Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #32 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 3:22-24:

And JEHOVAH God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore JEHVOAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

In our last study we looked a little more carefully at the “tree of life” and God’s protection around it. In this study we are moving on to verse 23 and I think we are going to see another Gospel picture. Again, let me read Genesis 3:23:

Therefore JEHVOAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

As we have noted, Adam was a figure of Him that was to come (Christ) and the Garden of Eden was a figure or representation of the kingdom of God on earth. We talked about that long ago and we saw that the entire world was perfect and we asked the question, “What was the need for the Garden of Eden in a perfect creation?” But, God placed it there to represent His kingdom and it represented what later entities like national Israel or the New Testament churches would represent; they, too, would be God’s representatives to the nations of the world. The Garden of Eden in its time was that place of representation.

In verse 23, God sent Adam forth from the Garden of Eden. The word “sent” is a word that relates to God’s Gospel program. It says in Isaiah 61:1:

The Spirit of the Lord JEHOVAH is upon me; because JEHOVAH hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

God sent the Gospel into the world throughout history and the word “sent” is the same word that is used concerning Adam being sent forth from the Garden of Eden, just as God sent forth the Gospel through the corporate church, the outward representation of God’s kingdom during the church age. So, God is sending forth Adam, a figure of Christ, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (We will talk about that in a little while.)

It says in Isaiah 52:7:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

Here, God speaks of Christ, as He uses the pronoun “him.” It is singular and it refers to Jesus. In the New Testament, it says in Romans 10:14-15:

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

This is a similar verse. It is quoting from the verse we just read in Isaiah 52, verse 7, but God changed it to say, “How beautiful are the feet of them,” rather than, “How beautiful are the feet of him,” and this is because it is one and the same. The true believers that carry the Gospel into the world in the day of salvation are the body of Christ and as we went forth, Christ went forth. He was the one that redeemed us and moved within us to will and to do of His good pleasure to accomplish these things. He gets the glory, so it is His “beautiful feet” and, yet, the actual leg work was done by the elect as they carried the message of salvation.

So, the word “sent” is the word used in Isaiah 61, verse 1 and it does relate to the sending forth of the Gospel. But, what about the rest of the verse in Genesis 3, verse 23? It says that Adam was driven from the garden and then it goes on to say in Genesis 3:23:

… to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Earlier when we were looking at the task God had given Adam, we saw in Genesis 2:5:

And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for JEHOVAH God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

Then God created the man and it says in Genesis 2:15:

And JEHOVAH God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

The word “dress” is the same word as “till.” It is Strong’s #5647. We saw that this tilling of the ground really painted a picture of the Gospel because you prepare the ground, sow the seed, water it and the fruit develops. And this is the language used of God’s Gospel program, as He speaks of the seasons of rain and fruit, and so forth. There were the firstfruits and the final harvest. God uses that kind of language, so for Adam to be “sent” forth from the Garden of Eden “to till the ground from whence he was taken” is a figure of going forth with the Gospel. The ground would be the hearts of men.

This word “till” is also translated as “serve” or “served.” It says in Genesis 29:20:

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

Jacob did service or work for Laban and as payment he would get Rachel to wife, but Laban deceived him and gave him the eldest daughter Leah and then Jacob worked seven more years for Rachel.

It says in Hosea 12:12:

And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.

Jacob (also known as Israel) “served” for a wife. That was the reason that he worked and he did what Laban wanted him to do in keeping his flocks. The word “served” in both of these verses is the same word translated as “till.” It is translated as “serve” more often than it is translated as “till.” On the surface it would not seem to make sense that Jacob “tilled” for a wife, but it does make sense spiritually. If we go to Zechariah, chapter 13 we will find a verse that confirms the spiritual picture we are looking at in Genesis 3, verse 23 and that Adam being sent forth to till the ground is a reference to Christ going forth as the Sower to sow the seed of the Gospel. Let us read Zechariah 13:5-6:

But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth. And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

We can tell from verse 6 that this is a Messianic reference. It is obvious that the wounds in the hands would relate to Christ when He was nailed to the cross. They put nails through His hands and He received wounds. The word “wounds” is a word that means “stripes” or “plagues,” so it has to do with the wrath of God. The word “wounded” means “smitten” or “killed” and, of course, that would be a reference to national Israel that killed Christ. They should have been the friend of God (as was Moses), but they were not His friends. They were His enemies. They turned Him over to the Romans and insisted that He be crucified, so the “wounds” in His hands were wounds that He received in the house of His friends, spiritually. There is no doubt this refers to Jesus, as well as the previous verse in Zechariah 13:5:

But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.

How does this relate to tilling the ground? It relates because the word “husbandman” is the same word as “till” or “tiller.” It is translated as “husbandman,” but this is how Jay Green’s Interlinear Bible reads: “I am a man. I am a tiller of the ground.” It not only has the word “tiller” but the word “ground,” Strong’s #127, that is also in Genesis 3:23:

Therefore JEHVOAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

So, in this Messianic statement it is saying, “I am no prophet. I am a man. I am a tiller of the ground.” That is what the word “husbandman” really means and it is a translation of these Hebrew words “tiller” of the “ground.” The man was a tiller of the ground and Adam was sent out of the Garden of Eden to be a tiller of the ground. The English translation of “husbandman” being a tiller of the ground made me curious concerning the New Testament references to “husbandman,” because we read, for instance, in John 15:1:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

We also read in James 5:7:

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

There is another reference to this Greek word, which is Strong’s #1092, and I think it is in 2Timothy, but these references in John 15, verse 1 and James 5, verse 7 refer to God as the “husbandman,” just as it says in Zechariah 13, verse 5, where it means a man that is a tiller of the ground. So, I was curious what the Greek word translated as “husbandman” mean. The Greek word, Strong’s #1092, is pronounced “gheh-ore-gos.” It is from Strong’s #1093 in Strong’s Concordance, which is the word “gheh” and it is the word translated as “earth” and “ground.” It would be the equivalent word for the Hebrew word that is also translated as “ground” or “earth” in the verses we looked at in Genesis 3, verse 23 or Zechariah 13, verse 5. Again, this Greek word comes from Strong’s #1093, but it is a compound word. The first part is “gheh” or “ground” and from Strong’s #2041, the word “ergon,” a word translated as “work” or “labour.” Jacob “served” or “worked” seven years for a wife. That is what the word “tiller” means. It means to “serve” or to “work.” It is actually translated as “labour” once and it has that idea. So the word translated as “husbandman” in the Greek means to work the ground or work the earth and this was exactly the idea of “tilling the ground.” You work or till the ground. God the Father likens Himself to a husbandman: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” He is the worker of the ground – it is His salvation program; it is His Gospel program that likens itself to sowing seed in the hearts of men. It can be stony ground or rocky ground or it can be ground that God has made good. This is how the Gospel is presented in many places throughout the Bible.

I think we can see the clear spiritual picture in Genesis 3, verse 23 when God sent Adam forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground. It is a picture of God’s salvation program.