Adam and Eden

It's been on my mind for a couple of days, to do a study on Bible names.  Very often in the Bible names are so significant.  It's not a task that I will ever finish. It would take years to study every name in the Bible, but my mind needs the focus of this task right now.

The first name of a person in the Bible, is 'Adam'.  Found in this passage:

Genesis 2:19 (KJV) And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

But in the Hebrew the same word is used for 'Adam', and for 'man'.  Strong's Hebrew dictionary assigns two different numbers to the two meanings:

H120 = man - 541 occurrences

H121 = Adam - 21 occurrences

The first occurence of H120 is here:

Genesis 1:26 (KJV) And God said, Let us make MAN in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So it is up to the translator's discretion as to whether the Hebrew text is referring to a particular man 'Adam' or to man, men, mankind in general.

In the Hebrew it is the same word.  God did not give Adam a special name.  He used the same word for His first created man as for every man.  This seems deeply significant to me.

Genesis 2:7 (KJV) 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 soul.

Can we therefore read the above, both as the specific act of creating the first Adam, and as generalized type of creating all men (adam)?  We are made of earthly elements. . . water, carbon, oxygen, etc. as all living creatures are, but we uniquely, have also received the breath of God, thereby differentiating us as with God's added breath then becoming a 'living soul'.  

As an aside, the animal kingdom did not partake of the forbidden fruit, and yet they paid the price for Adam and the entire earth being cursed.  They along with Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, but they committed no sin.  Endlessly through the Old Testament multitudes of animals paid over and over the price of sin by being the sacrifice, precisely due to their blood being innocent,  shed then as payment for sin. . . and yet they are indeed innocents, like children, not knowing good and evil. . . 

In the next verse, God places the Man He just created:

Genesis 2:8 (KJV) And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in EDEN; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

The underlying Hebrew word here is Strong's H5731, but like 'Adam' there is another identical Hebrew word Strong's H5730 in Strong's dictionary which means 'pleasure' or 'delight'.

H5731 = Eden - 16 occurrences

H5730 = pleasure, pleasures or delights or delicates - 4 occurrences

This is a fascinating passage.  Eden the proper name for the garden God created just for Adam to reside in, but the underlying meaning is 'pleasure(s), or delight(s)'.

The significance deepens, when we look at the word translated as 'eastward' in Genesis 2:8, Strong's H6924.  This word has a double connotation as 'east' and 'eastward' and as the  'fore part' , 'preceding', 'before' 

So reading the passage again:

Genesis 2:8 (KJV) And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in EDEN [preceding or before His pleasure or delight]; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

I am God's delight.  You are God's delight.  We were made of a mixture of lowly earth, and His divine breath, which made us a living soul.

Is there an ache within you, like there is within me?  An empty spot that nothing seems to satisfy?  I didn't know what caused that feeling within me, until I found satisfaction in drawing ever closer to Him. 

I was foolish for so long.  I was empty for so long. . . 

I was thirsty, but now I've found the living water. . . and I thirst no more. . . 

John 4:14 (KJV) But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Thank You Lord. . .

I love You my God. . . 

<3

Dave

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