suitable to Adam. So as we read on, God caused a deep sleep to come on Adam and He removed one of Adam’s ribs and created a woman.
Now, before I go on; I just want to touch on a myth that has been handed down through time. I remember hearing as a child that women have one more rib than man does. Which proves this Bible account is true. But, that just isn’t the case. Both men and women have the same amount of ribs; we each have a set of 12 ribs or a total of 24 ribs.
Now, before you abandon your faith, because you always believed that this myth was true; nowhere do we find in this account of God creating a woman from a man’s rib, does God tell us how many ribs Adam had before, nor does He tell us how many he had after.
This is highly speculative, but maybe Adam had 25 ribs before God took one out. My point in saying this is that we just don’t know and we shouldn’t use it in any way, to determine our belief or non-belief in the validity of God’s creation of man. Many things throughout the Bible, as we will see as we continue our study, God purposely does not give us all the information, because He wants us to belief on faith that what He is telling us is true.
He works this way because true love and devotion can only come through pure unadulterated faith. When we compare this to a marriage between a man and a woman, the best marriages are those where faith in each other is not even questioned. When faith is not strong between a married couple, that marriage is filled with doubt and mistrust.
When doubt and mistrust are present, so will be jealousy and envy. In marriages such as this there cannot be true love between the two. There will always be a level of mistrust and doubt as to whether your spouses love is genuine and true to you.
Marriages such as this cannot survive long before animosity builds to a point where the sanctity of the marriage is defiled. In order to truly love God the way He wants us to, we must have total, pure faith that what He is telling us in the Bible is true.
It is also a way for us to continue to seek Him in the relationship. If God gave us all the answers, we wouldn’t need Him anymore, which would be our downfall. This may sound arrogant to some who are reading this, but God knows our enemy, Satan! Because Satan is undetectable to us in the physical realm, many do not even believe that Satan or evil exists. That goes for some so-called Christian denominations as well.
It’s amazing to me, but some Christian’s believe that Satan is already gone. Yes! We know that Satan has been defeated, but he has not yet been removed where he cannot influence mankind. If those Christian’s believe that he no longer exists, then how do they explain the mess our societies are in today? If what they believe is true, then we do not have much hope in the future!
We end our study of Genesis chapter 2, with our first evidence of a family structure that God has provided us. In verse 23, Adam says, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” In the same way that Adam and Eve are of one flesh, so to, in the spiritual sense, does a man and a woman become one flesh when they are married.
We see the development of the generational family structure as well when we read in verse 24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” When a man and a woman get married they not only become one flesh, but start a new generation of the two family lines that they come from, to bring two family lines together to form one family.
This concludes our study of Genesis chapter two. To study further, click here to go to our main Bible study content page. Any questions or comment that you may have, I direct you to the bottom of this page where you can submit them to us.
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