Vs. 13, 14. And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it which compasseth the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Moses mentions the three remaining rivers by name only, giving no particular descriptions in reference to them. Gihon is the Nile. This river, as it runs through all Egypt, takes in its course, Cush or Ethiopia also, as well as Egypt. Hiddekel is the Tigris (in Armenia), the most rapid river of all. "The fourth is the river Euphrates." As if he had added, the river near to us.
In this passage therefore we have a description of paradise with its four rivers. But now it is utterly lost and unknown; and no traces of it exist except these four rivers. And even these, first rendered leprous as it were and corrupted and marred by sin; and then changed, altered and confounded in their sources and in their courses by the mighty Deluge.
Moses now proceeds to describe how a law was given to Adam before Eve was created, so that he might have a mode or form of external worship, by which to show his obedience and express his gratitude to God.
PART III. THE INTRODUCTION OF MAN INTO THE GARDEN, THE COMMAND GOD GAVE HIM AND THE THREATENING GOD ATTACHED TO IT.
I. V. 15. And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
After God had created and variously adorned the universe of heaven and earth, he next prepared the garden of Eden, which he willed to be the habitation and royal seat of man, to whom he had committed the government over all other living creatures of the earth, the heaven and the sea. And now God places man in that garden as in a citadel and a temple, from which he had liberty to go out and to walk abroad in any other part of the earth, which also was most fruitful and most delightful; and there to amuse and delight himself with the beasts and other animals when and as he wished.
And God gives to Adam a two-fold charge that he should work or till this garden, and also that he should guard and defend it. Some faint vestiges of this original command yet remain in these miserable remnants of primitive things, which we still possess. For even to this day these two things must ever be joined together: not only that the earth should be tilled but also that the productions of that cultivation should be defended. But both these great principles are corrupted and marred in an infinite number of forms. For not the tillage of the earth itself only but the defense of it also are filled with every kind of misery and trouble. And what the cause of all this sorrow is will be fully clear to us shortly in the following chapter of this book. For we shall there see that this working or tillage of the earth is defiled and embarrassed by thorns, by thistles, by the sweat of the brow and by various and unending misery. For, to say nothing about the labor and sorrow of procuring necessary food, what difficulty, what labor attend even the bringing up a child from its birth!
If Adam therefore had remained in his innocency he would have cultivated the earth and planted his beds of spices, not only without toil or trouble but as an amusement, attended with exquisite pleasure. His children when born would not long have needed the breast of their mother, but in all probability would have started on their feet, as we now see chickens do by nature, and would have sought their own food from the fruits of the earth, without the helplessness or weakness and without any labor or sorrow of their parents! But now how great do we behold to be the pain and misery of our birth, our infancy and our growth!