Monday, May 02, 2005

OOOps, Here's the context

Genesis 2: 1 - 25
1 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2 On the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation.
4 This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. When the LORD God made the heavens and the earth, 5 there were no plants or grain growing on the earth, for the LORD God had not sent any rain. And no one was there to cultivate the soil. 6 But water came up out of the ground and watered all the land. 7 And the LORD God formed a man's body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person.
8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had created. 9 And the LORD God planted all sorts of trees in the garden – beautiful trees that produced delicious fruit. At the center of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches. 11 One of these branches is the Pishon, which flows around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. 12 The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. 13 The second branch is the Gihon, which flows around the entire land of Cush. 14 The third branch is the Tigris, which flows to the east of Asshur. The fourth branch is the Euphrates. 15 The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it.
16 But the LORD God gave him this warning: "You may freely eat any fruit in the garden 17 except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die."
18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him." 19 So the LORD God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam F4 to see what he would call them, and Adam chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, birds, and wild animals. But still there was no companion suitable for him.
21 So the LORD God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of Adam's ribs F5 and closed up the place from which he had taken it. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib and brought her to Adam. 23 "At last!" Adam exclaimed. "She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken out of a man." 24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither of them felt any shame.
FOOTNOTES:F4: Hebrew the man, and so throughout this chapter. F5: Or took a part of Adam's side.
The New Living Translation

~Lena’s Comments~
"Rest" contains completion, a finished work, satisfaction fulfilled.
"Completed" means: to accomplish, cease, consume, determine, end, fail, finish, be complete, be accomplished, be ended, be at an end, be finished, be spent .
(Qal) to be complete, be at an end, to be completed, be finished, to be accomplished, be fulfilled, to be determined, be plotted (bad sense), to be spent, be used up, to waste away, be exhausted, fail, to come to an end, vanish, perish, be destroyed
(Piel) to complete, bring to an end, finish, to complete (a period of time), to finish (doing a thing), to make an end, end, to accomplish, fulfil, bring to pass, to accomplish, determine (in thought), to put an end to, cause to cease, to cause to fail, exhaust, use up, spend, to destroy, exterminate
(Pual) to be finished, be ended, be completed To accomplish , accomplished , annihilate , annihilated , been consumed, been spent, brings to pass, brought, came to an end, ceased, come to an end, complete, completed, completely gone, completion, consume, consumed, decided, demolish, destroy, destroyed, destroyed them all, destroys, destruction, determined, devoured, died, end, ended, ending, exhausted, exterminated, fail, failed, fails, faints, feed, finish, finished, finishes, fulfill, languish, languishes, longed, make an end, over, perish perishing, plotted, put an end, ravage, settled, spend, spent, terminate, use, used, vanish, vanishes, waste away, wastes away, yearned.
Where have we heard a word like this one before? I think of the time that Jesus was on the cross and he said, "It is finished"- completed. (7th Day, Rest, Sabbath…) Maybe He and His Father God had a simultaneous moment in eternity, which spanned all time and they were speaking the same sound and same word. Maybe….
Adam, a living "cultivator", a "grounds keeper" of sorts, a person who has vision, as the Father, Son & Holy Spirit "team" did and do have. "East" speaks of before now, from the beginning, of eternity. God had an eternal plan to fulfill in Eden, That is where it started. He prepared a place and then brought man into the picture. Trees were symbols of what came before, what endures and what will be. They contain life, length of days and bear fruit after their own kind. God planted trees, all sorts, some on the edges, some in-between, TWO in the center! Rivers, gold & stones, all to be tended by man there. I wonder if this tending was a practice and a preparation from God for what was to come, mainly Eve and children? He was made to care for and tend, she was made to be a companion, a helper.
This is the God created, and unperverted form of man and woman. It’s in its original pure form & design. Adam was God’s designing assistant. He was made to call things as he saw them, to bless or curse them with his mouth. She was a vital part of his make up, of his flesh. He noticed when this part was missing. He felt it inside of his being. He would be responsible to care for, and keep her also. (THIS IS key….people="earth"="grounds", Adam="grounds keeper" !!! Aha)
He should desire to nurture and keep, right, because she was a part of him? You would think so, or maybe not. The reason being that God’s enemy knows this far greater than God’s people seem to. The two becoming one. This was why they were alive, to bring One (God’s Spirit) to earth! The enemy knows that too. We need to go back and find out inside of the deepest parts of our being, who we are/were created by God to be as One here on earth, BOTH man and woman alike. Was it finished or did it just start? Both. It depends if we see eternally or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t very well. If I do, I’ve entered rest, if I don’t, I enter struggles of my flesh. Thank God for the work of the cross, a finished work. I like to go there as a reminder often and need to go there often.