the sources ofsome ofthem are well known, those ofothers are utterly unknown,
356 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis
14. Or shall we be disconcerted by people saying about these rivers that while the sources ofsome of them are well known, those ofothers are utterly unknown, and for that reason we cannot take it literally that they are divided from the one river of Paradise? Surely we should rather believe that since the actual site of Paradise totally escapes human ken, the waters from it are indeed divided into four parts, as the utterly trustworthy testimony of scripture assures us, but that those rivers whose sources are said to be known have gone underground some where, and after wending their way through extensive regions have gushed out in other places, where their sources are held to be known. Is anybody unaware, I mean, that there are streams which regularly do this? But it only comes to our attention where they do not flow underground for any great distance. So then, a river was going out from Eden, that is from the place of delights, and was watering Paradise, that is to say all the beautiful and fruit-bearing trees which provided shade for all the grounds of that region.
Question about the man being put in Paradise to work
8, 15. And the Lord God took the man whom he made, andput him in Paradise for working and guarding. And the Lord God commanded Adam saying: From every tree that is in Paradiseforfoodyou shall eat; butfrom the tree ofgetting to know goodand evilyou aUF shall not take a bite from it; but on the day you all eat from it, you all shall die the death (Gn 2: 15-17). When he had briefly said above that God had planted Paradise and established the man there whom he had fash ioned, he went on to recapitulate and to tell us in what way Paradise had been established. So now too he mentions by way of recapitulation in what manner God had placed the man there whom he had made. And so let us see what is meant by its saying/or working and guarding; what's the force offor working and what offor guarding?
The Lord, surely, did not wish the first man to work at agriculture, did he? Is it not simply incredible that he should have condemned him to hard labor before sin? Certainly we would judge it to be so, had we never seen how some people till the fields with such pleasure, such uplift of spirit, that it is a severe punish ment for them to be called away from that to anything else. So then whatever delights there are to be found in agriculture, they were of course far and away more complete at that time when neither earth nor sky was putting any difficulty in the way. You see, there was no stress of wearisome toil but pure exhilaration of spirit, when things which God had created flourished in more luxuriant abun dance with the help of human work. As a result the creator himself would be
27. 1 employ this piece of what 1 believe is Southern dialect to indicate that the text has changed from the second person singular to the second person plural—a distinction which that dialect is very properly concerned to maintain in spoken English.