And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. (Gen 3:22 ASV)
And Jehovah God saith, `Lo, the man was as one of Us, as to the knowledge of good and evil; and now, lest he send forth his hand, and have taken also of the tree of life, and eaten, and lived to the age,' (Gen 3:22 YLT)
The word translated forever and to the age is the good old:
H5769
עלם עולם
‛ôlâm ‛ôlâm
o-lawm', o-lawm'
From H5956; properly concealed, that is, the vanishing point; generally time out of mind (past or future), that is, (practically) eternity; frequentative adverbially (especially with prepositional prefix) always: - always (-s), ancient (time), any more, continuance, eternal, (for, [n-]) ever (-lasting, -more, of old), lasting, long (time), (of) old (time), perpetual, at any time, (beginning of the) world (+ without end). Compare H5331, H5703.
This may be a problem of me not understanding a foreign language, I'm not a native English speaker, but here is my question:
Using the word forever here doesn't make sense, seeing that God says that if Adam and Eve eats of, or touches the tree of knowledge of good and evil; this will happen: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die (Gen 3:3)
Since they have already eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they will surely die. This will have to happen before they go on eating ALSO of the tree of Life. Seems to me that there is a need to FIRST eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and THEN and ONLY then to eat of the tree of Life. Possibly the fruit of the tree of Life will not seem tempting if you don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil first.
Now I got a little sidetracked...
I know that olam shouldn't be translated forever. Even so, I have a problem with the expression to the age found in YLT. It would make more sense to me (given my understanding) that it was translated have life aeonian.
God intended for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and he intends for everyone to eat of the tree of Life. However, all will not eat of that tree (of Life) in the same time. It sounds to me that the YLT translation lived to the age is speaking of living, and not even once dying unto the age. The YLT translation is telling me that if you eat of the tree of Life you live without dying unto the age. The age in question would then be the Age of ages. This doesn't make sense to me as we all die in Adam before that time.
Maybe most of you reading this have a huge question mark written all over your faces by now. Sorry about that, it's hard to explain just how I'm thinking, but I'll just post this and then I'll see whether anyone poses the right questions, which will again help me clarify MY question... Ok, that was probably a bit unclear too...
Well, I'll just leave this open, waiting your responses.
God bless you and keep you,
Eirik