Memory Text: Genesis 2:1 KJV “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”

Sunday, October 15 The Sabbath
Genesis 2:1-3 KJ21 “1 ¶ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.”
Genesis 2:3 COMMENTARY BY ADAM CLARKE It is by the authority of God that the Sabbath is set apart for rest and religious purposes, as the six days of the week are appointed for labour. How wise is this provision! It is essentially necessary, not only to the body of man, but to all the animals employed in his service: take this away and the labour is too great, both man and beast would fail under it. Without this consecrated day religion itself would fail, and the human mind, becoming sensualized, would soon forget its origin and end.

Monday, October 16 Nephesh Hayyah
Genesis 2:7 NKJV “And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
Ezekiel 18:4 MKJV “Behold, all souls [are] Mine. As the soul of the father, also the soul of the son, they [are] Mine. The soul that sins, it shall die.”
Matthew 10:28 NRSV “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Tuesday, October 17 The Garden Home
Genesis 2:8-17 NKJV “8 ¶ The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life [was] also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. 11 The name of the first [is] Pishon; it [is] the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold. 12 And the gold of that land [is] good. Bdellium and the onyx stone [are] there. 13 The name of the second river [is] Gihon; it [is] the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river [is] Hiddekel; it [is] the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river [is] the Euphrates. 15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 ¶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."”
Genesis 2:8 COMMENTARY BY MATTHEW HENRY The place fixed upon for Adam to dwell in, was not a palace, but a garden. The better we take up with plain things, and the less we seek things to gratify pride and luxury, the nearer we approach to innocency. Nature is content with a little, and that which is most natural; grace with less; but lust craves every thing, and is content with nothing. No delights can be satisfying to the soul, but those which God himself has provided and appointed for it. Eden signifies delight and pleasure. Wherever it was, it had all desirable conveniences, without any inconvenience, though no other house or garden on earth ever was so.
Genesis 2:17 COMMENTARY BY ADAM CLARKE Of the tree of the knowledge-thou shalt not eat] This is the first positive precept God gave to man; and it was given as a test of obedience, and a proof of his being in a dependent, probationary state. It was necessary that, while constituted lord of this lower world, he should know that he was only God's vicegerent, and must be accountable to him for the use of his mental and corporeal powers, and for the use he made of the different creatures put under his care. The man from whose mind the strong impression of this dependence and responsibility is erased, necessarily loses sight of his origin and end, and is capable of any species of wickedness.
Wednesday, October 18 The Woman in Adam’s Life
Genesis 2:18, 20 KJ21 “18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper meet for him." 20 “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helper meet for him.”
Genesis 1:27-28 MKJV “27 And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth.”
Genesis 2:21-22 NIV “21 ¶ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”
Genesis 2:21 COMMENTARY BY JAMIESON, FAUSSET, AND BROWN took one of his ribs--"She was not made out of his head to surpass him, nor from his feet to be trampled on, but from his side to be equal to him, and near his heart to be dear to him."

Thursday, October 19 Eve Becomes Adam’s Wife
Genesis 2:23-24 NRSV “23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken." 24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
Genesis 2:23 COMMENTARY BY ADAM CLARKE Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, &c.] There is a very delicate and expressive meaning in the original which does not appear in our version. When the different genera of creatures were brought to Adam, that he might assign them their proper names, it is probable that they passed in pairs before him, and as they passed received their names…. The creatures that had passed already before him were not suitable to him, and therefore it was said, For Adam there was not a help meet found, Ge 2:20; but when the woman came, formed out of himself, he felt all that attraction which consanguinity could produce, and at the same time saw that she was in her person and in her mind every way suitable to be his companion.
Genesis 2:24 COMMENTARY BY MATTHEW HENRY Marriage, according to the will of God, is a union for life of one man with one woman, and with one only; and the fact that it is a divine institution, shows that men should enter into it for the glory of God in the promotion of their own happiness and usefulness.
1 Corinthians 7:2-5 NIV “2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Ephesians 5:21-29 NKJV “21 ¶ submitting to one another in the fear of God. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord [does] the church.”
Hebrews 13:4 NKJV “Marriage [is] honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”
Hebrews 13:4 COMMENTARY BY WILLIAM BURKITT to prevent the former sin, the ravings of unbridled lust our apostle prescribes the remedy which God appoints, marriage; that is, the conjunction of two individual persons that have freedom in choice and consent, and have power over themselves, not being within the degrees of affinity or consanguinity prohibited, between whom there results such an indissoluble union, that thereby they become one flesh; such marriage he affirms to be honourable, and to be so esteemed in regard to its Author, God himself, Ge 2:18 in regard of the place, paradise; in regard of the time, in man's innocency: in regard of the end and usefulness of it, the continuation of the race of mankind; thus it it honourable, and ought to be had in honour.

