Eden

Before there were cities or fields, there was a garden. “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Genesis 2:8). The man is placed there to look after it, and may eat freely, except from one tree. Genesis 3 ends with the man sent out and cherubims set at the east of the garden. Later writers use the name as a picture of what a place can be: Isaiah promises that God will make Zion’s wilderness “like Eden,” and Ezekiel says a ruined land will become “like the garden of Eden.” Genesis 2 and 3 tell the main story.

23 verses

Genesis

Genesis 2:8

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Genesis 2:9

And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:10

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

Genesis 2:11

The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

Genesis 2:12

And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

Genesis 2:13

And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

Genesis 2:14

And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

Genesis 2:15

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Genesis 2:16

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Genesis 2:17

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.

Genesis 3:23

Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Genesis 3:24

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Genesis 4:16

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

2 Kings

2 Kings 19:12

Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar?

2 Chronicles

2 Chronicles 31:15

And next him were Eden, and Miniamin, and Jeshua, and Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah, in the cities of the priests, in their set office, to give to their brethren by courses, as well to the great as to the small:

Isaiah

Isaiah 37:12

Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar?

Isaiah 51:3

For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel 27:23

Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants.

Ezekiel 28:13

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Ezekiel 31:9

I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

Ezekiel 31:16

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

Ezekiel 31:18

To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 36:35

And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Delight. (1.) The garden in which our first parents dewlt (Gen. 2:8-17). No geographical question has been so much discussed as that bearing on its site. It has been placed in Armenia, in the region west of the Caspian Sea, in Media, near Damascus, in Palestine, in Southern Arabia, and in Babylonia. The site must undoubtedly be sought for somewhere along the course of the great streams the Tigris and the Euphrates of Western Asia, in “the land of Shinar” or Babylonia. The region from about lat. 33 degrees 30’ to lat. 31 degrees, which is a very rich and fertile tract, has been by the most competent authorities agreed on as the probable site of Eden. “It is a region where streams abound, where they divide and re-unite, where alone in the Mesopotamian tract can be found the phenomenon of a single river parting into four arms, each of which is or has been a river of consequence.”

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Among almost all nations there are traditions of the primitive innocence of our race in the garden of Eden. This was the “golden age” to which the Greeks looked back. Men then lived a “life free from care, and without labour and sorrow. Old age was unknown; the body never lost its vigour; existence was a perpetual feast without a taint of evil. The earth brought forth spontaneously all things that were good in profuse abundance.”

(2.) One of the markets whence the merchants of Tyre obtained richly embroidered stuffs (Ezek. 27:23); the same, probably, as that mentioned in 2 Kings 19:12, and Isa. 37:12, as the name of a region conquered by the Assyrians.

(3.) Son of Joah, and one of the Levites who assisted in reforming the public worship of the sanctuary in the time of Hezekiah (2 Chr. 29:12).

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

Eden

(1.) A Gershonite Levite, son of Joah, in the days of Hezekiah. (2 Chronicles 29:12) (B.C. 727.)

(2.) Also a Levite, probably identical with the preceding. (2 Chronicles 31:15)

Eden

(pleasure).

(1.) The first residence of man, called in the Septuagint Paradise. The latter is a word of Persian origin, and describes an extensive tract of pleasure land, somewhat like an English park; and the use of it suggests a wider view of man’s first abode than a garden. The description of Eden is found in (Genesis 2:8-14) In the eastern portion of the region of Eden was the garden planted. The Hiddekel, one of its rivers, is the modern Tigris; the Euphrates is the same as the modern Euphrates. With regard to the Pison and Gihon a great variety of opinion exists, but the best authorities are divided between (1) Eden as in northeast Arabia, at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and their separation again, making the four rivers of the different channels of these two, or (2), and most probably, Eden as situated in Armenia, near the origin of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and in which same region rise the Araxes (Pison of Genesis) and the Oxus (Gihon).

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(2.) One of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly-embroidered stuffs. In (2 Kings 19:12) and Isai 37:12 "The sons of Eden" are mentioned with Gozan, Haran and Rezeph as victims of the Assyrian greed of conquest. Probability seems to point to the northwest of Mesopotamia as the locality of Eden.

(3.) BETH-EDEN, "house of pleasure:" probably the name of a country residence of the kings of Damascus. (Amos 1:5)