when his body will deteriorate, his teeth will be gone, his eyes dim, his sleep will be light and easily disturbed, he will be shaky in his limbs and afraid of falling, his hair will be white and he will lose his appetite, his hands will be unable to care for him and eventually his life force will go out into the hands of the true God and his body will return to the dust. Then what can he present to God?—Eccl. 12:1-7.

After viewing all these things, Solomon came to the conclusion that everything in this system of things is vanity. Nevertheless, he was not bitter or discouraged, for he worked hard to keep the people together in the fear of God, to teach them knowledge. He thought out many proverbs by a thorough search of matters and sought to find delightful and correct words of truth. He tells us that there is one shepherd who gives wise words and these are something secure to which we can anchor ourselves. To these we should give concern. Devoting our time to worldly books of wisdom and philosophy will not be refreshing, as are the words of the wise, but will be wearisome to the flesh. All the observations of Solomon can be concluded in the command: “Fear the true God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole obligation of man.” This present life, therefore, is not the end, if it is lived wisely, for the true God himself will bring every sort of work into judgment in relation to every hidden thing as to whether it is good or bad.—Eccl. 12:8-14; see the book “All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial,” pp. 111-114.

EDEN

(Eʹden) [pleasure, delight].

1. A region in which the Creator planted a gardenlike park as the original home of the first human pair. The statement that the garden was “in Eden, toward the east,” apparently indicates that the garden occupied only a portion of the region called Eden. (Gen. 2:8) However, the garden is thereafter called “the garden of Eden” (Gen. 2:15), and, in later texts, is spoken of as “Eden, the garden of God” (Ezek. 28:13), and “the garden of Jehovah.”—Isa. 51:3.

The Septuagint rendered the Hebrew word for “garden” (gan) by the Greek word pa·raʹdei·sos, a word borrowed from the Old Persian pairidaeza, meaning “enclosure” and, later, “park” or “pleasure ground.” To this fact we owe our association of the English word “paradise” with the garden of Eden.

Genesis 2:15 states that “God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden.” While this might appear to indicate that man’s creation took place outside the garden, it may simply refer to God’s ‘taking’ man in the sense of his forming and creating him from the earthly elements, then assigning him to reside initially in the garden in which he came to life. The cultivation and care of the garden was man’s work assignment. Eden’s trees and plants included all those providing scenic beauty as well as those providing food in wide variety. (Gen. 2:9, 15) This fact alone would indicate that the garden covered an area of considerable size.

The fauna of the garden had great variety. God brought before Adam “all the domestic animals and . . . flying creatures of the heavens and . . . every wild beast of the field,” the naming of which was given to Adam as one of his earliest tasks. (Gen. 2:19, 20) Eden’s soil was watered, not by rain, but by the waters of the river “issuing out of Eden,” as well as by the “mist” rising up from the earth. (Gen. 2:5, 6, 10) In view of man’s nakedness it may be assumed that the climate was very mild and agreeable.—Gen. 2:25.

EVENTS IN EDEN

Eden’s fruit trees were all there for man to eat from “to satisfaction.” (Gen. 2:16) But one tree, that “of the knowledge of good and bad,” was placed ‘off limits’ for the human pair. Eve quoted Jehovah’s prohibition given to her husband as including even the ‘touching’ of the tree, with the penalty of death to result from disrespect for and violation of the divine law. (Gen. 2:17; 3:3) Traditional teachings have attempted to explain the prohibited fruit in a variety of ways: as a symbol of sexual intercourse, represented by an “apple”; as standing for the mere cognizance of right and wrong; and as the knowledge attained upon reaching maturity and also through experience, which knowledge can be put to a good or a bad use. Yet, in view of the Creator’s command to “be fruitful and become many and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28), sexual intercourse must be rejected as that which the tree’s fruit represented, for in what other way could procreation and multiplication have been effected? As to the genus of the particular tree, the record is silent. The mere ability to recognize right and wrong most certainly cannot be meant, for obedience to God’s command required of sinless man that he be able to exercise such moral discrimination. Nor could the ‘knowledge attained upon reaching maturity’ be meant, for it would not be sin on man’s part to reach this state, nor would his Creator logically obligate him to remain in an immature state.

It becomes apparent that the tree of the knowledge of good and bad symbolized the divine right or prerogative, which man’s Creator retains, to designate to his creatures what is “good” and what is “bad,” thereafter properly requiring the practice of that which is declared good and the abstention from that which is pronounced bad in order to remain approved by God as Sovereign Ruler. (See TREES.) Both the prohibition and the subsequent pronouncement of the sentence passed upon the disobedient pair emphasize the fact that it was the act of disobedience in eating the prohibited fruit that constituted the original sin.—Gen. 3:3.