Friday, October 20 Further Study
Ellen White Comments from Patriarchs and Prophets:
On Marriage - p. 46 – “When the divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man’s social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature.”
On the Garden, pp. 46-47 – “Everything that God had made was the perfection of beauty, and nothing seemed wanting that could contribute to the happiness of the holy pair; yet the Creator gave them still another token of His love, by preparing a garden especially for their home. In this garden were trees of every variety, many of them laden with fragrant and delicious fruit. There were lovely vines, growing upright, yet presenting a most graceful appearance, with their branches drooping under their load of tempting fruit of the richest and most varied hues. It was the work of Adam and Eve to train the branches of the vine to form bowers, thus making for themselves a dwelling from living trees covered with foliage and fruit.”
On the Sabbath, p. 48 – “God saw that a Sabbath was essential for man, even in Paradise. He needed to lay aside his own interests and pursuits for one day of the seven, that he might more fully contemplate the works of God and meditate upon His power and goodness. He needed a Sabbath to remind him more vividly of God and to awaken gratitude because all that he enjoyed and possessed came from the beneficent hand of the Creator.”
On Government, p. 49 – “God placed man under law, as an indispensable condition of his very existence. He was a subject of the divine government, and there can be no government without law.”
On Labor, p. 50 – “God appointed labor as a blessing to man, to occupy his mind, to strengthen his body, and to develop his faculties.”

You might be interested to know that in the Chinese writing the word "create" [zao] is written 造 , which is actually a combination of the compnents: "breath" + "earth" + "mouth" + "moving/walking". Isn't that what the Bible says when God created Adam, He took "earth", breathed the "breath of life" into his nostrils, using His "mouth" of course (Psalm 33:6,9)
and Adam became a "living soul", who can "walk" right away, not like us, as we must learn to crawl, then stand, than walk in about one year!
Then the word "garden" [yuan] is written by combining the components: "frame/borders" + "earth" + "mouth" + "one man/person" + "another person coming from the side of the 1st person".
And the word "meat/flesh" is a combination of an "opening/cut" + "a hand" entering the "cut/opening" to reach "a person" inside.
Coincidence? I don't think so. It proves that the Chinese ancestors who came from one the children of Noah, must have a knowledge of God. According to their history, they had a kingdom, as early as 2100 BC, which means 600 years before the Hebrews came out of Egypt and started as a nation.

Sammy, I found that very interesting. Thank you so much.

Beryl

Yes, it's like there are little memory clues inside each character to help people remember what the words are!

Exactly, that's how I learned the Chinese language from scratch ten years ago when I served in Macau. But more than that it shows that the same God who inspired the writers of the Bible must have inspired the ancestors of the Chinese people who invented their system of writing.
Out of the 214 original crude drawings as basic Chinese words, more than half of them tell the same story as it is recorded in Genesis 1 through 11.
Take the word "jin" (to prohibit), which is written like this 禁.
It concists of "2 trees" + "god/deity" benath it. The first prohibition was concerning one of the "2 trees" found in the centre of the Garden of Eden, and spoken by "God" to the first couple.
The word "covetous or greedy" is written like this: 婪, which is a "woman" standing and looking at one of the "2 trees". Isn't that not the narration about the first woman, Even, who become greedy or covetous, when she took the forbidden fruit although there are thousands of other good fruits in the Garden of Eden?

Fascinating!!!