Guarding the Garden

One of the points I have made throughout our small group Bible study is that we should think of the garden as a sacred space.  The garden is the place where God's presence is manifest and humanity and God meet.  Adam is instructed to tend and guard the garden.  The conjunction of the verbs tend and guard is used throughout the rest of the Old Testament to describe the duty charged to the priests.  Both the tabernacle and the temple contain arboreal and garden imagery.   The tabernacle and the temple are also places where God and humanity meet and thus the sanctity of its holiness must be protected.

After the fall, the charge to guard the garden is taken from humanity and given to the cherubim with the flaming sword.  The tabernacle and the temple incorporate this concept by decorating the curtain separating the holy place from the holy of holies with images of cherubim.  Two large statutes of cherubim covered with gold stand guard over the ark of the covenant.

Guarding was necessary to prevent contamination of the holy sacred space.  God's purity must be protected and thus there is a duty to prevent anything unholy from entering these places where God's presence is manifest.  The penalty for transgressing this boundary is death.  It was the duty of Adam to slay the serpent for daring to enter God's holy ground and challenging the word of God.

Below is a sign written in Greek that dates from the time of Herod's temple.  Currently it is displayed at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.  Signs such as these, in both Latin and Greek, were posted at regular intervals around the inner court.  The outer court was open to all people, but access to the inner court was limited to Jews.

The inscription reads as follows:  

"No foreigner is to enter within the balustrade and embankment around the sanctuary.  Whoever is caught will have himself only to blame for his death which follows."