While some modern critics may balk at the very simplicity of the Edenic account, yet it should be obvious that the actual circumstances called for and made most fitting a simple test. The life of the newly created man and woman was simple, not complicated and encumbered with all the complex problems, predicaments and perplexity that disobedience to God has since brought to the human race. Nonetheless, for all its simplicity, the test succinctly and admirably expresses the universal truth of God’s sovereignty and of man’s dependence upon God and his duty toward God. And it must be said that, while simple, the account of Eden’s events presents matters on an infinitely higher level than those theories that would place man’s start, not in a garden, but in a cave, representing him as both crudely ignorant and without moral sense. The simplicity of the test in Eden illustrates the principle stated millenniums later by God’s Son, that “the person faithful in what is least is faithful also in much, and the person unrighteous in what is least is unrighteous also in much.”—Luke 16:10.

Eden’s having this proscribed tree within it, however, was clearly not intended to serve as a ‘thorn in the flesh’ of the human pair, nor was it so designated in order to raise an issue or to serve as the subject for debate. By simply acknowledging God’s will in the matter and respecting his instructions, their garden home would continue unmarred as a place of pleasure and delight. The record shows that the issue and debate over the tree were thrust upon mankind by God’s adversary, along with the temptation to violate God’s ordinance. (Gen. 3:1-6) Their exercise of their will, as free moral agents, to rebel against God’s rightful sovereignty led to the loss of their paradise home and the blessedness of its confines. Of even graver consequence, they lost the opportunity to partake of another of Eden’s trees, this one representing the right to life everlasting.—Gen. 3:22-24.

LOCATION OF EDEN

The original site of the garden of Eden is conjectural. The principal means of identifying its geographical location is the description of the river “issuing out of Eden,” which thereafter divided into four “heads,” producing the rivers named as the Euphrates, Hiddekel, Pishon and Gihon. (Gen. 2:10-14) The Euphrates (Heb., P^erathʹ) is well known, and “Hiddekel” is the name used for the Tigris in ancient inscriptions. (Compare also Daniel 10:4.) The other two rivers, the Pishon and the Gihon, however, are unidentified.—See CUSH No. 2; HAVILAH No. 1.

Some, such as Calvin and Delitzsch, have argued in favor of Eden’s situation somewhere near the head of the Persian Gulf in Lower Mesopotamia, approximately at the place where the Tigris and the Euphrates draw near together. They associated the Pishon and Gihon with canals between these streams. However, this would make these rivers tributaries, rather than branches dividing off from an original source. The Hebrew text points, rather, to a location in the mountainous region N of the Mesopotamian plains, the area where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers have their present sources. Thus The Anchor Bible, 1964, in its commentary on Genesis 2:10, states: “In Heb[rew] the mouth of the river is called ‘end’ (Josh xv 5, xviii 19); hence the plural of ro’s ‘head’ must refer here to the upper course. . . . This latter usage is well attested for the Akk[adian] cognate resu.” The fact that the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers do not now proceed from a single source, as well as the impossibility of definitely determining the identification of the Pishon and Gihon Rivers, is best explained by the effects of the Noachian flood, which undoubtedly altered considerably the topographical features of the earth, filling in the courses of some rivers and creating others.

Supporting a location of Eden in the mountainous region mentioned is the fact that the ark with its survivors came to rest on “the mountains of Ararat” (Gen. 8:4) Since the ark was not powered but merely floated, it should reasonably be expected to have settled again at least in the general region in which the floodwaters lifted it up. That Eden may have been surrounded by some natural barrier, such as mountains, could be suggested by the fact that cherubs are stated to have been stationed only at the E of the garden, from which point Adam and Eve made their exit. (Gen. 3:24) So, the traditional location for the garden of Eden has long been suggested as an area some 140 miles (225 kilometers) SW of Mount Ararat and a few miles S of Lake Van, in the eastern part of modern Turkey.

After Adam’s banishment from the paradisaic garden, with no one to “cultivate it and to take care of it,” it may be assumed that it merely grew up in natural profusion with only the animals to inhabit its confines until, some 1,656 years later, it was obliterated by the surging waters of the Flood, its location lost to man except for the divine record of its existence.

