A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:10-14 ESV)
Notice anything odd about this?
Rivers don’t behave this way. Rivers don’t divide into more rivers. Rivers act in the reverse: collecting from numerous sources, rivers pour into each other, combining to create one massive river downstream. Without exception, this is how rivers behave; it’s part of the natural water cycle of Earth. Suffice to say, the river system described in Genesis 2––where one river separates into four rivers––is exactly backward. Why is this? And why is it given any attention in Genesis?
If I may attempt an insight. It goes without saying that God is the source of all life, and He is One. From His Oneness, He creates many. Genesis 2 describes a time when God revealed Himself freely to the world. With clear vision, man saw reality, and it was obvious to him: just as life springs from God, flowing outward and branching away, so too water (a source of life) springs from one source, flowing outward and branching away in every direction.
Sadly, the introduction of sin lop-sided our perception of the world toward the physical. A symptom of the fall is that we no longer see reality clearly. What we see is fragmented. God, the single source of all life, is hidden by a splintered world made up of endless physical components that block our view of His Oneness.
This tilt in perception forces the system to function in the reverse. Our work as small individual Christians is to pour into each others’ lives, to lose ourselves in others, to unite and create greater currents with larger movement. Our joining together one by one recreates what once was so freely seen: God’s massive presence made manifest in the world. The challenge we face is our apparent fragmentation: our beginnings are different, seemingly unrelatable. The twists and turns we’ve each encountered are unique to our own experience. But the challenge is overcome if we keep pressing forward, allowing the Rock to channel our movements toward one another. God’s essence will be revealed in the end if we resolve to come together.
We return to the question: why does the river system described in Genesis 2 do what it does? Because it’s a river system operating on spiritual principles in a world where spiritual principles are openly seen. Why is it given any attention in Genesis? Because Genesis is acting to preserve those principles in a world that’s now tilted the other way.
