* i
311



INTRODUCTION.



  It may here be observed, that Eden orAden sianifies,
in the Hebrew, pleasure; and hence any delightful
situation would sometimes receive this name.
  But let us now attend, for a moment, to the descrip-
tion of Moses himself. " And the Lord God planted a
garden eastward in Eden; and a river went out of Eden
to water that garden;. and from thence it was parted
and became into four heads. The name of the first is
Pison: That is it which compasses the whole land of
Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land
is good; there is bdellium and the onyxstone. And
the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it
which compasses the whole land of Ethiopia, or Cush.
And the name of the third river is Hiddekel, that
is it which goes toward the east of (or eastward to)
Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates."
  From this particular geographical description of
Eden, it is not possible that Moses could be speaking
in an allegorical lanauage. If this be an imaginary
paradise which he describes so minutely, it follows that
his language was also figurative, when he tells that
the ark rested on Mount Ararat, and that the sons
of Noah removed to the Plains of Shinar: for the three
scenes are described by the sacred historian, as imme-
diately succeeding one another. Eden then, according
to Moses, was bounded by countries and rivers well
known in his time, and some of them go to this very
day, under the same names which he gives them. It
must, evidently, therefore, have been his intention to
point opt to the post-diluvian world, where Eden and
Paradise were situated in the former world. We also
see, that he does not make use of antediluvian names in
his description of this garden; but, as we have already
said, of names of later date than the flood. The deluge,
it is true, has greatly disfigured the face of the earth;
but we are aware, at the same time, that the convulsion
has been more fatal in some places than others; and if
there had been no indications or marks of it remaining,