Start here · day 2 of 14 · The world, and what a person is
אָדָם
What a person is
Genesis 2 and 3
First, read it
Genesis 2 and 3
Read it before the notes below. They are worth more once you have your own impression of it.
Open Genesis 2 and 3Then, the idea
Now the same story again, closer up. A garden, a person made from dust, and work to do. Then a limit: one tree, do not eat from it.
They eat. And what happens next is not a lightning bolt. It is hiding. They hear God walking and they hide, and God asks the first question anyone is asked in the Bible: where are you?
It is worth noticing that this is a question, not an accusation. The story of human failure begins with someone looking for the people who ran.
One word of Hebrew
אָדָם
adam — human, person
It comes from adamah, which means ground or soil. The name of the first human means, roughly, 'earthling'. The Bible never lets you forget what you are made of.
And one question
They hid because they were afraid, not because they were told to. What do you hide, and from whom?
Nobody is marking this. Sit with it on the way to work.