The Trees in the Garden
By Walter Giddings
August 31, 2025
Featured Scripture: Ezekiel 31
(Genesis 3:8-10). The mention of the trees “in the garden” in Genesis 3 notes them to be a hiding place. There are two famous instances in legend and history where a forest of trees provided significant cover for an effective hiding place. David, before he became king, was King Saul’s greatest warrior. When he fell out of favor with King Saul, David and his men hid themselves in the forest of Haro-sheth. When Robin Hood fell out of favor with Prince John in old England, he and his merry men successfully remained hidden in Sherwood Forest. Even Adam and the woman sought cover among the trees of the garden of Eden! But our Creator and Maker, who alone is God (!), has pursued us all who are born from above, and has drawn us to His Beloved Son Jesus. In His Omnipresence no one can be hidden! “The guilty pair bowed down with care” were found out. [Selection 67 in our 2nd Hymnals: The Love of God, Frederick Lehman].
c 8 And they heard the voice of the
LORD God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day: and Adam
and his wife hid themselves from
the presence of the LORD God
amongst the trees of the garden.
p 9 And the LORD God called unto
Adam, and said unto him, Where
art thou?
c 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in
the garden, and I was afraid, because
I was naked: and I hid myself.
Genesis chapter three.
“I hid myself.” Does this quotation, “I hid myself” put us in remembrance of this phrase in Romans 10:10, “… and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”? Even the childhood game Hide and Seek brings us all back to the garden of God where Adam and his wife hid themselves “amongst the trees”!
Did Adam and his wife commit three acts subsequent to Adam’s Fall?
(1) Did they cover their nakedness with unsuitable clothing? Was that an attempt to cover their Sin?
(2) Did they hide from God?
(3) Did they engage in blame shifting?
Covering their Sin, hiding from God, and blame shifting: pretty sorry Record, wouldn't you say? Are all three of these deeds’ pathognomonic signs of their debased and carnal nature? Are all three deeds signs of our carnal nature?
The Pastors and Elders here already know they are wretched Sheep! What about us Pew sitters? Have we all committed these Acts of a debased and carnal nature while we were children?
“Confess your faults one to another” [James 5: 16]
Before the Judgment Seat of Christ, who among us will be able to:
(1) cover their sin(s),
(2) hide from God, and
(3) shift the blame to others?!!
How about we start with nobody, and finish at no one? We are still in Genesis chapter three. Verse 11.
11 And he said, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten
of the tree, whereof I commanded
thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Genesis chapter three.
Busted!!! This Lesson is not about covering our sin, hiding from God, nor blame shifting. It is about this next Question.
What was so attractive about the trees that Adam and his wife decided to hide there? Does hiding from God mean hiding from His presence? What does God’s Omnipresence mean? Did they decide to hide when they heard the voice of the LORD God, while they were walking in the garden in the cool of the day?
Before Adam and his wife sinned, did they have to worry about what time of day they were walking in the Garden? What changed?
“Where are you?” Who here, now, seriously thinks God did not know Adam and his wife were hiding “amongst the trees of the garden”? What was God’s Question designed to elicit from “the guilty pair”?
(Ecclesiastes 3:18-21). Did the God of all Creation, according to his Sovereign Will, desire to have Adam and his wife contemplate and deliberate that they chose to leave their 1st Estate?
p 18 I said in mine heart concerning
the estate of the sons of Adam, that
God might manifest them, and that
they might see that they themselves
are beasts.
c 19 For that which befalleth the sons
of men befalleth beasts; even one
thing befalleth them: as the one
dieth, so dieth the other; yea they
have all one breath; so that a man
has no preeminence above a beast:
for all is vanity.
p 20 All go unto one place; all are of
the dust, and all turn to dust again.
c 21 Who knoweth the spirit of Adam
that goeth upward, and the spirit of
the beast that goeth downward to
the earth?
Ecclesiastes chapter three.
Verse 18. Did Solomon, before he left this side of life, consider “in his heart the estate of the sons of Adam”?
Verse 19. Did Solomon identify that which Adam and the beasts share in common? Do we both die? Verse 20. Do our bodies both turn to dust again? Verse 21. Is the only difference between Adam and beast where the spirit of Adam goes upward while the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth?
