Did Adam and Eve posses the knowledge of good and evil before partaking of the forbidden fruit? They had the knowledge beforehand, and what they gained later was experience. (Theodoret of Cyrus)

2:2 rested: God did not rest because He was tired, that is impossible for God to be tired. He is said to rest for a couple of reasons, that is, He was done bringing non-existence into existence, and He rested because He was satisfied with all that He created. Even though He is finished with creation He still governs the world, which is what Jesus meant in John 5:17, "My Father works until now, and I work." CCC 2184 The author of the book of Hebrews (4:4) quotes this verse in order to demonstrate that those from Judaism should enter God's rest through faith and not go back to the old ways. (John Litteral)

2:3 It is right that the seventh day should have been sanctified, since the special sanctification of every creature consists in resting in God. For this reason things dedicated to God are said to be sanctified. The seventh day is said to be sanctified not because anything can increase God, or be taken from Him, but because something is added to creatures by their multiplying, and by their resting in God." (St. Thomas Aquinas) CCC 345

2:4-6 see note on 1:24. CCC 362 CCC 703 St. Paul makes reference to this verse in 1 Cor. 15:45 to demonstrate that Adam obtained the perfection of his being through the soul, but Christ obtained the perfection of his being, as far as he was man, through the Holy Spirit. (John Litteral)

2:4-25 Scripture returns to the narrative of the initial establishment of creation, this time passing over, with only a few words, things it had already spoken of and recounting at greater length matters it had previously omitted. Thus it begins to describe the history of creation for a second time: (St. Ephrem the Syrian)

2:8 This garden, Greek is paradise (παράδεισον), is to be taken as a corporeal place and as a matter of history, not just spiritual. Edem (Hebrew- Eden) is the land of paradise somewhere in the East, probably shut off from man. (John Litteral) CCC 378

2:9 The tree of life is a material tree, and so called because its fruit was endowed with a life-preserving power. Yet it had a spiritual signification; as the rock in the desert was of a material nature, and yet signified Christ. In like manner the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a material tree, so called in view of future events; because, after eating of it, man was to learn, by experience of the consequent punishment, the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of rebellion. It may also be said to signify spiritually the free-will. (St. Thomas Aquinas Sum Theo 1.102.4)

2:10-14 There have been many attempts to locate the place of paradise by trying to trace where these rivers divide into four heads. Many great commentators have given various

speculations, so I feel it would be of little or no value to speculate with any certainty where paradise and the four rivers where located, especially since it was so long ago. Rivers change course over time by floods and earthquakes, and I think it is highly unlikely that those four rivers have remained the same since the time of Adam and Eve or even the time of Moses. (John Litteral)

2:17 die the death: In the original state of Adam and Eve they would have never died physically nor spiritually had they not sinned. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned...." (CCC 1008). According to St. Thomas Aquinas their bodies would have been preserved from death by the power of the soul because the body was entirely subject to the soul. Eating of that tree would also bring spiritual death, which is the soul being totally deprived of God. (John Litteral) CCC 376 396 400 1006 1008

2:18-22 It was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a "helper" to man; not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, since man can be helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation. It was right for the woman to be made from a rib of man so that man might love woman all the more, and cleave to her more closely, knowing her to be fashioned from himself. (St. John Chrysostom) CCC 371 2417

2:24 Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh", they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work. (CCC 372) This verse is quoted by Jesus in Matt. 19:5; Mk. 10:7-8; It is quoted by St. Paul in 1 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31. Jesus uses this verse in order to teach that divorce is to be avoided. St. Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians to teach against fornication spiritually and physically. In Ephesians St. Paul teaches that marriage between husband and wife is a symbol of Christ and the Church.

2:25 It was because of the glory in which they were wrapped that they were not ashamed. Once this had been taken away from them, after the transgression of the commandment, they were ashamed because they had been stripped of it, and the two of them rushed to the leaves in order to cover not so much their bodies as their shameful members. (St. Ephrem the Syrian)