Neville Goddard on Genesis 2:16-17 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Genesis 2 in context

Scripture Focus

16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 2:16-17

Biblical Context

Genesis 2:16-17 presents a command to freely eat from every tree but one, with a warning that eating of the forbidden tree would bring death.

Neville's Inner Vision

The garden is your mind and the Lord God is the I AM within you. The command to eat freely places you in a realm of unlimited imagining, while the prohibition on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil marks the boundary where you cease dwelling on fear and division. Death here is not a bodily fate but the end of the old split consciousness—the belief that you are separate from life. When you imagine yourself freely eating, you are aligning with the reality that your awareness is the creator of all experiences. To obey is to trust the inner law of your own I AM; to eat is to feed every idea that supports wholeness and unity. The moment you revise a limiting thought and feel it real, you transcend the old narrative and awaken to the truth that you are one with the life that sustains you.

Practice This Now

Sit in quiet, assume the feeling that you already possess what you seek; declare, 'I am the I AM and I freely eat from every tree of my mind.' Then revise any fear-based thought by replacing it with its opposite until it feels real.