(Jude 6). Do both Adam and angels share attributes? Did both choose to leave their 1st Estate? Do both Adam and angels have choice?
6 And the angels which kept not
their first estate, but left their own
habitation, he hath reserved in ever-
lasting chains under darkness unto
the judgment of the great day.
Jude chapter one.
“Where are you?” Did Adam fall from immortality into mortality? Did Adam lose the power to subdue the Earth, a huge part of Dominion? Did Adam lose Sonship with God? Did Adam lose sight of what is now the Invisible Dimension? Did Adam become lower than the angels? Did Adam become the weakest creature in all Creation? Did Adam fall from the Image of the Heavenly into the Image of the Earthy? Did Adam become the helpless race?!
In the early 1990’s a dairy farmer announced the start of a Bible Study at the farmhouse. It attracted a number of his family members and friends. The thought occurred to us this Bible Study might attract two or three mockers. The mother of the farmer’s children had abandoned him over preaching strange doctrines. The two oldest children today now believe they are direct lineal uncorrupted descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel. In this atmosphere of “put up or shut up,” we discussed the need to make the Bible Study members defend the Bible!! (Isaiah 55:12). We needed an opening Scripture that would engage them!
12 For ye shall go out with joy, and
be led forth with peace: the moun-
tains and the hills shall break forth
before you into singing, and the
trees of the field shall clap their
hands.
Isaiah chapter fifty-five.
To open that first Bible Study we posed this Question! If we were to tell you The Bible says “… the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”, would you think we were off our rockers, struck senseless with a 2x4, smashed into a fence by a dairy cow, and in need of emergency treatment for a concussion?!!! Even those sympathetic to our plight and willing to give us a hearing at this first meeting, readily agreed with the lynch mob to get The Heretics! We had the entire group read with us in unison Isaiah 55:12! We asked for help to understand what God is saying. The Silence in the living room was so thick we could hear one grain of dairy feed hit the farmhouse wooden floor. We looked directly at everyone there. They all looked like they were the ones struck senseless!
(Ezekiel 31:9). We pressed our advantage with unrelenting momentum. We read this Verse in unison:
9 I have made him fair by the multi-
tude of his branches: so that all the
trees of Eden, that were in the garden
of God, envied him.
Ezekiel chapter thirty-one.
We asked for help. How can “the trees of Eden” envy another tree “made fair by the multitude of his branches”? Within a few weeks all the parents brought the children.
(Mark 8:23-24). In Bethsaida of Galilee they brought to Jesus a blind man, begging him to touch him.
p 23 And he took the blind man by the
hand, and led him out of the town;
and when he had spit on his eyes, and
put his hands on him he asked him if
he saw ought.
c 24 And he looked up, and said, I see
men as trees, walking.
Why did Jesus have this blind man see “men as trees, walking” at his first sight?
25 After that he put his hands again
upon his eyes, and made him look
up: and he was restored, and saw
every man clearly.
Mark chapter eight.
(Jude 12). Can we get another witness in the New Testament Scriptures?
12 These are spots in your feasts of
charity, when they feast with you,
feeding themselves without fear:
clouds they are without water, car-
ried about of winds; trees whose
fruit withereth, without fruit, twice
dead, plucked up by the roots;
Jude chapter one.
“Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.”
What does “without fruit” mean? What does “twice dead” mean? What does “plucked up by the roots” mean? Who is this whose destiny is to be “plucked up by the roots”?
If we are filling in the names of our ancestors who have gone before us, are we said to be completing our family ____ ? (1 Corinthians 2:14). Does The Holy Spirit speak to us down through the centuries, as if he knows we will discern His meaning? Are The Scriptures “spiritually discerned”?
14 But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians chapter two.
How many “natural” men do we have in our families and neighborhoods? We have quoted 1 Corinthians 2:14 not because we want you to doubt that you are spiritually discerning!! We have quoted 1 Corinthians 2:14 because we want you to have the Blessed Assurance that you are already spiritually discerning!!! And the more we are exercising spiritual discernment the more discerning we become! (Verse 12). Just how (!) do we know that is the Gospel Truth?! Because it is in The Gospel!!!
