Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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which was evil only because it was forbidden; and, being in a small thing, it was the more fit to prove his obedience by.
[2.] Because the restraint of it is laid upon the desires of the flesh and of the mind, which, in the corrupt nature of man, are the two great fountains of sin. This prohibition checked both his appetite towards sensitive delights and his ambitions of curious knowledge, that his body might be ruled by his soul and his soul by his God.
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.
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him a help meet for him.
Here we have, an instance of the Creator's care of man and his fatherly concern for his comfort, Ge 2:18. Though God had let him know that he was a subject, by giving him a command, (Ge 2:16,17), yet here he lets him know also, for his encouragement in his obedience, that he was a friend, and a favourite, and one whose satisfaction he was tender of. Observe,
1. How God graciously pitied his solitude: It is not good that man, this man, should be alone. Though there was an upper world of angels and a lower world of brutes, and he between them, yet there being none of the same nature and rank of beings with himself, none that he could converse familiarly with, he might be truly said to be alone. Now he that made him knew both him and what was good for him, better than he did himself, and he said, "It is not good that he should continue thus alone."