This week we discussed what we learned in episode 2 of the BEMA podcast: Knowing When to Say “Enough”
EL SHADDAI
One of the many names for God and when it is translated into a phrase it means "The God who knows when to say enough."
Do we know when to say enough? How many times have we gone too far? This isn't just a question for society but to us as individuals. In Genesis chapter 1 God created the heavens and the earth in 7 days and on the last day he rested. We learned that chapter 1 is a chiasm and the treasure of chapter 1 is "rest." On the 7th day God rests and leaves creation open to go forth and create.
Chapter 2 opens with the completion of creation and God's rest. Then it goes into Adam and how he is alone. God plants a few important trees and tells adam not to eat from one of them or he "will surely die." God puts Adam in the garden to "work it and take care of it." As Adam is tending to God's garden, God notices that “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Then it goes on to say that God formed all kinds of animals out of the ground and then brings them to Adam to be named. As he is naming the animals God notices that there is no suitable helper for Adam, so He puts Adam to sleep and creates a woman from him. Adam calls her "Isha" which means woman because she was taken out of "Ish" which means man. This doesn't make her any less than him as many have tried to say in the past because she is still created in God's image. This chapter ends with "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." This will be important for the end of chapter 3.
The creation of Isha has a compelling explanation when looking at the Hebrew version of the text. When Isha is created the phrase Ezer Kenegdo is used. In the podcast Marty Solomon explains that the word Ezer means "help" and Kenegdo means "against" or "opposition." He explains that the full phrase means "the help that comes against" or "the help that is in opposition." Rabbis explain this as two wooden planks set up against each other to form a triangle, if one is taken away then the other falls. We are created with a missing aspect of tension. Isha was created from Adam and God took something out of him in order to make her. The english translation uses the word "rib" but the original just means "around." Therefore God took "around" Adam to make Isha (Eve). We miss so much when reading our english translations. We also miss the midrash for all of these stories. What is a Midrash? A simple Google search brings up this definition: "an ancient commentary on part of the Hebrew scriptures, attached to the biblical text. The earliest Midrashim come from the 2nd century AD, although much of their content is older." There is so much eastern commentary on the Bible that we are completely unaware of. I wonder how much deeper we could dive into God's Word if we understood more about the language used and how the original audience would have interpreted it.
The next chapter opens with a crafty serpent who talks to Isha about the tree they must not eat from. We often skip over this as completely normal because we've read it or listened to it enough times and this is referred to as "The Lullaby Effect." A lullaby is used to put us to sleep as children and often we read over these details like talking serpents as if they are normal. We are also taught not to question the Bible or God's word, but what do we learn if we don't question. This serpent sounds awfully human like; walking, talking, reasoning and even deceiving. The serpent asks Isha “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” We as westerners will put the emphasis in this phrase on the word "really" when in the Hebrew the emphasis is on the word "say." “Did God really SAY, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” These are important details for our understanding as an audience that exists much later than the audience to whom this was originally intended for and written or spoken to. We have a completely different view from the Israelites that had been enslaved for 400 plus years and recently liberated. The serpent goes on to discuss whether or not the tree can be eaten from: “'You will not certainly die,' the serpent said to the woman." Isha was under the impression that she would die immediately if she ate from the tree, but the serpent assures her that she will not. The serpent follows this up with “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The serpent tempts her with becoming like God when she was already created in the image of God. We often get confused ourselves with this idea. We have been created in his image, therefore there is nothing we can do to become more like God. In our attempt to become more like God we often find ourselves becoming less like God. Isha was convinced by the serpent that she wasn't like God and saw that "the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." It goes on to state that: "She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." Adam was right there the whole time. Why didn't he do anything to stop it? He was standing right there! How can we fully blame Isha when Adam was there the whole time? After they both ate the fruit "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."
Why does it matter that they are naked? Weren't they created that way?
After this situation God comes looking for Adam. God calls to Adam "Where are you?" In the Hebrew this phrase doesn't denote that God literally doesn't know where Adam is, but rather that God knows that Adam should be there but he isn't. I liken it to when you are in your house and you know your kid is supposed to be in their room cleaning, but they are in the bathroom or your room messing around. You would ask them the same question but the way you ask them lets them know that you know where they are and you also know where they are supposed to be. God knows fully well where Adam is, but he wants Adam to know that he is not where he is supposed to be. Adam comes to God and explains that “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” God's response is wonderful: “Who told you that you were naked?" God doesn't ask him "where were you" or "Where have you been," instead he asks "Who told you that you were naked?" In other words "Who have you been listening to?" God wants to know what other voices Adam has been listening to. Adam is supposed to be listening to God's voice which give comfort and reassurance, but Adam has been listening to the serpents voice telling him and Isha that they aren't enough. I think the nakedness implies that Adam and Isha aren't enough, or at least they now feel that way. Before eating the fruit they they were comfortable with being naked and after they eat it now being naked feels as if they are missing something. Rather than punish them immediately God meets the two in their shame. He doesn't even try to explain that being naked is okay and that's how they were made. Instead he clothes them and makes them feel safe and reassured in their own way. How many times have we felt like we were missing something and God comes along and reassures us in ways that only we can understand?
After God finds out what happened He curses the serpent and then tells Isha that her childbearing will be "very severe" and that her "desire would be for her husband." Desire is what got her in this situation to begin with. Earlier when she was looking at the fruit she saw that "the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom." Then God makes her desire for her husband. Later God will say to Cain that "sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” How many times have our desires gotten us into situations that only God could get us out of?
God goes on to explain to Adam that "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Our desires have impactful consequences on their lives and on our own. The concept of mastering our desires will become an important concept for our understanding of these two chapters. After all this Adam gives his wife a name: Eve. I wonder if he named her this because of his new desire for her? Before she was Isha or woman which brings up the idea that Adam was enamored with who and what Eve was; she was a woman. Now he calls her Eve and I wonder how his desire for her has changed. Is he now enamored with what she can give him, such as children? Is this why the name changes from Isha to Eve?
In the end God says “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” After this he banishes Adam from the Garden of Eden and blocks the entrance with a "cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." All of this seems pretty extreme. Why would God put the tree there in the first place? How could He let this happen? Isn't God all knowing? These questions drive some away from God's Word when it is meant to bring us closer. Raising these questions is usually seen as a bad thing. We shouldn't question the Bible or God and we should just accept what it says. When we don't question, however, we miss something buried in the story.
Another Chiasm is revealed to us. In the opening to this story Adam is alone and at the end he is banished from The Garden and once again alone. These are the bookends of the story that should lead the reader to the center of the chiasm. In the case of this story the center passage is "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked." Why is "naked" or "nakedness" so prevalent in this story? Marty Solomon goes on to explain that the treasure of this story is that we are not beasts, but we are created in God's image. The moral or treasure of the story is now revealed to us: that we are created in the image of God and we are not like the beasts that we have dominion over. The serpent made Adam and Eve believe that they were less than what God made them and that they needed something else to make them more like God. In the end God lets us know that we are not animals, but that we can control our desires. We are like God and He created us that way. I hope you got as much out of this episode as I did and I invite you to join us next week as we dive into the next episode: Master the Beast.
Comments