Genesis 3:1-24

The Generations of the Heavens and the Land, Genesis 2:4 to Genesis 4:26.

In chapters 1, and Genesis 2:1-3, the sacred writer gives us his account of the creation of the heavens and the land; he now proceeds to give us their generations, תולרות . His historical standpoint is the day from which these generations start; the day when man was formed of the dust of the ground, and of the breath of life from the heavens. So the first man is conceived of as the product of the heavens and the land by the word of God. Hence, Adam was the son of God, (Luke 3:38,) and the day of his creation was the point of time when Jehovah-God first revealed himself in history as one with the Creator . In chapter i, which narrates the beginning of the heavens and the land, we find mention of Elohim only, the God in whom (as the plural form of the name intimates) centres all fulness and manifoldness of Divine Powers . At the beginning of this section stands the name יהוה , Jehovah, the personal Revealer and Redeemer, who enters into covenant with his creatures, and places man under moral law .

The information supplied in this chapter is fundamental to the history of redemption. Here we learn of man’s original estate; the conditions of the first covenant of works; the sanctity of the family relation; and the innocency of the first human pair. Without the information here supplied the subsequent history of man and of redemption would be an insoluble enigma.