Genesis 2:15

‘And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Tree-covered Plain of Eden to serve and to guard.'

Notice that the man has already been ‘put' in the Plain in Genesis 2:8. This stresses again that the writer is not thinking chronologically. One event does not necessarily follow another. While he is telling us what happened it is not in sequence. In Genesis 2:8 his being placed there is mentioned so as to show how God has provided for him. Here it is mentioned to stress God's purpose in putting him there. We would translate, ‘the Lord God had taken the man ---'. This is a clear example of how Hebrew tenses express either completed or incomplete action and are not showing chronological sequence. It is also a clear example of the delight in repetition of early Hebrew narratives. When men had to remember narratives with no library to hand such repetition was invaluable.

The man is placed there ‘to serve and to guard'. Trees do not need to be tilled, and it is doubtful if there is here any thought of pruning. The purpose in putting man here was to act as priest and king. ‘Serving' God is later the task of priests, and the ‘guarding' connects with his having dominion over the wild beasts in Genesis 1:28. It is the latter who may cause depredations in the Plain. So the man is there to maintain worship of, and obedience to, God and to protect God's handiwork on His behalf.

It is true that the word for ‘serve' is the same as that in Genesis 2:5, but there it refers to ‘working' the ground whereas here that idea cannot be in mind. Here we are dealing with trees, not cultivated plants. It is of course possible that we are to see ‘to serve and to guard' as almost synonymous, service to God seen as indicating guarding the Plain, but leaders of family tribes were regularly priest and king, and it is probable that this verse is looking forward to his establishing his family tribe.