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Genesis

About this book

Disobedience and Expulsion from the Garden

Chapter 3

1 Now the serpent was shrewder than any of the wild animals⁠ that the Lord God had made.⁠ He said to the woman,⁠ “Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?”⁠ 2 The woman said to the serpent,⁠ “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard;⁠ 3 but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’”⁠ 4 The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die,⁠ 5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like God,⁠ knowing good and evil.”⁠ 6 When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye,⁠ and was desirable for making one wise,⁠ she took some of its fruit and ate it.⁠ She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her,⁠ and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.⁠ 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day,⁠ and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”⁠ 10 The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”⁠ 11 And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”⁠ 13 So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”⁠ 14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and all the living creatures of the field!⁠ On your belly you will crawl⁠ and dust you will eat all the days of your life.⁠ 15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”⁠ 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains;⁠ with pain you will give birth to children.⁠ You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”⁠ 17 But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed the voice of52 your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,⁠ ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you;⁠ in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.⁠ 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grass of the field.⁠ 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”⁠ 20 The man named his wife Eve,⁠ because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments from skin⁠ for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.⁠ 22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil,⁠ he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”⁠ 23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden⁠ to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword⁠ to guard the way to the tree of life.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Epic of Gilgamesh IX 42 and Genesis 3:24

Ancient Near East, Babylonian · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, divine scorpion-beings guard Mount Mashu, whose gate connects heaven and earth. Genesis 3 echoes this tradition, also describing divine beings guarding the boundary between heaven and earth.

Passages

Epic of Gilgamesh IX 42

Ancient Near East, Babylonian
38 To Māšu’s twin mountains he came, 39 which daily guard the rising [of the sun,] – 40 their tops [abut] the fabric of the heavens, 41 their bases reach down to Hades – 42 there were scorpion-men guarding its gate, 43 whose terror was dread and glance was death, 44 whose radiance was terrifying, enveloping the uplands – 45 at both sunrise and sunset they guard the sun –
2100 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Epic of Gilgamesh

Genesis 3:24

Hebrew Bible
22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

References

“... After creation, the function of the sea monsters changed, mostly in a guarding function. In the Gilgamesh Epic, ferocious scorpion men guarded the mountain at the edge of the world, wanting to prevent Gilgamesh to enter the garden of the gods. The כְּרֻבִים had the same function in Genesis 3:24. One of the assigned duties of the sea-monsters, was to guard the gates of the netherworld. The hellhound Cerburus guarded the netherworld in Greek mythology and Aker, in the form of a double-sphinx, guarded the underworld in Egypt. ...”
Allan Dyssel, Sea Monsters and Other Mythical Creatures Associated with the Primeval Flood in the Old Testament. A History of Denial? (University of South Africa, 2017), 179.
“... It is possible that these plants are symbolic of the threshold between sacred and profane space (see Stordalen 2000: 137, 161, 284). If this is the case, then the cherubim depicted on the walls of the temple may represent guardian figures that protect the sacred space from contamination. This idea is corroborated by the use of the verb שמר in connection with the cherubim who guard the way to the Tree of Life in Genesis 3:24. ...”
Alice Wood, Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 33.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Epic of Gilgamesh IX 42 and Genesis 3:24

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