and

References Bassora. Its four heads, on their showing, would have Authorities. been on the north, the separate streams of the Tigris and

Euphrates; on the south, Gihon, the eastern and Pison the western channels, into which the united stream again branches out beyond Bassora, before it falls into the sea. Speaker's Havilah would then be the north-eastern part of Arabia, and Cush the region of Kissia, Susiana, or Chuzestan." The weight of argument and authority seems to be in favour of this explanation.

Commentary.

Eden a region.

NOTE ON GENESIS 11. 8—17.

Ver. 8. EDEN; we are to understand a region or district, rather than a limited and enclosed garden. Michaelis and others identified Eden with the Armenian highlands.

Ver. 9. TREE OF LIFE; the suggestion has been made that there was a medicinal virtue in this tree, whereby it was calculated to preserve from or heal diseases, and so perpetuate animal life. Its connection with the prolongation of man's being on the earth is Gen. iii. 22. clearly marked out.

Onkelos.

Inglis.

Matt.

Henry.

KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL; so called because it was made the instrument of man's moral testing. "Of the fruit of which they who eat learn to distinguish between good and evil."

"These trees are the first of many symbols whose typical language pervades the whole of Scripture."

Ver. 12. BDELLIUM; a transparent gum from a tree which grows in Arabia, India, and Media. Some think it may mean pearls, or a kind of precious stone. Numb. xi. 7.

Ver. 15. DRESS IT. "Work was an addition to his pleasures. He that made us these souls and bodies has given us something to work with; and He that gave us this earth hath made us something to work on."

and

Ver. 17. SHALT NOT; the distinctness of the injunc- References tion, and Adam's full apprehension of it, should be duly Authorities. considered.

"The specific command to Adam not to eat of a certain tree was given simply to be the outward and visible test, to determine whether he was willing to obey God in all things."

SURELY DIE; lit. dying thou shalt die, i.e., thou shalt have the sentence of death within thee, which grows on sin as its root.

Hodge.

Words

worth.

"Language is the work of man; it was invented by man as a means of communicating his thoughts, when mere looks and gestures proved inefficient; and it was gradually, by the combined effort of succeeding generations, brought to that perfection which we admire in the idiom of the Bible, the Vedas, the Koran, and in the poetry of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare."-Max Muller.

and

Scientific

theory.

References THE above passage indicates the theory of the origin Authorities. of human language which would commend itself to The the merely scientific mind: and it is evidently correct enough, if observation be confined to the history of man. Language, as we know it, is manifestly a development; its unfolding keeps pace with man's civilization, and is indeed the sure sign of it.

Peculiarity of the Bible

account.

But the Bible narrative of the origin of language is peculiar in just this,-it indicates God's direct rela tion to it, declaring that the faculty of human speech is a distinct Divine endowment. As usual, this great fact is presented under figures of speech, it is set before us pictorially, but we cannot miss seeing the

and

God gave

man his speech.

Adam's simple

speech to the extent of his need.

very point of the narrative, or receiving the assurance References that all the marvel of human literature must be traced Authorities. directly to the Divine wisdom and gracious provision. It is necessary for us to gain some clear idea of the simplicity of Adam's condition, as first created, to understand the simple forms in which language would condition. begin. Man never has more words, or forms of words, than suffice for his actual use, and we need not suppose that Adam had what we should call a complete language, we need only assume that he used his Adam used faculty of speech to meet all the necessities that arose, first out of his relation to the animals, then further, out of his relation to Eve, and yet further still, out of his relation to his children. Although, however, it must be remembered, that he had the faculty of apprehending the Divine will, and of answering the Divine voice. How these two things may be blended it is difficult for us to understand; but some of the perplexity is removed if we assume that Adam and Eve had been for some time together in Eden before their fall, and in that time their language had developed.

Adam could speak to

hear and

God.

animals.

The naming of the animals, by Adam, was the first Naming the and simplest act of the speech-faculty. The relation of words to things indicates that Adam partly imitated the sounds characteristic of the animals; and partly fixed by a sound the individual peculiarity which he observed in each animal. Language cer- begins with tainly begins with names or nouns, affixed to things, and distinguishing them from each other. We need hardly say, that the assumption of ancient Bible pictures that the animals were brought before Adam

Language

nouns.