12 Now we have received, not the
spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God; that we might
know the things that are freely given
to us of God.
First Corinthians chapter two.
Do we have a 2nd Witness to this Truth?!
(Verse 16).
16 For who hath known the mind of
the Lord, that he may instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ.
First Corinthians chapter two.
Have we seen, thus far, trees that clap their hands, trees that envy another Tree “made fair by the multitude of his branches”, trees that look like men walking, and trees that are twice dead, and trees that are families because some family member is filling in our genealogy?!
(Ezekiel 31). Let’s go to the end time Prophet Ezekiel: Chapter 31. The 1st Time I read Ezekiel chapter 31 I got disoriented! Everything I thought I knew about The Bible got reoriented! I struggled with how to make this less of a struggle for you. Please be patient with me. Life has made me aware there are some of you who had no struggle with this, or if you did, you already, through spiritual discernment, have the comfort of an understanding about what the God of our Fathers did with His Prophet Ezekiel here.
(Ezekiel 31:18). This is the last Verse of Ezekiel chapter thirty-one.
18 To whom art thou thus like in
glory and in greatness among the
trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be
brought down with the trees of Eden
unto the nether parts of the earth:
thou shalt lie in the midst of the un-
circumcised with them that be slain
by the sword. This is Pharaoh and
all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
“This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Sovereign Great I Am.” Are the entire thrust and purpose of Ezekiel 31 to compare “Pharaoh and all his multitude” to “the trees of Eden” and to prophesy his fate will be no better than theirs?
When did the land of Eden cease to exist? The land of Eden is not mentioned again after Genesis 4:16 until The Book of the End time Prophet Isaiah 51:3. (Genesis 4:16). Shall we review Genesis 4:16?
16 And Cain went out from the pre-
sence of the LORD, and dwelt in the
land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
Genesis chapter four.
(Isaiah 51:3). Does God use the land of Eden as a comparison for the future Zion?
3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion:
he will comfort all her waste places;
and he will make her wilderness like
Eden, and her desert like the garden of
the LORD; joy and gladness shall be
found therein, thanksgiving and the
voice of melody.
Isaiah chapter fifty-one.
Does The Great I Am say He “shall comfort Zion”? Does He say He “will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD”? Do these phrases sound like what Peter preached in the Pentecost Sermon?
(Acts 3:18-21). In the Pentecost Sermon Peter told all the hearers they “killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.”
And Peter said he knew they did it in ignorance, “as did also your rulers.”
p 18 But those things which God before
had shewed by the mouth of all his pro-
phets, that Christ should suffer, he hath
so fulfilled.
c 19 Repent ye therefore, and be con-
verted, that your sins may be blotted
out when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the
Lord;
p 20 And he shall send Jesus Christ,
which before was preached unto you:
c 21 Whom the heaven must receive un-
til the times of restitution of all things,
which God hath spoken by the mouth
of all his holy prophets since the world
began.
Acts chapter three.
Scroll back to Verse 18. How convicting are fulfilled Prophecies for each and every one of us? Did anyone of the Prophecies of Christ’s Sufferings go unfulfilled?
Verse 19. From what shall “the times of refreshing come”?
Verse 20. Will God send Jesus Christ again? Verse 21. “Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things.” If we are not seeing “the times of refreshing”, has the Lord come? If “the times of restitution” have not begun, has Christ come? Has the harvest occurred, or are the tares still among the wheat?
(Ezekiel 31:1-2). We began (three references to Scripture ago) with the last verse of Ezekiel 31, Verse 18. What did Verse 18 reveal to us, as God’s sons and daughters? Do Verses 1-2 reveal the same thing?
p And it came to pass in the eleventh
year, in the third month, in the first
day of the month, that the word of the
LORD came unto me, saying,
c 2 Son of man, Speak unto Pharaoh,
King of Egypt, and to his multitude:
Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
Are we on Notice that the purpose of the revelation concerning The Trees in the garden of God, that is, “all the trees of Eden in the garden of God”, especially one cedar that excelled all the other cedars had greatness like unto Pharaoh and his multitude?! And Pharaoh and his multitude would share the same fate they met!
3 Behold the Assyrian was a cedar
in Lebanon with fair branches, and
with a shadowing shroud and of a
high stature; and his top was among
the thick boughs.
