East of Eden

“He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:24)

The entrance to (and exit from) Eden was in the east. Upon Adam and Eve’s departure, they wandered further eastward, eventually bearing two sons - one (Cain) who would take the life of the other.

“Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” (Genesis 4:16)

Sin begets distance from God, and so generations followed with greater lengths from the garden, eventually bringing us to Noah whose day and age was of such corruption that all others were wiped away completely.

The descendants of Noah were to become the restoration of man, yet, following the flood epic, we arrive at a far gloomier outcome.

“And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there… Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves’.” (Genesis 11:2,4)

Not only were the generations of Adam and Noah living further and further east, but they were now becoming like and conforming to the ways of an Eden-less people, and those of the east were making a home among them.

Ultimately, the conspiracy at Babel was divinely thwarted, and Abram soon after became God’s man.

But he and Lot (his nephew) had a test: each must choose between two lands - western Shechem, or the more attractive eastern Jordan Valley.

Lot was given first choice.

“So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.” (Genesis 13:11)

And we know how that story turned out - tyranny and chaos, salt and ashes, Sodom and Gomorrah.

But Abram - oh yes, Father Abraham - would bring God’s people back west, landing in Shechem, or - might I say - Canaan; or, perhaps better known later as the Land of Milk and Honey; or - as it would become for millennia after that - the land of Israel.

The message is this:

While our every tingling inclination towards indulgence and hubris will whisper enticements to the land “east” of Eden, fertile for fleshly cravings, Adonai, the good and awesome God, beckons us home to Eden, to resist the allure of all other ways and remain anchored to the Kingdom of God as sojourners on Earth.