In the previous article, we demonstrated that Adam was incapable of following a Divine order. Now let us study how he was unable to absorb an important lesson taught by the Lord God Himself. The profound and grave repercussion, due to the failure to understand this lesson, resulted in the destruction of the Lord’s plans for the people of Eden and eventually the world. Once again demonstrating, that owing to his innate lethargy, Adam turned out to be unfit to be the Lord’s spokesman.
I allude to this innate lethargy, because Adam constantly failed to comprehend and execute his responsibilities. Duties that, if they had been properly carried out, would have changed the whole world into a magnificent paradise and not the nightmare that it became. The first great failure was being unable to follow the Lord’s order not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The second failure, which this text will deal with, is found in Genesis 2:19, where the Lord God, Himself, set about to teach His elected representative an extremely important skill. It is within this verse, where the Bible mentions that the Lord God had made all the beasts in the fields and the birds in the sky that we find the evidence of Adam’s laziness to learn an apply this knowledge. At first view, this line seemed repetitive since the creation of these beasts had already been described in Genesis chapter one. Nevertheless, three points stand out here that should be examined.
The first was that the Lord God Himself was teaching the lesson, which would suggest that it was an extremely important message. If the Creator was personally taking the time to instruct Adam, it was because he needed to understand this information in order to properly do his duties. It is impossible that He, God, would have given Adam a task that he could not understand and put into practice. As in any employment, it could be seen as on the job training.
The second point would be, why would the Lord God care what literal name was given to these creatures. I believe He didn’t. He created animals, birds, and plants of every kind to feed the only true creation that He cared for: man and woman.[1] The only creatures made in His image that could think, analyze and talk. Bestowed with the breath of Life they could communicate on a very modest level with him. However, as mentioned in other articles, not all humans had this breath of life and the planet was full of people who had no knowledge of the Lord God or of His plans.
The third point, was that it was reiterated once again in this verse that these beasts and birds were formed out of the ground.[2] That this particular term “formed out to the ground” was again emphasized within this second chapter, that was dealing mainly with man and his place within the garden, gives us the impression that those particular words were important. This terminology seemed very similar to the way that Adam had been formed.[3] Were these beasts, within this chapter dealing with man, a symbolic image for the other humans who were similar to Adam in physical form but who had not received the breath of life? For without the breath of Life, one would be seen as a beast in the eyes of God. Human-beasts acting like animals because they were not gifted with the divine breath of life which would have, with time, allowed humans to be born perfect like Jesus.
Hence, I believe that the basis for this lesson was to have Adam not only name, but also at the same time observe these real animals and how they acted in their natural habitat. This in order to be able to see and assign the same name to those same animal characteristics when he found them within the human-beasts. That was the hidden reason for this particular verse. God wanted Adam to study real animals so that he could identify with a name, the different animal characteristics that lay within every human-beast, who resembled Adam in physical form, through their thoughts, actions and words in order to better defend and watch over the Eden project.
For even today we use animal imagery to describe humans such as: Jesus was a lamb of God. People in business are sometimes seen as sharks or vultures. A person can be noble as a lion, timed as a mouse, cunning as a fox, strong as a bull and sneaky and fearful as a rat, etc. Reading people is a talent, a gift and it was Adam’s job to study these animal characteristics in order to better do his job as the Lord’s delegate in the garden.
The proof that demonstrates that Adam failed this very important lesson is right there in the Bible. There was within the garden a person that was described as a serpent. He was the representative of evil. How we know this is due to the symbol of his forked tongue, an image of liars, and because he was lounging around the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This human with a reptilian character was a spokes-person for the same doctrine that got us thrown out of Heaven. A liar because he was endorsing the idea that it was alright to eat the fruit of this tree when it was a divine order not to.
If Adam had properly retained the divine lesson, he would have known that this individual was a serpent and therefore dangerous. He would not have allowed Eve to approach this human-beast, who had all the characteristic of a dangerous snake, without informing her of its/his true nature. One must ask the question whether she had been sufficiently educated as Adam had been on this subject? It seems not so, because she did not seem to be afraid of the serpent and continue to discourse with it/him. This human-beast characterized with a symbolic forked tongue persuaded her into disobeying the Lord’s command not to eat the fruit of that particular tree. Demonstrating that she did not see the dangerous serpentine characteristic in the speaker because the lesson of the naming of animals had occurred before she arrived on scene according to the Bible. Hence, revealing and establishing that she had not taken part of this tutorial experience.
If Adam had been truly taking care of the garden for God as was his responsibility, he would have chased the serpent out because of its inherent lying and repulsive feature, that his new found understanding of its nature would have taught him. Especially, since the serpent was hanging around the tree known for deadly fruits, that the Lord God himself had forewarned Adam about. As he was in charge of the garden, it was his responsibility to have insured that Eve also received the same lesson that he had obtained. Unfortunately, it seems that Adam had not seen any threat surrounding this creature. Instead, when caught in the act of eating the fruit, he lamely blamed his culpability and apathy on her. [4] Hence, due to Adam’s innate laziness in not using his new found understanding of this danger in Eden, paradise was lost.
Noble