Shabbat shalom everyone,
In the run-up to the Festival of Weeks (Shavu‛ot), on each Sabbath we are looking at each of the 7 parts of the Covenant. This week, we are looking at the Adamic Covenant – the second covenant which God made with the whole of humanity (the root-meaning of ‘Adam’ is not ‘man’ but ‘human’; in biblical Hebrew, b’ney adam [lit: children of human’] was the normal way of saying, ‘human being’).
To read about what exactly a Covenant is and what it is not, please read this webpage.
The Adamic Covenant
This is the part of God’s Covenant with all of humanity which gives humanity stewardship of the earth (usually translated as ‘dominion’), to make it abundantly fruitful, and gives us green plants to eat as food.
However, we always need to remember that the Earth is still God’s property; God has not relinquished ownership of the Earth:
“All the Earth is Mine,” says Yahveh, “and you are but tenants on it.” (Ps 24:1, Ps 50:12, cf Ex 9:29, 19:5, Dt 10:14, Job 41:11, 1Chr 29:15). The Earth is not ours to do with as we wish. Any harm or abuse we mete out on the planet, we will have to answer for to the Sovereign of the Earth, Yahveh.
Make the Earth abundantly fruitful
In Gen 1:28, a different pointing of the Hebrew letters in the word וכבשה (normally read as ve-khivSHuha: ‘and subdue it’), renders it instead as ve-khivSuha (‘and make it abundantly fruitful’). This interpretation is derived from the unused meaning of the root kaf-veyt-sīn to mean, ‘to make abundantly fruitful’. Moreover, it would actually make more sense – to have God instruct us to make the earth fruitful, rather than commanding us to oppress and subjugate the earth!
The Genesis account describes human beings having “dominion” over the animals. Over the centuries, people have used this, along with the phrase, ‘subdue the earth’, to give justification to the erroneous belief that humanity could do whatsoever we wished to the earth – to decimate it, to kill off whole species, to destroy and lay waste to whole forms of life, to ravage and rape life on earth with impunity, without a second thought to the destruction we are causing – or to the disaster that we are laying up for ourselves in the future.
Most commentators today would ask, ‘How are humans like God in His image and likeness?’ And they come up with the modern answer, ‘In our soul’. Even though I do firmly believe in the soul, nevertheless, in order to understand this teaching, I have to think like an ancient Hebrew, because at the time this story was written, they didn’t have any concept of the soul – again, God gave us that insight later.
The key to understanding the verse, “Let us make human beings in our image, and in accordance with our likeness”, is just one Hebrew letter: ve-, which usually means ‘and’. The line is normally translated, ‘according to My likeness; AND let them rule over the fish of the sea, etc.’ However, ve- has many meanings. As a connecting word it can also mean but, who, just as, therefore etc. Here it does not mean ‘and’, but rather, ‘so’. In which case, the line should read: ‘Let us make human beings in our image, and according to our likeness; SO let them rule over the fish of the sea etc.’
To the ancient Hebrew mind, if human beings were made in the image and likeness of God, this means we are supposed to be like God in what God DOES. God rules justly; therefore we, as human beings, are also meant to rule justly over the living creatures of the earth. God cares for creation and all life in it; therefore, giving us dominion over everything implies making us to rule over everything wisely and justly, just as God does. Giving us dominion over the earth means giving us stewardship of it, to care for it and look after it.
The divinely-given purpose of our species in the natural ecology of the planet Earth, is to make the Earth more fruitful than it would otherwise have been, had we never evolved. We were created to look after the Earth, and make it abundant in life – which is what Yahveh does. We were not created to rape and pillage the earth’s resources, because that is not what God does.
Looking after the Earth was what we were created to do. In a state of innocence, when we were closest to our natural selves in the Garden of Eden, we were placed in the garden ‘to cultivate it and to tend it’ (Heb: ‘to work it and to watch over it’ – Gen 2:15). In other words, to look after the garden in such a way, that its natural abundance was maintained. Even though we are no longer in the Garden of Eden, we are still part of the world which God created, and we still have a duty to tend to the Earth, and to watch over it.
Proper management of the land
Whenever we humans move into a new area of land, that land should not suffer because of our human presence. Whatever we need to take from the land, we must give back new life into that land. Using land for its resources does not mean laying it waste and making it barren, but rather, it is an opportunity to remodel it to become abundant with reinvigorated life and greenery, so that wildlife will want to move into it, not move out to escape what we have done.
If we need the resources of a forest, it should be managed so that whatever we take is replaced. A natural forest is a rich tapestry of many different species of trees. Unfortunately, many forestry managers destroy the existing variety of life, and replace it with just one species of tree – usually conifers. A conifer forest planted outside of its natural range, usually becomes devoid of animal life. Conifers poison the soil so that no other native plants can grow, and local animals, not being native to coniferous forests, cannot eat any part of a conifer. Therefore, planting nothing but one species of conifer is a sure way to kill off all other plant and animal life. Any managed forest has to contain a variety of native trees, in order to maintain the natural animal-bearing capacity of the local land.
Many cities are barren wastes of concrete, but they don’t have to be. ‘Garden cities’ are cities in which every street, road and public space has some trees planted in it; and areas between neighbourhoods have a green belt. A city is often effectively a desert when it comes to plant and animal life, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Animals are often cut off from other members of their species by human settlements, and so their species lose diversity, and begin to die off. However, if those human settlements were to be filled with greenery, they would provide routes and highways for isolated members of different species to move around, and so meet other members of their own kind. What we do and what we build, doesn’t have to inevitably lead to extinctions.
Changing the religious mindset of ‘destroying groves’
Dt 12:2 implies that groves used for pagan worship are to be cut down. As a result, rabbinic law interprets this as meaning that no tree should be growing near a synagogue, as it could be interpreted as a pagan place of worship. Consequently, the belief used to be held that all areas that are sacred, and any holy towns or cities, are meant to be devoid of any trees.
This was an extremely over-zealous – and unfortunate – interpretation of the text. The groves were not to be cut down just because they were groves, but because they were pagan places of worship. Cities in ancient Israel were filled with and surrounded by trees – as evidenced by the numerous mention of trees in the Bible, especially trees used for providing food. The inside walls of the Temple of Solomon were covered with carvings of trees, because the Sanctuary was meant to be a spiritual representation of the Garden of Eden. Therefore a synagogue garden – especially one filled with fruit-trees and food-plants – is a reminder of the Garden of Eden which God planted, not a reminder of a grove of pagan worship.
Before the beginning of the modern State of Israel, Palestine was mostly a desert wasteland, with hardly any trees anywhere. There were no land management programs, and no concern for the environment. If you look at drawings and paintings of the Holy Land before the 20th century, there is not a tree in sight. Since 1948 however, the State of Israel has initiated mass tree-planting programs, where new forests have been planted all over Israel. If you look at a satellite map, Israel is now green, while the surrounding countries are still brown or yellow. The forests of Israel are most pleasant to walk through, and the Tel Dan Nature Reserve is a most beautiful paradise to walk in – I know, because I visited there in May, 2005.
Conclusion
As God watches over creation with wise stewardship, and makes things fruitful, so should we human beings also do. What the Covenant with Adam tells us today, is that if you believe in the God of Abraham, then it is a religious duty to look after the earth with careful stewardship, to renew it, make it abundant, and fill it with life.