HOW LONG WERE ADAM AND EVE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?

by Shawn Brasseaux

How long did Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden before they sinned and God threw them out? While there are all sorts of wild speculations, we need to search the Scriptures to see if we can find verses to answer our question.

As per Genesis chapter 4, Eve did not bear her first son (Cain) until after she and Adam sinned and were expelled from the Garden of Eden in chapter 3. Her body was healthy, sexually mature at the moment of her creation. She did not have fertility issues (and Adam was not sexually immature or impotent either). Obviously, not long after they met, they would have connected sexually, meaning it would not have taken months or years for her to conceive a child. Some married couples struggle to bear children for a long time (if ever resulting in pregnancy), but this was not true of Adam and Eve. Had they lived in Eden for years, enough time would have elapsed to result in several children. This is one indication they were in the Garden for just a short time. They could not have been in Eden for more than a year before they sinned.

Here is another Bible fact we must consider. The Sabbath Day is connected to the Creation Week. It was the seventh day—Saturday—to follow the six days of God’s creative acts. We turn to Genesis chapter 2: “[1] Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. [2] And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. [3] And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Adam had been created on the sixth day, Friday (Genesis 1:26-31).

Now, here is the Fourth Commandment as it reads in Exodus chapter 20: “[8] Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. [9] Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: [10] But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: [11] For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

There was the first Sabbath (the one that closed the Creation Week), and then there was the following Sabbath. God would have come down and dwelt with Adam and Eve in an earthly kingdom on that second Sabbath. The LORD had Israel observe the weekly Sabbath in order to remember their purpose: He will use them as His earthly people, in the same capacity Adam and Eve refused to participate all those thousands of years ago!

Consider Matthew 25:34: “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:….” Also, Acts 3:19-21: “[19] Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. [20] And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: [21] Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Since God placed man (Adam) on the earth, He had an earthly kingdom in mind. However, sin disrupted that plan—and man has yet to experience God’s reign in the Earth!

Now, read from Hebrews chapter 4: “[3] For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. [4] For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works…. [9] There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. [10] For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. [11] Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”

Again, the earthly kingdom believing Jews are anticipating (which will be established at Christ’s Second Coming—Acts 3:19-21), is the very earthly kingdom Adam and Eve would have enjoyed had they not sinned and been evicted from Eden. Hence, Adam and Eve would have been in the Garden of Eden for less than a week. We know they did not see the second Sabbath—the one following the original Sabbath of Genesis 2:1-3—because we know God’s earthly kingdom is delayed even now. Adam and Eve were not allowed to see it, which indicates to us they were in Eden only about a week before they fell.

Also see:
» Why did Jesus Christ heal on the Sabbath Day?
» Is the Sabbath day—Saturday or Sunday?
» Where in the Bible did God give Satan domain over the Earth?