2:15 The Lord God took the man and placed 1 him in the orchard in 2 Eden to care for it and to maintain it. 3 2:16 Then the Lord God commanded 4 the man, “You may freely eat 5 fruit 6 from every tree of the orchard, 2:17 but 7 you must not eat 8 from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when 9 you eat from it you will surely die.” 10
1 tn The Hebrew verb נוּחַ (nuakh, translated here as “placed”) is a different verb than the one used in 2:8.
2 tn Traditionally translated “the Garden of Eden,” the context makes it clear that the garden (or orchard) was in Eden (making “Eden” a genitive of location).
3 tn Heb “to work it and to keep it.”
4 sn This is the first time in the Bible that the verb tsavah (צָוָה, “to command”) appears. Whatever the man had to do in the garden, the main focus of the narrative is on keeping God’s commandments. God created humans with the capacity to obey him and then tested them with commands.
5 tn The imperfect verb form probably carries the nuance of permission (“you may eat”) since the man is not being commanded to eat from every tree. The accompanying infinitive absolute adds emphasis: “you may freely eat,” or “you may eat to your heart’s content.”
6 tn The word “fruit” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied as the direct object of the verb “eat.” Presumably the only part of the tree the man would eat would be its fruit (cf. 3:2).
7 tn The disjunctive clause here indicates contrast: “but from the tree of the knowledge….”
8 tn The negated imperfect verb form indicates prohibition, “you must not eat.”
9 tn Or “in the very day, as soon as.” If one understands the expression to have this more precise meaning, then the following narrative presents a problem, for the man does not die physically as soon as he eats from the tree. In this case one may argue that spiritual death is in view. If physical death is in view here, there are two options to explain the following narrative: (1) The following phrase “You will surely die” concerns mortality which ultimately results in death (a natural paraphrase would be, “You will become mortal”), or (2) God mercifully gave man a reprieve, allowing him to live longer than he deserved.
10 tn Heb “dying you will die.” The imperfect verb form here has the nuance of the specific future because it is introduced with the temporal clause, “when you eat…you will die.” That certainty is underscored with the infinitive absolute, “you will surely die.”