There is a bond of mutual dependence of adam on the soil, since man is taken from the soil. We could translate Adam from adamah, in order to improve the play of words established in the Hebrew language: terrestrial (earthly), having adam been taken from the earth. However, the bond of dependence is mutual; it has a double sense: if the life of man depends on the earth, the possibility of life for the earth seems to depend on man. In fact, the role of man will be that of watering it, of working and safeguarding it (See Gen 2, 15).

God moulds man from and with the earth, the clay, like the clay used by the potter. God plants a wonderful garden for this man and places him in it (cf Gen 2, 8-15). There is every kind of trees in the garden, beautiful to see and tasty to eat. In Genesis 1, after the creation of each and every thing we read, "God saw that it was good-beautiful (tôb)", and in this narration the pleased viewer is man. It seems that God draws the trees out of the earth before the eyes of his creature, almost as to tell him that he is doing all these things for him.

In the first narration, man finds himself in an already created world brought to fulfilment. In this, instead, the beauty/goodness of the divine works appears on the scene gradually, in a crescendo. This may express the will that God has to be good towards His creature, man, for whom the goods created progressively do not seem to be sufficiently enough.

In Genesis 2, 15, on which we want to focus our eyes, for a second time we read how the Lord placed man in this luxuriant garden. However, there are some added elements with no particular meaning for us, but which, for the ears of the Israelite have a familiar sound, with a veiled allusion to the gift of Canaan. "To take" man and "to set" him is a sequence that evokes the exit from Egypt and the settling in the Promised Land.

The verb "to take" is more or less a technical word to express the deliverance from the slavery in Egypt, the journey in the desert (Dt 3, 20; 4,20) and the return from exile and dispersion (Dt 30,4s). In Joshua, 24, 3, the verb indicates the election of Abram, "taken" by the Lord "from beyond the river (Jordan)". The second verb, to say "to place, to put" has a particular shade if compared with the first one utilised for the same thing in verse eight.

This second time, the author uses the verb nûh, which means "to lay", but also, in a causative sense, "to allow to rest". According to this second sense, this verb is used by the Deuteronomy current to indicate the rest from all dangers and all enemies that God has granted men and women of his people, by introducing them in the promised land (Dt 12,10, 25,19).

The shading suggested by the verb nûh is a matter of "to place" that evokes the idea of "to provide security" in a place of rest. This creates, even stronger, the contrast with the scene of the exit-exile from the garden, that will cause man to know the dimension of fatigue in his work and the sensation of being exposed and vulnerable in a world full of dangers.. This image completes that of the previous narration by saying, with other terms, that man, from the origin, is destined to enter the satisfying rest of love with his God.

This idea will become evident, when we shall know that the Lord uses to walk in this garden, conversing with man in the evening breeze.

The two verbs indicating the role entrusted to man allude, somehow, to the history of the people. God places Man in the garden "to cultivate and to guard it". The verb translated into "to cultivate", in the previous version of CEI, was translated into "to work". In Hebrew, we have the verb ‘bd that usually means first of all "to serve". Therefore, man is the owner of the earth and, at the same time, its servant. He is the guardian of the garden and can dispose of it widely, but the garden does not belong to him; the Lord has given it to him so that he may continue the work started by Him.

We find these two verbs, "to serve" and "to guard", in the Bible, above all, in the context of the relation between man and God: Israel is there "to serve" his God (not the gods that, as we shall see, enslave man) "by guarding and observing His commandments, which guarantee to him a free life on earth.

Therefore, the Creator places man in the garden to work it, to cultivate it, to take care of it. This activity makes him similar to his Creator, who planted the garden "making every kind of tree (welcomed by the eye and good to eat) to sprout from the soil" (Gen 2, 9). The Lord God, divine farmer, entrusts man with the highest task of taking care of the luxuriant garden, in which he has been placed. Thus, God withdraws, leaving full space to man, so that he may act on the works of His hands.

The created things have their own laws and values, which man must gradually discover, use and put in order. This matter demands a legitimate autonomy. The constitution Gaudium et Spes dedicates a whole paragraph to the legitimate autonomy of the earthly realities" (n.36). It states also that man has always tried to develop his life with work and commitment (GS 33).

In the book of Ecclesiasticus we read, "The Lord has created medical herbs from the ground and no one sensible will despise them" (Sir 38,4). This sentence is in a context that speaks about the precious science of the physician and the chemist. In the antiquity, the medicines came only from the soil and man called to cultivate had to discover the therapeutic properties of the plants and to develop them. In this way and with his wit, man tries to promote his life.

King Salomon, prototype of a Biblical wise man, therefore incarnation of man, created according to the divine project, enumerates his notions. "He it was who gave me sure knowledge of what exists, to understand the structure of the world and the action of the elements, the beginning, end and middle of the time, the alternation of the solstices and the succession of the seasons, the cycles of the year and the position of the stars, the nature of animals and the instincts of wild beasts, the powers of spirits and human mental processes, the varieties of plants and the medical properties of roots" (Wisdom 7,17-20).

Salomon knew the properties of the plants and surely, in his wise government he promoted their cultivation.

Jesus himself will often use examples from nature and from the agricultural work; James uses a comparison with the farmer, "Therefore, be patient, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. Think of a farmer: how patiently he waits for the previous fruit of the ground, until it has had the autumn rains and the spring’s rains!" (John 5, 7).

Our going back to the starting point (Gen 2, 15), causes us to remember today that the Creator calls man to be "servant of the earth". Naturally, it is such a service as it ennobles man enormously. He is called to take care of the divine work, to safeguard it, to take it into his loving care and to respect it. Let us remember also that the Bible provides a sabbatical rest also for the earth every seven years "For six years you will sow your land and gather its produce, but in the seventh year you will let it lie fallow and forgo all produce from it " (Es 23, 10).

In his message for the 2010 Day of Peace, Benedict XVI has tightly connected the building up of peace with the safeguard and custody of creation, "If you want to safeguard peace, do safeguard creation ".

The Holy Father writes, "The harmony among creator, humanity and creation, as described by the Scripture, has been broken by the sin of Adam and Eve, by man and woman, who have lusted to take the place of God, refusing to recognise themselves as creatures. Its consequence is the distortion of "dominating" the earth, of "cultivating" and "guarding" it; for which a conflict has been born between them and the remaining part of creation (See Gen 3,17- 19). […]. However, the true meaning of God’s original command does not consist in a simple conferring of authority, but rather in a call to responsibility. Anyhow, the wisdom of the ancients admitted that nature is not at disposal like a heap of ‘rubbish spread here and there at random".

The biblical Revelation has made us to understand that nature is a gift of our Creator who has designed its intrinsic systems, so that man may draw the dutiful orientations to "guard and cultivate it". (n. 6).

This message of the Holy Father makes us understand the richness and vitality of the Biblical word and the valuable energy that a single verse can release!

Let us hope that the believer, with the precious treasure of the Sacred Scripture in hand, may know how to read the Word and to translate it, thus becoming "the fertile land" in which the seed "can produce now a hundredfold,, now sixty and now thirty" (Mt 13,23).

Cristina Caracciolo smr
Biblista
Via Lagrange, 3 - 00197 Roma