17 But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not take; for on the day when you take of it, death will certainly come to you.
Then when its time comes, desire gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is of full growth, gives birth to death.
For the reward of sin is death; but what God freely gives is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
And you, being dead through your sins and the evil condition of your flesh, to you, I say, he gave life together with him, and forgiveness of all our sins;
See, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so the soul of the son is mine: death will be the fate of the sinner's soul.
And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life.
When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; and you give him no word of it and say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his evil way, so that he may be safe; that same evil man will come to death in his evil-doing; but I will make you responsible for his blood. But if you give the evil-doer word of his danger, and he is not turned from his sin or from his evil way, death will overtake him in his evil-doing; but your life will be safe. Again, when an upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, and I put a cause of falling in his way, death will overtake him: because you have given him no word of his danger, death will overtake him in his evil-doing, and there will be no memory of the upright acts which he has done; but I will make you responsible for his blood.
When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly overtake you; and you say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his way; death will overtake that evil man in his evil-doing, but I will make you responsible for his blood.
And when I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; if he is turned from his sin and does what is ordered and right;
For as in Adam death comes to all, so in Christ will all come back to life.
The pain of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law:
And to you did he give life, when you were dead through your wrongdoing and sins, In which you were living in the past, after the ways of this present world, doing the pleasure of the lord of the power of the air, the spirit who is now working in those who go against the purpose of God; Among whom we all at one time were living in the pleasures of our flesh, giving way to the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and the punishment of God was waiting for us even as for the rest. But God, being full of mercy, through the great love which he had for us, Even when we were dead through our sins, gave us life together with Christ (by grace you have salvation), So that we came back from death with him, and are seated with him in the heavens, in Christ Jesus;
But she who gives herself to pleasure is dead while she is living.
But those who are full of fear and without faith, the unclean and takers of life, those who do the sins of the flesh, and those who make use of evil powers or who give worship to images, and all those who are false, will have their part in the sea of ever-burning fire which is the second death.
Happy and holy is he who has a part in this first coming: over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will be ruling with him a thousand years.
If a man sees his brother doing a sin which is not bad enough for death, let him make a prayer to God, and God will give life to him whose sin was not bad enough for death. There is a sin whose punishment is death: I do not say that he may make such a request then.
And I made the discovery that the law whose purpose was to give life had become a cause of death: For I was tricked and put to death by sin, which took its chance through the law. But the law is holy, and its orders are holy, upright, and good. Was then that which is good, death to me? In no way. But the purpose was that sin might be seen to be sin by working death to me through that which is good; so that through the orders of the law sin might seem much more evil.
Now the snake was wiser than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God truly said that you may not take of the fruit of any tree in the garden? And the woman said, We may take of the fruit of the trees in the garden: But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, If you take of it or put your hands on it, death will come to you. And the snake said, Death will not certainly come to you:
And he said, Who gave you the knowledge that you were without clothing? Have you taken of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take?
For the Lord had said of them, Death will certainly overtake them in the waste land. And of them all, only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun, were still living.
Cursed is he who does not take this law to heart to do it. And let all the people say, So be it.
Let heaven and earth be my witnesses against you this day that I have put before you life and death, a blessing and a curse: so take life for yourselves and for your seed:
For, by the living Lord, the saviour of Israel, even if the sinner is Jonathan, my son, death will certainly be his fate. But not a man among all the people gave him any answer.
For while the son of Jesse is living on the earth, your position is unsafe and your kingdom is in danger. So make him come here to me, for it is certainly right for him to be put to death.
And the king said, You will certainly be put to death, Ahimelech, you and all your father's family.
Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Did I not make you take an oath by the Lord, protesting to you and saying, Be certain that on the day when you go out from here, wherever you go, death will overtake you? and you said to me, Very well!
For this reason, as through one man sin came into the world, and death because of sin, and so death came to all men, because all have done evil: Because, till the law came, sin was in existence, but sin is not put to the account of anyone when there is no law to be broken. But still death had power from Adam till Moses, even over those who had not done wrong like Adam, who is a picture of him who was to come. But the free giving of God is not like the wrongdoing of man. For if, by the wrongdoing of one man death came to numbers of men, much more did the grace of God, and the free giving by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, come to men. And the free giving has not the same effect as the sin of one: for the effect of one man's sin was punishment by the decision of God, but the free giving had power to give righteousness to wrongdoers in great number. For, if by the wrongdoing of one, death was ruling through the one, much more will those to whom has come the wealth of grace and the giving of righteousness, be ruling in life through the one, even Jesus Christ. So then, as the effect of one act of wrongdoing was that punishment came on all men, even so the effect of one act of righteousness was righteousness of life for all men. Because, as numbers of men became sinners through the wrongdoing of one man, even so will great numbers get righteousness through the keeping of the word of God by one man. And the law came in addition, to make wrongdoing worse; but where there was much sin, there was much more grace: That, as sin had power in death, so grace might have power through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For this reason he says, Be awake, you who are sleeping, and come up from among the dead, and Christ will be your light.
And has given out his money at interest and taken great profits: he will certainly not go on living: he has done all these disgusting things: death will certainly be his fate; his blood will be on him.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Genesis 2
Commentary on Genesis 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
This chapter is an appendix to the history of the creation, more particularly explaining and enlarging upon that part of the history which relates immediately to man, the favourite of this lower world. We have in it,
Gen 2:1-3
We have here,
Gen 2:4-7
In these verses,
Gen 2:8-15
Man consisting of body and soul, a body made out of the earth and a rational immortal soul the breath of heaven, we have, in these verses, the provision that was made for the happiness of both; he that made him took care to make him happy, if he could but have kept himself so and known when he was well off. That part of man by which he is allied to the world of sense was made happy; for he was put in the paradise of God: that part by which he is allied to the world of spirits was well provided for; for he was taken into covenant with God. Lord, what is man that he should be thus dignified-man that is a worm! Here we have,
Gen 2:16-17
Observe here,
Thus easy, thus happy, was man in a state of innocency, having all that heart could wish to make him so. How good was God to him! How many favours did he load him with! How easy were the laws he gave him! How kind the covenant he made with him! Yet man, being in honour, understood not his own interest, but soon became as the beasts that perish.
Gen 2:18-20
Here we have,
Gen 2:21-25
Here we have,