Cliff Goldstein Look at the verbs in the first two chapters of Genesis,* especially those associated with God’s activity: God “created,” “saw,” “said,” “made,” “rested,” “set,” “breathed,” “blessed,” “separated,” “hallowed,” “planted,” “took.” Not until Genesis 2:16, 17 do we come across the first use of the verb “command.”

 

“And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die’ ” (Gen. 2:16, 17).

 

The root is the Hebrew word tzvh, from which the noun mitzvah, “commandment,” is spawned. When a Jewish boy reaches the age of 13, he is a bar mitzvah, Aramaic (a first cousin to Hebrew) for a “son of the commandment.”

 

What’s fascinating is that this first use of the verb “command” appears with the first use of the concept of death: “you shall die.” Until then it was about life, about nephesh hayyah, “living creatures” (Gen. 1:20). It was about lush fields, trees rich with fruit. It was about fish and “great sea monsters” (verse 21) and birds of the air, which were to “be fruitful and multiply” (verse 22). Genesis was a carnival of flesh and breath with not a hint of death, not until these verses, which explicitly link disobedience to death.

 

Of course, we’re used to seeing the link between death and disobedience, but that’s always in a fallen world. Genesis 2 shows that in the pre-Fall Paradise, even before death existed, life was contingent on not violating what God had commanded.

 

Eventually, of course, that first mitzvah was transgressed.

 

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ ” (Gen. 3:1).

 

Notice the serpent’s verb. He asked Eve, “Did God say?” He used a different verb than “command,” a subtle but crucial distinction, because “say” appears less emphatic than “command.” Had the serpent uttered, “Did God command?” Eve might have been more wary.

 

“The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said,

“You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you will die.” ’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’ ” (verses 2-5).

 

Eve’s words were not that “God commanded” but that “God said.” Consciously or not, she echoed Satan’s, not God’s, language. The opening lines of Genesis 3 reveal the world’s first example of how words don’t have to lie in order to deceive.

 

Then, too, after the Fall, the Lord said to Adam: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you” (verses 17, 18).

 

The Lord used the verb “commanded,” the same verb He used in Genesis 2:16 to warn them about eating from the tree. Eve didn’t use the verb; the serpent didn’t either; God, though, did—twice.

 

The Scriptures’ first use of the verb “command” reveals just how linked obedience was to life, and disobedience to death. Obedience isn’t an option, not in Eden, not now; it’s a mitzvah, a command, and those who have eternal life in Him will obey His commandments.

 

Sure, we’re saved by grace, but that grace must be expressed through our lives, and faithfulness to God’s mitzvoth (plural of mitzvah) is its truest expression. Thus we are told: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. 22:14, KJV).

 

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Clifford Goldstein is editor of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide. This article was published May 19, 2011.