The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #6 Curse and solution

From the chaos God had ordered everything. First the planets, than all living creatures and then human creatures or beings we call “human“, “male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27). God gave this couple (male and female) a mandate to reign over all other creatures (see Genesis 1:28) thus placing them above all other creatures, clearly superior to them. Though that superiority was not enough for Eve, who wanted to be more like God. Having received intellect of such magnitude that they could take and understand instructions and take responsibility for their actions both were attracted by the Tree of conscious. With the idea of this Tree of knowledge of good and evil them giving so much knowledge like God has they also thought God told them a lie so that they would not eat from that tree to become like God.

Eve being an intellectual and moral being with free will made the choice her self to use her free will to go against (to take on adversary) or disobey God’s one negative rule (Genesis 3:6). Not only did she allow her own mind wander and question God, she also lured Adam in her idea that God suppressed them some interesting things. The idea of their Maker concealing better things Eve drew her husband into her disobedience. As the apostle Paul would later say,

2 Corinthians 11 3 But I fear lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupt from the simplicity that is in Christ:

It would be meaningless to give an instruction and a warning if it is not possible to choose which path to take, and therefore we may conclude that God had given those living creatures made in his image, the free will to choose. Their free will of choice could make them chose what to do and how to do it. God had allowed them for example to name all things and to arrange their life like they wanted. Adam and Eve were made responsible to choose names for all the things around them but also for the choices they made. We are totally responsible for our own choices and actions which may result in good choices or bad choices and/or sins.

One chooses to listen to the self, the world or the satan, adversary or rebellion against God. It was up to Adam and Eve to make the choice to which ideas they would listen and follow up. Like they could choose freely, we too still can choose freely. Freely we choose to follow the right path or to go for sin and corruption.

The societal sins are merely those made individually by unique persons choosing the wrong way over and over and over and over. The sins of a culture or civilization are not some types of sins which just happen, but sins done repeatedly by those persons in that culture or civilization.

Man came to call the result of that choice of Adam and Eve “the Fall” because before the act the relationship between the creatures and their Maker seemed all right. When we speak of ‘The Fall’ we are referring to an event that produced a fall from a wonderful relationship with God in a world of total peace, to a world where God seems at a distance and the world ‘goes wrong’. By their act, corruption entered in the world and chaos seemed to have entered again in that world where those first beings where living. Though in that Royal Garden was not chaos except the one Adam and Eve felt, being unsure about themselves and about the other, hiding their private parts as if they would disturb the other or could bring other non wanted things to them.

First the idea of the woman was about God, thinking He withhold something from her. She accused him, becoming a satan, but now she got strange ideas about what her partner could do to her too. As such the accuser (satan) accuses man or the other. Satan crafts a brilliant argument, chipping away at the woman’s trust in God and in her husband. The ‘accuser‘ could simple recount what she (Eve) had done and told God that she got Adam in with her. But she tried to put the blame onto somebody else in the hope to escape any charge, sanction or penalty.

Eve was not made evil, neither was Adam. They both, like we do have, got the free will to make a choice. It was up to them, each personally, to make the right choice. Adam had Eve to believe that if she even touched the fruit that something bad would happen to her. When nothing immediate happened to her after just touching it, it was easy to take the next step and eat the fruit. Adam, though he did so to protect her, actually made her more vulnerable to temptation because he lied to her by adding to the command of God, which he received before Eve was made (Genesis 1:29). Adam was with her the whole time. He could have spoken up and could have corrected her telling her thoughts were wrong and that they should listen to the command given by their Maker.

God had created the earth and declared it to be good, but by this action against God (adversary against God = satan) it was not so good any more and God decided to take action, wanting to keep His Kingdom pure and clean He did not want man in His Garden.

Eve her action on focussing on the wrong thing (the only one thing God asked her not to do), introduced selfishness, deceit, and exploitation into previously healthy and loving relationships. Her relationship with her Maker was broken. But also the relationship of Adam with Eve and with God became disturbed. That is also what this Book of Genesis is all about, telling us what went wrong and how it comes that we are today still sitting with such a mess.

Adam and Eve could have told the full truth and could have apologised to God, asking for forgiveness or demanding remission, but they did not.

Genesis 3: 8 Afterward they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the 1cool of the day, and the man and his wife 2hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 Who said, I heard thy voice in the garden and was afraid: because I was 1naked, therefore I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 Then the man said, The woman which thou 1gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

Not only accuses Adam Eve of having given him the fruit, but points to that it was Him who gave that woman to him, as if God was at the beginning of this fault.

God asked the reason of Adam and his wife, because He would bring them to repentance, (or teshuvah) but instead of confessing her sin, Eve increased it by accusing the serpent. for that serpent or ‘accuser’ God could not show mercy.

Genesis 3: 13 And the Lord God said to the woman, Why hast thou done this? And the woman said, 1The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent, 1Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and 2dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

Man came from dust and now the dust came back into his life. Nothing would be as easy as it was in the Royal Garden. Them having the right to live in the Garden of Eden they forfeited.They forfeited their own rights, like we too can throw away our rights to live in the Kingdom of God.

Adam and Eve came to be expelled from the Garden of Eden. They with their descendants, the human race needed to face what it means to be on their own – and then cry out for what was before.
Until we realise our loss we will not cry out for God’s salvation. This separation, this exclusion, is not a spiteful one-off act of a touchy God but a careful act of loving compassion of a God who yearns for them to come to their senses – but it may take several millennia before that happens.

Nowhere in the Bible to we find the word “Fall”, because it was man who came to call the shameful act of Adam and Eve “the Fall”. By it they should think of the fallen or gone relationship with God which has to be restored.

* Bible quotes from 1599 Geneva Patriot’s Edition

Preceding articles

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #1 Beginning of everything

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #2 Beginning of mankind

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #3 With his partner

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #4 The Fall

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #5 Temptation, assault and curse

Next: The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #7 Solution and promise

The Soul confronted with Death

Looking at three “I am” s

Cleanliness and worrying or not about purity

When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith