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Volume 13, Number 3, September-October 2009 Torah in
the Garden...
by Bob Wells
Gen 2:8
And YHVH Elohym planted a garden eastward in Eden; 10 and a River went
out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became
into four heads. We see here that in the Gen 3:8 And they heard the sound of YHVH
Elohym walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife
hid themselves from the face of YHVH Elohym, [the presence of the LORD],
amongst the trees of the garden. This is quite clear that the Creator walked and talked
with Adam in the Garden. And, as it was, so shall it be. G-d will once again
dwell [tabernacle] with man, just as Revelation says. Rev 21:3 21:1-2 And I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from Elohym out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the
tabernacle of Elohym [is] with men, and he will dwell with them, and they
shall be his people, and Elohym himself shall be with them, [and be] their
Elohym. “Behold, the tabernacle of Elohym” Ezek 47:1-5 Afterward
he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued
out from under the threshold of the house eastward; for the forefront of the
house [stood toward] the east, and the waters came down from under from the
right side of the house, at the south [side] of the altar, Then brought he me
out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto
the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out
waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went
forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the
waters; the waters [were] to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and
brought me through; the waters [were] to the loins. Afterwards he measured a
thousand; [and it was] a river that I could not pass over: for the waters
were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could
not be passed over. Four times Ezekiel passed through the waters, except the
last… “a river that could not be passed over”. Four
rivers just like the four rivers that flowed “from” the Garden in Ezek 31:8 The cedars in the From the time of Adam onward, there was a specific place
where God was to be worshiped. When we are told in Genesis 4: verses 3 and 4,
that Cain and Abel “brought an offering unto the Lord,” the
implication is clear that they came to some particular location. When we read
that Abel brought “the firstling of his flock and the fat thereof,” we
cannot escape the conclusion that there was an altar where the victim must be
offered and upon which its fat must be burned. That place of worship appears
to have been located at the east of the Garden of Eden. Exactly as it was in Now we know, according to Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers,
that it was only the High Priest who could go into “The Holy Place” [Makom Hakodesh], where the
Presence of G-d was. And he could only do this once a year, on the Day of
Atonement ‘Yom Kippur’. At one time the “first born” was the Priest in every
family. Cain was firstborn. This seems to be a picture of “the sons of Aaron,
[Exo 28:1] and the sons of Levi” [Num 16:8], being
chosen for service. Gen 4: 6-7 And YHVH said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well,
shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee [shall be] his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him. { be accepted: or, have the
excellency} …..{ unto…: or, subject
unto thee} We see by the above scripture Cain was to have the
excellency. Now Cain was angry, not with G–d for not accepting his offering,
but with Abel. G-d told him that he had the pre-eminence over Abel, and he
had rule over him, being the first born. The last words in this scripture
states to Cain “and thou shalt rule over him”, this cannot refer to his
overcoming “SIN”. In their commentary on Genesis, Jamieson, Fausset, and
Brown translate the last verse of chapter 3 as follows: “And he [God] dwelt
at the east of the Garden of Eden between the Cherubim, as a Shekinah [a fire
tongue or fire sword] ……..” The same
thought is presented in the Jerusalem Targum, [Judaic commentary on
scripture].. Thus it would seem, that when man was
expelled from the Garden, God established a mercy-seat, protected by
cherubim, the fire tongue or sword being the emblem of His presence, and
whosoever would worship Him must approach that mercy seat with a bloody
sacrifice. We may add that the Hebrew word “shakan”
which in Genesis Sacrifice for sin was established with Adam. The death of
an innocent victim for the sin of Adam and Eve was prophetically given to
them by the slaying of some animal and the shedding of its blood. The example
was given to him by G-d. Gen The word “skins” is [‘owr],
which is translated “hides”. It is possible that it could have been the hides
of a lamb, being prophetic of “The Lamb of G-d”. But, then again
it could have been the skin of a goat…… Lev 4:23-26 Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come
to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male
without blemish: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and
kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it
[is] a sin offering. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin
offering with his finger, and put [it] upon the horns of the altar of burnt
offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt
offering. And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the
sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an
atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him. Abel brought “the firstling of his flock and the fat
thereof”. The similarities between Abel’s offering and those instituted
during the Exodus are too striking not to be connected. Abel’s sacrifice has
a connotation as to being an offering for sin, Cain’s does not. What all of
this alludes to is that there was a place to worship G-d even before the
Tabernacle in the Wilderness and before the [When G-d had removed His presence from off of the earth,
we cannot be sure. I believe it was after the first “murder”, or rather manslaughter,
I do not believe Cain intended to KILL Abel]. G-d cannot dwell in the
presence of Evil. Noah’s very first act on taking possession of the new
earth was to engage in a service of solemn worship: “And Noah built an
altar unto the Lord: and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl,
and offered burnt offering on the altar” (Gen. 8:20). My question is how did he, [Noah], know how to make the
offering in the first place? This was an altar of burnt sacrifice that,
supposedly, Moses introduced in Exodus Gen 7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by
sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that [are] not clean by two,
the male and his female. Yet, this seems to be introduced again, by Moshe [Moses]
Lev 11:46-47 This [is] the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of
every living creature that moveth in the waters,
and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth:
To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast
that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten. Let us remember also Abraham, long before Moshe had the
Torah…. Gen 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my
charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. The people that were destroyed by the flood,
could have shouted…. ‘what have we done wrong, there
was no LAW for us to break, we are not guilty of anything”. Rom SIN ….{ Khatta’ah} miss, miss the way, go wrong, incur
guilt….. TORAH….. direction, instruction,
(human or divine) …root word, Yarah…. to lay or throw [spec. an arrow], i.e.: to
shoot; to point out [as if pointing the finger]. The TORAH is the GOAL, and to sin is to “miss the mark”.
