Genesis 2:9
In the middle
It is named first and set at the centre, and then the account moves on without another word about it.
Objects of the Bible
The tree of life
Never forbidden, never eaten from, and guarded the moment it mattered.
The tree of life stands in the middle of the garden and nothing is said against it. It is not the tested tree, it carries no warning, and the account never records anyone eating from it. Then, after the boundary is crossed, it becomes the reason the gate is closed: the concern is stated plainly, that the man might reach out and take from it and live forever in the condition he is now in. Guarding it is a mercy dressed as an exile.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The tree of life
- 01
- 02
Genesis 3:22
Lest he reach out
The reason given for the exile is not punishment but this tree. Endless life in a broken condition is treated as the worse outcome.
- 03
Genesis 3:24
The way kept
Cherubim and a turning sword guard the way to it. The tree is not destroyed, it is kept.
Why it matters
This is the object Scripture opens and closes on. It disappears for the length of the Bible and returns on the last page, growing on both sides of a river in a city, with its leaves given for the healing of the nations. The distance between those two appearances is the shape of the whole book.
5 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
