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EcclesiastesAid to Bible Understanding
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when his body will deteriorate, his teeth will be gone, his eyes dim, his sleep will be light and easily disturbed, he will be shaky in his limbs and afraid of falling, his hair will be white and he will lose his appetite, his hands will be unable to care for him and eventually his life force will go out into the hands of the true God and his body will return to the dust. Then what can he present to God?—Eccl. 12:1-7.
After viewing all these things, Solomon came to the conclusion that everything in this system of things is vanity. Nevertheless, he was not bitter or discouraged, for he worked hard to keep the people together in the fear of God, to teach them knowledge. He thought out many proverbs by a thorough search of matters and sought to find delightful and correct words of truth. He tells us that there is one shepherd who gives wise words and these are something secure to which we can anchor ourselves. To these we should give concern. Devoting our time to worldly books of wisdom and philosophy will not be refreshing, as are the words of the wise, but will be wearisome to the flesh. All the observations of Solomon can be concluded in the command: “Fear the true God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole obligation of man.” This present life, therefore, is not the end, if it is lived wisely, for the true God himself will bring every sort of work into judgment in relation to every hidden thing as to whether it is good or bad.—Eccl. 12:8-14; see the book “All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial,” pp. 111-114.
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EdenAid to Bible Understanding
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EDEN
(Eʹden) [pleasure, delight].
1. A region in which the Creator planted a gardenlike park as the original home of the first human pair. The statement that the garden was “in Eden, toward the east,” apparently indicates that the garden occupied only a portion of the region called Eden. (Gen. 2:8) However, the garden is thereafter called “the garden of Eden” (Gen. 2:15), and, in later texts, is spoken of as “Eden, the garden of God” (Ezek. 28:13), and “the garden of Jehovah.”—Isa. 51:3.
The Septuagint rendered the Hebrew word for “garden” (gan) by the Greek word pa·raʹdei·sos, a word borrowed from the Old Persian pairidaeza, meaning “enclosure” and, later, “park” or “pleasure ground.” To this fact we owe our association of the English word “paradise” with the garden of Eden.
Genesis 2:15 states that “God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden.” While this might appear to indicate that man’s creation took place outside the garden, it may simply refer to God’s ‘taking’ man in the sense of his forming and creating him from the earthly elements, then assigning him to reside initially in the garden in which he came to life. The cultivation and care of the garden was man’s work assignment. Eden’s trees and plants included all those providing scenic beauty as well as those providing food in wide variety. (Gen. 2:9, 15) This fact alone would indicate that the garden covered an area of considerable size.
The fauna of the garden had great variety. God brought before Adam “all the domestic animals and . . . flying creatures of the heavens and . . . every wild beast of the field,” the naming of which was given to Adam as one of his earliest tasks. (Gen. 2:19, 20) Eden’s soil was watered, not by rain, but by the waters of the river “issuing out of Eden,” as well as by the “mist” rising up from the earth. (Gen. 2:5, 6, 10) In view of man’s nakedness it may be assumed that the climate was very mild and agreeable.—Gen. 2:25.
EVENTS IN EDEN
Eden’s fruit trees were all there for man to eat from “to satisfaction.” (Gen. 2:16) But one tree, that “of the knowledge of good and bad,” was placed ‘off limits’ for the human pair. Eve quoted Jehovah’s prohibition given to her husband as including even the ‘touching’ of the tree, with the penalty of death to result from disrespect for and violation of the divine law. (Gen. 2:17; 3:3) Traditional teachings have attempted to explain the prohibited fruit in a variety of ways: as a symbol of sexual intercourse, represented by an “apple”; as standing for the mere cognizance of right and wrong; and as the knowledge attained upon reaching maturity and also through experience, which knowledge can be put to a good or a bad use. Yet, in view of the Creator’s command to “be fruitful and become many and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28), sexual intercourse must be rejected as that which the tree’s fruit represented, for in what other way could procreation and multiplication have been effected? As to the genus of the particular tree, the record is silent. The mere ability to recognize right and wrong most certainly cannot be meant, for obedience to God’s command required of sinless man that he be able to exercise such moral discrimination. Nor could the ‘knowledge attained upon reaching maturity’ be meant, for it would not be sin on man’s part to reach this state, nor would his Creator logically obligate him to remain in an immature state.
It becomes apparent that the tree of the knowledge of good and bad symbolized the divine right or prerogative, which man’s Creator retains, to designate to his creatures what is “good” and what is “bad,” thereafter properly requiring the practice of that which is declared good and the abstention from that which is pronounced bad in order to remain approved by God as Sovereign Ruler. (See TREES.) Both the prohibition and the subsequent pronouncement of the sentence passed upon the disobedient pair emphasize the fact that it was the act of disobedience in eating the prohibited fruit that constituted the original sin.—Gen. 3:3.
While some modern critics may balk at the very simplicity of the Edenic account, yet it should be obvious that the actual circumstances called for and made most fitting a simple test. The life of the newly created man and woman was simple, not complicated and encumbered with all the complex problems, predicaments and perplexity that disobedience to God has since brought to the human race. Nonetheless, for all its simplicity, the test succinctly and admirably expresses the universal truth of God’s sovereignty and of man’s dependence upon God and his duty toward God. And it must be said that, while simple, the account of Eden’s events presents matters on an infinitely higher level than those theories that would place man’s start, not in a garden, but in a cave, representing him as both crudely ignorant and without moral sense. The simplicity of the test in Eden illustrates the principle stated millenniums later by God’s Son, that “the person faithful in what is least is faithful also in much, and the person unrighteous in what is least is unrighteous also in much.”—Luke 16:10.
Eden’s having this proscribed tree within it, however, was clearly not intended to serve as a ‘thorn in the flesh’ of the human pair, nor was it so designated in order to raise an issue or to serve as the subject for debate. By simply acknowledging God’s will in the matter and respecting his instructions, their garden home would continue unmarred as a place of pleasure and delight. The record shows that the issue and debate over the tree were thrust upon mankind by God’s adversary, along with the temptation to violate God’s ordinance. (Gen. 3:1-6) Their exercise of their will, as free moral agents, to rebel against God’s rightful sovereignty led to the loss of their paradise home and the blessedness of its confines. Of even graver consequence, they lost the opportunity to partake of another of Eden’s trees, this one representing the right to life everlasting.—Gen. 3:22-24.
LOCATION OF EDEN
The original site of the garden of Eden is conjectural. The principal means of identifying its geographical location is the description of the river “issuing out of Eden,” which thereafter divided into
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