You may freely eat of every tree in the garden – a command?

The Seven Commandments in Scripture

Introduction

I placed the Scriptural sources for the Seven Noahide Commandments in the middle of this list of sources because a student first needs adequate exposure to the content and methods of the Oral Tradition of the Torah. A student needs to associate discussions in the Talmud – the Oral Tradition – with proof-texts from the Bible.

The full interpretation of the following verse is based on Rabbi Nathan's entry in his dictionary and answers a greater question. Rabbi Nathan cites verse 16 in Genesis Chapter 2 – “The L-rd G-d commanded about the man, saying, ‘You will certainly eat from every tree in the garden.’”  But this is not a command according to any translation.

"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat;" (JPS old)

"Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat;" (JPS new)

"You may definitely eat from every tree of the garden." (Living Torah)

"You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;" (Revised Standard Version)

"You will continually be eating from every tree in the garden." (my literal translation)

Regardless of the translation, the content of these words is not a commandment.  To give permission to eat is not a command.  To announce that life depends on eating is not a commandment.  Surely Adam and Eve had to start eating in order to live, and they would have learned quickly enough how to eat to stay healthy.

The way of Scripture is to cut straight to the essence:

G-d commanded the man, saying: "Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil" (fusing the essence of verses 16 and 17 in Genesis 2).

In Hebrew, this would amount to twelve words, and this reduces two verses to one single verse.  Instead, Scripture uses eighteen words spread out over two verses for the commandment when this one shorter verse would have said it all.

Beyond this, verse 16 itself has several seemingly extra words:

• Two words for the Almighty are written in this verse when one would have been enough.
• The word 'about' seems unnecessary.  By writing this word, it sounds as though G-d is delivering this command to someone or something else other than Adam and Eve.

The unusual structure of verses 16 and 17 calls out to us that we have a proof-text for a command that is not obvious at all.  As a matter of fact, six of the Seven Noahide Commandments are contained in the one verse – verse 16.  So, Rabbi Nathan's entry in his dictionary is simply "He commanded concerning the man."  In Hebrew, this translation amounts to three words:

In the original Hebrew, every word or phrase suggests a commandment.  So, Rabbi Nathan writes that the words of verse 16 in Genesis, Chapter 2, ". . . are the seven commandments which Adam and Eve [and their descendants] were commanded [by G-d]."