2. A place mentioned along with Haran and Canneh as a principal trading center with Tyre, specializing in fine garments, carpets and rope. (Ezek. 27:23, 24) It is suggested to be an abbreviated form of the name Beth-eden referred to at Amos 1:5. The “sons of Eden” are included among other inhabitants of places that were vanquished by the Assyrian forces (2 Ki. 19:12; Isa. 37:12), and it is generally considered that this Eden (or Beth-eden) corresponds to the small district of Bit-adini along the middle course of the Euphrates River.—See BETH-EDEN.

3. One of the Levites who responded to King Hezekiah’s call for reform; thereafter assigned to work under Kore, “the gatekeeper to the east,” in the distribution of the holy contributions among the priestly divisions.—2 Chron. 29:12; 31:14, 15.

EDER

(Eʹder) [drove, flock].

1. A descendant of Beriah of the tribe of Benjamin who dwelt in Jerusalem.—1 Chron. 8:1, 15, 16, 28.

2. A descendant of Mushi of the Levitical family of Merari, assigned to priestly service during the time of David.—1 Chron. 23:21, 23-25; 24:30.

3. A city in the southern part of Judah. (Josh. 15:21) Since the Septuagint has “A·raʹ” instead of “Eder” in this text, most geographers consider them identical, locating both at Tell Arad, twenty-two and a half miles (36.2 kilometers) E-NE of Beer-sheba.

4. A tower near which Jacob (Israel) pitched his tent sometime after the death of Rachel. Although its exact location is not known, it was apparently located some place between Bethlehem and Heron. The name Eder (meaning “drove” or “flock”) indicates it provided shelter for shepherds and served as a watchtower from which they could oversee their flocks. (Gen. 35:19, 21, 27) While tenting here, his son Reuben “profaned [Jacob’s] lounge,” having relations with Jacob’s concubine Bilhah.—Vs. 22; 49:3, 4.

The same Hebrew expression here translated “tower of Eder” (migh·dal-ʽeʹdher) is used by Micah (4:8) when referring to the “tower of the drove.” This expression may allude to the name of Jacob’s camping site, and is used in connection with the restoration of Jehovah’s “limping” people. (Vs. 7) With “Zion” restored they would be watched over as from a lookout “tower” and thereby be guarded from further danger. Such an illustration is consistent with other similes in Micah’s prophecy, he referring to the Messiah as one who would do “shepherding” (5:2-4) and Jehovah’s people as “the flock of [God’s] inheritance.”—7:14.

EDOM

(Eʹdom) [red, ruddy], Edomites.

Edom was the secondary name or byname given to Esau, Jacob’s twin brother. (Gen. 36:1) It was applied to him because of his selling his birthright for the red stew. (Gen. 25:30-34) Coincidentally, Esau at birth had had a very ruddy color (Gen. 25:25), and a similar color prevailed in parts of the land he and his descendants later inhabited.

SEIR AND EDOM

Sometime during Jacob’s twenty-year stay in Haran Esau, (Edom) had begun to establish himself in the land of Seir, “the field of Edom.” (Gen. 32:3) Thus, even before the death of his father (Gen. 35:29), Esau was apparently beginning to fulfill Isaac’s prophetic blessing, directing his attention away from the fertile soils around Hebron and, doubtless, beginning to ‘live by his sword,’ along with the four hundred men under his command. (Gen. 27:39, 40; 32:6, 8) The record indicates, however, that he still maintained residence or a base camp in the Hebron area, not transferring definitely to the mountainous region of Seir until after his father’s death (1738 B.C.E.). By then his family had grown and his possessions were great.—Gen. 36:6-8.

The land of Seir had previously been the domain of Horites (Gen. 14:6; 36:20-30), but Esau’s sons dispossessed the Horite sheiks and took over the region. (Deut. 2:12) Thereafter the land became known as the land of Edom, though the older name of Seir still continued to be in use. (Num. 24:18) The name Seir seems to be echoed in the modern name Jebel esh-Shera’, applied to the principal mountain range S of the Dead Sea and E of the Arabah (the southern extension of the great Rift Valley, which, N of the Dead Sea, forms the valley of the Jordan).

GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION

The territory of Edom extended about a hundred miles (c. 161 kilometers) from its frontier with Moab in the N, formed by the torrent valley of Zered, down to Elath (Eloth) on the Gulf of Aqabah in the S. (Deut. 2:1-8, 13, 14; 1 Ki. 9:26) To the E, the Edomite domain apparently extended out to the edge of the Arabian Desert, while to the W it reached across the Arabah to the wilderness of Zin and embraced the Negeb highlands region stretching from the SW corner of the Dead Sea on down to Kadesh-barnea. The western portion of Edom therefore came to form the SE boundary of Judah’s territory.—Josh. 15:1; compare Numbers 34:3.

The true heartland of the Edomite territory, however,