All the deciduous trees on the homestead where I have stewardship have thin boughs with a multitude of leaves to catch sunlight for photosynthesis. The evergreens I planted for windbreaks are 60 feet headed for 80 feet. Their tops are thicker but are no match for “the thick boughs” here in Verse 3.
Verses 4-7 are a beautiful description, both poetic and sublime, of all The Trees of Eden in the garden of God. But they are shown to be no match for “the Assyrian”, surpassing all other cedars because he had first Dibs on all the waters all the trees drank, as it is written, Verse 7, “for his root was by great waters.” The cedar, called “the Assyrian,” Verse 6, was so great that “All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.” That Assyrian, that surpassed all the cedars and all The Trees of Eden in the garden of God, had under his “shadow” all great nations dwelling?!
We began this Lesson in Genesis 3:8-10. Turn to Genesis 2:8-10.
c 8 And the LORD God planted a gar-
den eastward in Eden; and there he
put the man whom he had formed.
p 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 know-
ledge of good and evil.
c 10 And a river went out of Eden to
water the garden; and from thence it
was parted, and became into four heads.
Genesis chapter two.
Has the Picture in the picture galleries of our mind of The Garden God planted “eastward in Eden” taken on a scale grander than before? Do you get the same sense that your herald of the Gospel of the Kingdom has? Could we all use a lot more “Study” of The Trees “in the garden”?
(Amos 3:2). Have we taken notice that trees are used to picture “families”?
Did the end time prophet Amos tell “the children of Israel,” this word the LORD hath spoken “against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt”?
2 You only have I known of all the
families of the earth: therefore I
will punish you for all your iniquities.
Amos chapter three.
“Of all the families of the earth.” Could all those trees, the Assyrian and the other cedars, the fir trees, the chestnut trees, and all “the trees of Eden ... in the garden of God,” be families? Were all these families destined for mortality? Were the children of Israel, sourcing from all the way back to Adam, alone, destined for immortality? Was the “helpless race” of Adam the only race that fell? Were the other “families of the earth” victims of our Fall?
(1 Corinthians 15:49-50). The Resurrection is on this wise:
p 49 And as we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly.
c 50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God; neither doth corruption in-
herit incorruption.
Could Adam die before he sinned? Are the wages of sin death? Could Adam die after he sinned? When did Adam begin to bear “the image of the earthy”? Did Adam fall from “the image of the heavenly” unto “the image of the earthy”?
When we knew our parents were going to discover our bad deeds, how did we deal with that dread or even terror? Did we tend to do irrational behaviors that had no chance of success? Did we try to hide with the children of other families? How did that work for us? How rational is hiding from the Omnipresent God? In our debased and corrupt nature did we try to hide anyway? Does fear, dread, or even terror lead to reason? If our reason is debased and corrupt, are we already done for?
If Adam fell into the image of the earthy, and the other “families of the earth” were already made in the image of the earthy, could Adam and the woman in desperation to escape accountability seize the opportunity to hide among the others in the image of the earthy? Is carnal nature predictable?
Bibliography
Genesis 3:8-10. “I hid myself.”
Ecclesiastes 3:18-21. “the estate of the sons of Adam”
Jude 6. “the angels which kept not their first estate”
Isaiah 55:12. “the trees of the field shall clap their hands”
Ezekiel 31:9. “all the trees of Eden .. envied him.”
Mark 8:23-24. “I see trees as men walking.”
Jude 12. “trees whose fruit withereth”
1 Corinthians 2:14. “they are spiritually discerned.”
Verse 12. “that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
Verse 16. “we have the mind of Christ.”
Ezekiel 31:18. “to whom art thou thus like”
Genesis 4:16. “the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”
Isaiah 51:3. “the LORD ... will make her wilderness like Eden”
Acts 3:18-21. “the times of refreshing … until the times of restitution”
Ezekiel 31:1-2. “Whom art thou like”
Verse 3. “The Assyrian was a cedar”
Genesis 2:8-10. “the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden”
Amos 3:2. “of all the families of the earth”
1 Corinthians 15:49-50. “as we have borne the image of the earthy”
Is carnal nature predictable?!
