Did you know God consciously put our human ancestors in the garden as the very best possible place to thrive? There is a poetic repetition in Genesis 1-2:4 with an explanation of how creation played out, with God creating each day, resting the 7th day.
When we arrive at day six, by now God had already made the creatures of the air and those of the seas, and day six was a day for creation of the dry land, the animals, vegetation, and humankind.
Speaking to man, God said: 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
…2:5 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Having been put in the garden, God felt this would be the ideal place to thrive, to live purely in renewing and restoring life. Where there was beauty for the eye, nourishment for the body, and joy for the soul. God instructs us to till the land and plant the seeds, to be fruitful and multiply in the garden. Without the knowledge of evil, one could experience the deepest level of peace.
9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
We see here there is a literal tree whose fruit, beautiful and ripe, would remove the protection of innocence we were created in and open our eyes to the possibility of evil. There was, as well, a tree of life, where one might live forever – if one ate the fruit of this tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is so well known, but in actuality the tree of life was the deciding factor in moving humanity out of the garden ultimately.
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Humanity is ushered out of the garden so as not to take that final step of godlike immortality.
So this is the original story of the relationship we are given with a garden. I think it is noteworthy that God’s original plan was to have us live in peace and freedom in the garden of Eden. It was planted gloriously, lusciously, with every good, beautiful, and aromatic plant.
We know God would walk in the garden and seek us out there. How many a gardener has felt God walk with them as they tend their garden? How many would readily say they feel renewed and refreshed after hours of hard work in the garden, feet in the soil, hands tending the growing produce, rejoicing in the harvest with a deep, soulful satisfaction?
There is instruction about watering, the mist coming up from the ground, stimulating the growth of the plants, and how this watering supports new life, just as we depend on water, hydration, and the renewal of life.
God has created a self-fulfilling creation, one that will continue forever because of the blessed seeds that come from the fruits of every plant. Seeds are God’s foresight of not just a one-time creation, but a forever-renewing opportunity of life.
As I think about the pure, unadulterated heirloom seeds we can still access to plant our garden from, in spite of the many hybridizations, the original pure seeds can still be found for planting.
We hear of the fruit trees, every kind imaginable. These are meant to give life and pleasure to the senses, to nourish and feed us.
I think it is interesting to contemplate good and evil as an idea. We are given the direction to obey, and if you do not obey there is a serious consequence – death – but not really understanding it, having never died, perhaps there was a lack of understanding of the terminal consequence before us. Having no reference to evil, a cunning serpent entices us to eat of the fruit. Once eaten, we now know what evil is – so now we do comprehend on some level that what the serpent invited us to do was wrong. Still, we would have had a sense of it being wrong. I am sure that God wired us with that awareness of truth.
God did not cause us to die as he had stated but gave us consequences, and we were moved out of the garden. The consequences – leaving the garden, childbirth pain, and the serpent eating dust forever, with the serpent and woman being enemies – I think are nothing compared to the knowledge of evil we have to deal with.
I can’t imagine any other outcome than the one that played out. Still, I wonder if we had not made that first wrong choice, how idyllic life might have been.
As we continue to move toward God alignment, planting a garden with heirloom seeds and beautiful fruit trees that we can enjoy daily does seem very much what God had thought the best possible place for us to be.
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. Psalm 24:1