It Isn’t et
The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16-17 NASB
The man – I’ve put “the man” in bold to call your attention to it, but the truth is that what I want you to learn today isn’t even found in the English Bible. You see, in Hebrew there is a preposition in this text that is not translated. It’s simply left out. Between “commanded YHVH Elohim” and “the man” is the preposition al. It’s not supposed to be there. What should be there is the direct object marker et, but in this verse (and a few others) the et is replaced by al, a real, translatable preposition. Here it is in the Hebrew text.
וַיְצַו֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים עַל־הָֽאָדָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֑ר מִכֹּ֥ל עֵֽץ־הַגָּ֖ן אָכֹ֥ל תֹּאכֵֽל
Soloveitchik notes this oddity:
“Usually, the verb va-yetzav governs the objective case as a directly transitive verb. In such a case, our verse would have read, ‘Va-yetzav Hashem Elokim et ha-adam, God commanded Adam.’ Here, however, a distinctive grammatical form is used: the verb appears with the preposition al instead of et. We come across this strange form several times in the Bible. [Genesis 12:20, Esther 4:5] In a word, whenever the verb ‘to command’ is accompanied by the preposition al it has the connotation ‘about, concerning, with regard to.’ Direct grammatical transitiveness is missing. In light of this analysis we will have to translate verse 16, ‘Va-yetzav Hashem Elokim al ha-adam,’ as ‘And the Lord God commanded (or instructed) Adam the man, as regards man.’ He told him something which is relevant to man, which is indispensable for a human who is bent on finding himself, his identity and personality. What is the password which grants man admission into a new world of being, into an entirely new ontological dimension? It is the command: . . “[1]
This is incredibly important. Our English translations completely miss the point of God’s instruction to Adam. God is not giving Adam a rule which he must obey. He is showing Adam what it means to be human! The biological creature God created becomes human when he submits to the divine command. He transitions from being merely a sentient creation to a divine agent. It is the command that makes him human. Christian theology often views the creation story as if God’s animation of the earth-body in Genesis 2 infused the Man with the Imago Dei (Divine Image), the divine spirit. It is as if Man were formed from the ground and then God breathed something divine into him. But this isn’t a Jewish view. “Judaism considered the imago element to be not a gratuitous grant bestowed upon man but rather a challenge to be met by man; not as an endowment fashioned by God but rather as a mission to be implemented, as a hyle, formless matter to be molded by man.”[2]
In Jewish thinking, “It is up to man to either realize or shake off the Imago Dei.”[3] Now we see that it is God’s command, and the Man’s response to it, that makes the Man human. God’s command sets the stage not for a test of obedience but rather for the possibility of becoming what God intended. The story of Genesis 2 leaves us with this question: Do you want to be human? If you do, the commandments are your pathway.
Topical Index: command, al, et, human, Genesis 2:16-17
[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Family Redeemed: Essays on Family Relationships (KTAV Publishing House, 2000), pp. 13-14.
[2] Ibid., p. 7.
[3] Ibid.
An insightful and articulate observation obscured from those who are not Hebrew (that is, with respect to Hebrew language, linguistics, and understanding).Thank you, Skip!
Indeed, it sets the stage for the purpose of the theater played out under the “old covenant” which in its form was materially oriented, preserving mankind, through Abraham and his descendants, for the fulness of time, at which time the spiritual reality hidden behind the veil of separation between our fallen fleshly proclivity toward the power of sin and the renewed life of God’s own spirit in the power of that self-same Spirit was rent in the fabric of mankind’s existential conditions of time and space.
It was when the incarnate Christ was born that God’s final plan of redemption was unveiled; yet because it’s form is spiritual and notmaterial (except as it is manifest in the flesh of Christ Jesus), it remains hidden even now to those who are only of the flesh, and not born again, from above, by the Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ.
It is under the new covenant that Christ’s spiritual work in his earthly mission, particularly in his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead, was made the means of mankind’s redemption and salvation and restoration by which man’s spiritual orientation and agency may be renewed by faith in that work of the only begotten Son of God who now reigns over his people as Messianic Lord and Savior. It is indeed mankind’s “re-do” that encompasses the beginning “all the way back— to the future.”
“But thanks be to God that you were slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted, and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.” (Romans 6:17-18)
The contrast between life under the Mosaic covenant (the law) in its material form, and life under the the new covenant (grace) in its spiritual form could not be more clear.
The life that was revealed by the law was the life of preservation for that spiritual life of God’s own spirit that was to be revealed in the “fulness of time” in the life of the incarnate Christ/Messiah of God, the only begotten Son of God, Yeshua of Nazareth. Under the old covenant (of the law) mankind found himself as he actually is in himself to be a slave to sin; whereas under the new covenant (of grace) mankind nay be set free from his slavery as vassal to “sovereign sin” that rules over him, and thereby, freely submit as vassal to another Sovereign by a choice in faith of the faithfulness and righteousness of the One True Sovereign of mankind, who by His gracious and righteous work makes his vassals, also, righteous. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!