The word for LAW is …. (Heb. = Khok) ... { the Torah, [first five books of the Bible], is not “the
law”, it is instruction, it is the way, the target!] So when G-d said to Cain, “sin lieth
at the door” [Gen 4:6,7 above] He is stating
that Cain was about to miss the mark of “THE TORAH”. It existed in the
Garden. It exists NOW, and will eternally exist. Jer 31:33 But this [shall
be] the [new] covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those
days saith the LORD, I will put my TORAH [#8451] in their inward parts,
and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my
people. ONLY those with the TORAH in their hearts will be HIS
people! Selah. Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the Assemblies; To him that overcometh will I give to eat
of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Torah and the Torah
[Devarim] was with G-d and G-d was the Torah [Devarim]”. In the beginning, in the Garden, and forever. Adam, Noah, and Abraham, had the Torah, [the Words of G-d,
Devarim]. Jer 31:33 But this [shall be] the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put
my law [Torah] in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will
be their God, and they shall be my people. Isa 2:3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and
let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob;
and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of
Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Micah 4:2 For out of The Torah was in the Garden, and the
Our Father Works in Diverse Ways
by Norman Edwards There is a certain comfort in believing
that our Father in heaven has always had one set of expectations for His people,
and that we, through study, now have a very good understanding of His
expectations. How can He deny us salvation if we are sincerely living by
them? We should live by our understanding of what the Eternal
expects of us. But we also must realize that the Eternal does not judge
us only by what we do, but by what we do compared to what we know: "And that servant who knew his master's will,
and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with
many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of
stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given,
from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him
they will ask the more” (Luke 12:47-48) Those who understand the scriptures better cannot expect
that they will somehow be judged far more favorably than those who understand
little, but do what they know. The parable of the Talents show us that our
Messiah judges an unfaithful steward not by the whole Torah, but by his own
words: "And he said to him, 'Out of your own mouth
I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew
that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what
I did not sow. 'Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my
coming I might have collected it with interest?’” (Luke 19:22-23). The Scripture clearly shows us that our Father can
conflict an individual of sin even if he does not understand the law: For as many as have sinned without law will also
perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged
by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but
the doers of the law will be justified; for when Gentiles, who do not have
the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the
law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves
their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) (Rom 2:12-15). Whole Torah not in Garden Adam and Eve did not need the Torah to know that they
disobeyed the Eternal. They hid from Him like a guilty child (Gen 3:8). He
told them what to do and they sinned. As stated above, “sin” is “missing the
mark”—in this case, not doing what the Eternal verbally told them to do. Cain knew that he sinned, too. The Scripture mentions no
laws broken by the pre-flood people, only that they were “evil continually”
(Gen 6:5). Yet the Eternal convicted them of sin because Noah preached
righteousness to them (2Pet 2:5). The verses used in the above article to “prove” that the
Torah was in the Garden are either misinterpreted or mistranslated.
Certainly, there were many similarities in the Eternal’s teaching to Adam and
Eve, including sin offerings, the priesthood, etc. But the only verse cited
that seems to say that the Torah was in the garden was a mistranslation of
John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God (John 1:1) The Greek word here translated “word” is logos which means the spoken word. The Greek word
for law, synonymous with Torah is nomos.
Later on in the same chapter, John use nomos
to describe what Moses wrote (John The Torah is not just law, it is also history. Almost none
of the history of the Torah existed in the Garden. The Eternal said, “For now
I know that you [Abraham] fear God, since you have not withheld your son,
your only son, from Me" (Gen “And they built the high places of Baal which are in
the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their
sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not
command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this
abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jer 32:35, see also Jer 7:31; 19:5;
Lev 18:21; 20:1-5). There are many other obvious areas where teachings of the
Torah could not have been in the Garden of Eden. There were no Levites or
Aaronic priesthood, so the dozens of commands that apply to them were not in
the Garden. There was no death penalty for Murder carried out against Cain or
Lamech, as it is not given until after the flood: “Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be
shed; For in the image of God He made man” (Gen 9:6). While there may have been a place of worship in the
Garden, and a temple in “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,
and you Jews say that in Does the Eternal actually change the way he deals with
mankind at times? Undoubtedly! God, who at various times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through
whom also He made the worlds (Heb 1:1-2). Writing Torah on our Hearts The new covenant is the writing of the Torah (the law) on
our hearts (Jer 31:33). The Messiah was to magnify the Torah and make it
honorable (Isa 42:21). That magnification occurred in his teaching on the
mountain (Matt 5-7). That magnified Torah is to be written on our hearts. Having the
whole Torah in one’s mind does not necessarily help in writing it on one’s
heart. Most of the Scribes and Pharisees knew the Torah very well, but it
was far away from their hearts (Matt 23). Yet there was one exceptional
scribe who said little, but had much of that law on his heart because he was
close to being ready for the Kingdom: "And to love Him with all the heart, with all
the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love
one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices." Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him,
"You are not far from the Even though the sacrifices and other rituals were complex
commands, performing them perfectly did not write the Torah on one’s heart.
Loving one’s neighbor as oneself—always—is much more difficult. May the
Eternal give us hearts to do that! & Download Full Issue in PDF: September-October 2009 Quick PDF (2.1 MB) September-October 2009 High-Quality PDF to Print (5.1 MB) Back to front page
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