And the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. — Genesis 3:23–24 (KJV)
Adam and Eve fell and then were cast out. The gate was sealed behind them, guarded by angels of fire. From that hour the human race became a race of exiles and wanderers — strangers upon the earth, seeking the way back to a Garden they could no longer see.
The Cherubim and the Flaming Sword
Genesis 3:17–19 — The Curse and the Toil
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. — Genesis 3:17–19 (KJV)
Genesis 3:21 — The Garments of Skin
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. — Genesis 3:21 (KJV)
Genesis 3:22–24 — The Expulsion
And the Lord 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: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. — Genesis 3:22–24 (KJV)
Rabbinic and Pseudepigraphal Tradition
Genesis Rabbah — Garments of Light, Garments of Skin
In Rabbi Meir's Torah scroll, according to Genesis Rabbah, the text read kotnot or — "garments of light" (כתנות אוֹר) — rather than kotnot ʿor, "garments of skin" (כתנות עוֹר). The two Hebrew words differ by a single letter. Before the sin, Adam and Eve were clothed in light. After the expulsion, they were clothed in the skin of the animal — the mortal body itself. — Genesis Rabbah 20:12
Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer — The Priestly Garments of Adam
The garments of skin God made for Adam were not common hides but sacred vestments. They were preserved through the Flood in the Ark, coveted by Nimrod, slain for by Esau, and hidden in the earth by Jacob — the first garment of the world passing through a long lineage of exile.
Rabbi Jehudah said: The coats which the Holy One, blessed be He, made for Adam and his wife, were with Noah in the ark, and when they went forth from the ark, Ham, the son of Noah, brought them forth with him, and gave them as an inheritance to Nimrod. When he put them on, all beasts, animals, and birds, when they saw the coats, came and prostrated themselves before him. The sons of men thought that this was due to the power of his might; therefore they made him king over themselves. — Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 24 (Friedlander trans., 1916)
Rabbi Meir said: Esau, the brother of Jacob, saw the coats of Nimrod, and in his heart he coveted them, and he slew him, and took them from him… When he put them on he also became, by means of them, a mighty hero… And when Jacob went forth from the presence of Isaac, his father, he said: Esau, the wicked one, is not worthy to wear these coats. What did he do? He dug in the earth and hid them there. — Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 24
The Life of Adam and Eve — The Penance at the River
When they were driven out from Paradise, they made themselves a tent, and spent seven days mourning and lamenting in great grief. But after seven days, they began to be hungry and started to look for food to eat, and they found it not. — Life of Adam and Eve (Vita Adae et Evae) 1–4
And Adam said to Eve: “You cannot do so much as I, but do only so much as you have strength for. For I will spend 40 days fasting, but arise and go to the river Tigris and lift up a stone and stand on it in the water up to your neck in the deep of the river. And let no speech come out of your mouth, since we are unworthy to address the Lord, for our lips are unclean from the unlawful and forbidden tree. And stay in the water of the river for 37 days. But I will spend 40 days in the water of Jordan and maybe the Lord God will take pity upon us.” — Life of Adam and Eve 6
And Adam said: “I tell you, water of Jordan, grieve with me, and assemble to me all swimming creatures, which are in you, and let them surround me and mourn with me…” Right away, all living things came and surrounded him, and, from that hour, the water of Jordan stood still and stopped flowing. — Life of Adam and Eve 8
And 18 days passed by. Then Satan was angered and transformed himself into the brightness of angels, and went to the river Tigris to Eve… But Adam endured in his penance, standing for 40 consecutive days in the water of Jordan. — Life of Adam and Eve 9, 17
Legends of the Jews — The Flaming Sword at the Gate
The way to the garden is the Cave of Machpelah that Adam guards. The cave leads to the gate of the garden, guarded by a cherub with a flaming sword. If a soul is unworthy of entering, the sword annihilates it. Within the garden is a pillar of fire and smoke that extends to the higher Gan Eden, which the soul must climb in order to reach the higher Gan Eden. — Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Vol. I
The Zohar — Adam Drove Out the Shekhinah
The Zohar reads Genesis 3:24 — “He drove out et ha-adam” — by way of a mystical inversion. The particle et (את), grammatically untranslatable, is read as a secret name of the Shekhinah, the indwelling Presence. Thus: not only was Adam driven out of the Garden, but Adam drove out et — Adam drove out the Shekhinah herself. And the Shekhinah, divorced from her union with Tiferet by Adam's sin, goes into exile with him, wandering with his children through every later exile — Egypt, Babylon, and beyond — until the day of return.
