The Sacred Scripture

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Genesis 2

1 And the heavens and the earth were completed, and all the army of them.
2 And on the seventh day God completed His work1 which He had made; and He ceased2 on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and made· it ·holy, because in it He ceased from all His work which God created to make.
4 These are the births of the heavens and of the earth when He created them, in the day in which Jehovah3 God made the earth and the heavens.
5 And every shrub of the field was not·​·yet in the earth, and every herb of the field was not·​·yet growing, for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain on the earth. And there was no man to till the ground.
6 And He made a mist to go·​·up from the land, and watered all the faces of the ground.
7 And Jehovah God formed |man4, dust from the ground5, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives6, and |man became a living soul.
8 And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden from the east, and there He set |man whom He had formed.
9 And out·​·of the ground Jehovah God made to grow every tree desirable for seeing, and good for food; the tree of lives also, in the midst of the garden; and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went·​·out from Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was separated, and was made7 into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it surrounds all the land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 And the gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone is there.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon; it surrounds all the land of Cush.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one going eastward·​·toward Assyria; and the fourth river, it is Euphrates.
15 And Jehovah God took |man, and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and to keep it.
16 And Jehovah God commanded |man8, saying, Of every tree of the garden, eating thou shalt eat9.
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest of it, dying thou shalt die.
18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that |man should be alone; I will make for him a help as with him.
19 And Jehovah God formed out·​·of the ground every animal of the field, and every fowl of the heavens, and brought it to |man to see what he would call it; and whatever |man called a living soul, that was its name.
20 And |man gave10 names to every beast, and to the fowl of the heavens, and to every wild·​·animal of the field; but for man there was not found a help as with him.
21 And Jehovah God caused a deep·​·sleep to fall upon |man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh instead·​·of it.
22 And the rib which Jehovah God had taken from |man, He built11 into a woman12 and brought her to |man.
23 And |man said, This one, this time is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; for this she shall be called a wife, for this was taken out·​·of a man13.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the two of them were naked, |man and his wife, and were· not ·ashamed.

1The word for “work,” here and in verse 3, is closely related to the word in Hebrew for “angel,” which reflects the concept of use.

2In Hebrew, the verb here translated “ceased” is related to the word “Sabbath”: “Because there is a difference between the celestial man and the spiritual man, the rest of the former is expressed in the original language by a word which means the Sabbath, while the rest of the latter is expressed by another word, from which the name Noah is derived, which properly means ‘rest’” (AC 851).

3“Jehovah” is how this name of the Lord is always spelled in the Heavenly Doctrine. In Latin, the “J” is pronounced as a “Y” and the “v” as a “w,” which agrees with the Hebrew. So although spelled “Jehovah,” it should be pronounced “Yehowah,” with the accent on the last syllable.

4“Man at his birth is like soil in which no seeds have been planted, but in which all seeds, both noble and ignoble, may be planted. This is why man was called Homo [man], from Humus [soil], and Adam [Hebrew for ‘man’], from Adama, which means soil” (TCR 48:13; see also AC 313).

5“The word ‘red’ in the original language is adam, from which is the name Adam, and also... the ground is called adama...; thus these names and things are from red” (AE 364:7).

6“Lives” is plural because it refers to both the life of the will and the life of the understanding (see AC 3623).

7as in Coronis 27

8literally, “commanded on the man” (as in AC 125, but see AE 617:15)

9“Eating thou shalt eat”: Hebrew commonly combines two forms of the same verb in this way. The Heavenly Doctrine consistently preserves this repetition and explains, “In the Word ... in each and every thing there is a likeness of a marriage, and a relation to the heavenly marriage. It is so here [Genesis 6:22], in that the one word is repeated” (AC 683).

10literally, “called

11“To ‘build’ is to raise up that which has fallen” (AC 153).

12AC 151-156 uses the Latin word for “woman” (mulier) here, but in the next verse the Latin word for “wife” (uxor) is used. Hebrew has one word for both “woman” and “wife.” Here and elsewhere we follow the Latin as to which way to translate this word.

13This word for “man” in Hebrew is ish, and the word for “woman” is ishah.