Where is Eden?

Eden is synonymous with the garden that God had created for Adam and Eve in the beginning. Even today Eden or the Garden of Eden always evokes a beautiful place of peace, abundance and the location of Man’s beginning. We can read about this place in several locations in Genesis.

Genesis 2:4-15

[4] These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

[7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

[8] And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

[9] And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

[10] And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

[11] The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

[12] And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

[13] And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

[14] And the name of the third river is Hiddekel (Tigris): that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

[15] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

These verses speak of the Garden as well as of Eden itself. That’s one point I want to bring up is that the Garden and Eden are not the same place, but two separate things being spoken of. Eden is actually the very earth we live on; we may call it earth now, but back then it was known as Eden. Verse 8 gives us an idea of where on Eden the Garden was located. The Garden was located in the eastern part of Eden. At that time Eden (Earth) was one single land mass that had not been broken up at the time (Not till the flood). Verse 10 we are told that from Eden there was a river that flowed to the Garden and watered it and from the midst of the Garden this river became four rivers which are named in verses 11-14. We have the River Pishon, River Gihon, River Hiddekel (Tigris) and the River Euphrates. Now that we know that the Garden was located in the eastern parts of Eden and that four rivers flowed from it and that two of the four are still around unto this day. I would not be surprised if the Nile was another of these two missing rivers.

Now where could the Garden be located? For myself I believe the land that The Almighty has always wanted to give to His people is the location of the Garden. The land that we see over in the Middle East that the Jewish people have is nowhere near the size of the land that was given to God’s people. Joshua 1:4 gives us the western and eastern borders of the land, so pretty much the Arabian Peninsula was what was to be the Promise Land. Interestingly it is located with the Euphrates and Tigris on one side and the Nile on the other. This land during Joshua’s day was one that flowed with milk and honey and it took two men to carry a cluster of grapes. Even though the land has changed since then and has changed even more so when Eden (Earth) was one land mass, but God never lost sight of where He had placed the Garden and that someday He wanted His people to possess it.