Come and see the secret of the word: Adam was caught in his own sin, inflicting death upon himself and the whole world, causing that tree with which he sinned to be divorced, driven away with him, driven away with his children forever, as is written: “He drove out et Adam.” — Zohar 1:53b (trans. Daniel Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition)
Come and see how beloved Israel is before the Holy One, blessed be He: for wherever they were exiled, the Shekhinah went into exile with them. — Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 29a
The Qur'an
And We said: O Adam, dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and eat ye freely of the fruits thereof where ye will; but come not near this tree lest ye become wrongdoers. But Satan caused them to deflect therefrom, and expelled them from the state in which they were; and We said: Fall down, one of you a foe unto the other! There shall be for you on earth a habitation and provision for a time. — Qur'an 2:35–36 (Pickthall)
Milton — The Closing Lines of Paradise Lost
They, looking back, all th' eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII, lines 641–649
A Course in Miracles — Adam Never Truly Left
At the center of the Royal Art stands the teaching that Adam was never actually exiled. He dreamed that he was. The Garden was never lost. Only the belief in loss was made. The cherubim and the flaming sword stand not at the gate of a real Eden but at the gate of the sleeping mind.
The Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project or miscreate. — A Course in Miracles, T-2.I.3–4
Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. — A Course in Miracles, T-27.VIII.6
The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in communication. — A Course in Miracles, T-6.IV.12:5
The separation has not interrupted it. Creation cannot be interrupted. The separation is merely a faulty formulation of reality, with no effect at all. — A Course in Miracles, T-13.VIII.3:3–5
If this were the real world, God would be cruel, for no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation and be loving. ²Love does not kill to save. ³For if it did, attack would be salvation, and this is the ego’s interpretation, not God’s. ⁴Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could conceive of it. ⁵Adam’s “sin” could have touched none of you had you not believed that it was the Father Who drove him out of paradise. ⁶For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, since it is only those who do not understand Him that could believe it. - [CE T-13.I.3]
Echoes of the Primordial Exile
The expulsion from Eden is the archetype of which every later exile is a recapitulation. Within the Royal Art these are all one story told again:
Cain driven east of Eden, condemned "a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth" (Genesis 4:12).
Abraham called out of Ur of the Chaldees into a land he did not know (Genesis 12:1).
Israel enslaved in Egypt, led through the wilderness forty years toward a Promised Land (Exodus).
Judah carried away into Babylon — "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion" (Psalm 137:1).
The Prodigal Son in the far country, eating the husks of swine, rising at last to return to his Father's house (Luke 15:11–32).
The Prince of the East lost in Egypt, forgetting his pearl and his robe of glory, awakened by the Letter from home (The Hymn of the Pearl).
The soul's descent through the planetary spheres in Neoplatonic and Hermetic cosmology, forgetting its origin as it takes on the garments of the planets.
Every exile is the first exile. Every return is the one return.
Within the Royal Art Opus
The Expulsion is the hinge on which the whole Great Story turns. The Fall is the inward event; the Expulsion is its outward consequence. With the closing of the gate the Prince passes out of the Kingdom into the Wasteland, out of the Garden into the World. The coats of skin become the mortal body. The flaming sword becomes the Abyss that divides the soul from its source. The long journey of Return — through the patriarchs, through the Exodus, through the prophets, through Christ, through the Grail Knight and the alchemist and the disciple of the Course — is the journey back to this gate, where the sword is at last quieted and the Tree of Life is once more approached. What was sealed at the beginning of Genesis is opened at the end of Revelation: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city" (Revelation 22:14).