James,

I'm not sure what you are applying the metaphor to, but you are certainly right in that trees can be metaphorical. I prefer to use the term "symbolic." They symbolize leaders. Daniel 4 is a prime example. In Psalm 1, the tree represents a spiritual leader, as do also the "cedars of Lebanon" and other similar symbols. Obviously, when the trees of the field "clap their hands," they are representing more than mere trees.

Grass, herbs and trees--all created the same day--represent classes of people. Perhaps what you are saying in response to my post is that the "tares" are representative, or "metaphors," for the wicked. If so, I would agree with you.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Psalms 90:4 AKJV For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

2 Peter 3:8 AKJV But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Six literal days of creation, or six metaphorical days. If the trees are just symbolic/metaphoric, then the rest of the chapter can be considered the same. Do you really want to go there?

Note that Peter was quoting the Psalmist, and that the original thought was about the fleeting passage of time. To God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, a thousand years is nothing at all. They are all together "as yesterday when it is past, AND as a watch in the night."

Note the conjunction "AND". They are not only as yesterday, but like one-eighth of a day that passes quickly like when a man sleeps.

This passage IN NO WAY says that "one thousand years = one day".

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Slight correction there. Adam will eat herbs of the field. In other words, he'll have to work up a sweat to get the ground to give him food.

And the trees in the garden were not metaphors or symbols. They were literal trees. There may be addition meanings, but none the less, they were real, just as the days of creation were real.

You are greatly deceived. Why do you doubt the word of Jesus Christ?



The eating of a fruit does NOT open your eyes and give you the skill to weave fig leaves.

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James,

Many people do try to attribute that passage in 2 Peter 3:8 to a concept that time is meaningless to God. However, such an interpretation does not follow proper hermeneutics. That verse is singular in being the most definitive time formula in all of scripture. If time was meaningless to God, why so many time prophecies, each of which are exact to the day?

Time is important to God. Many passages in the Bible bear this out. In 2 Peter 3:8, an A=B & B=A (definition statement) is found. None of the other time formulas go both ways in the Bible. William Miller wrote a good essay on the topic. I've posted it on this forum at least once.

The days of Genesis were prophetic. Peter himself speaks of it in that chapter. That is the specific context of the formula which he gives there. Are prophetic days not literal? On the contrary, they are literal first. For example, the spies used 40 literal days to spy out Canaan. Those days came to be representative of a prophetic application of 40 years. So the 40 days were both literal and "metaphorical," if that is the word one prefers.

The days of creation were likewise literal days. Yet each one represented a millennium to come. The symbolic or metaphorical value of each of the things which God created in those days present to us the meaning/fulfillment of the prophecy.

There is another thread on this topic here which explains the prophecy.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Note that Peter was quoting the Psalmist, and that the original thought was about the fleeting passage of time. To God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, a thousand years is nothing at all. They are all together "as yesterday when it is past, AND as a watch in the night."

Note the conjunction "AND". They are not only as yesterday, but like one-eighth of a day that passes quickly like when a man sleeps.

This passage IN NO WAY says that "one thousand years = one day". Read Psalm 90. It is the Psalm Peter was quoting.



The Bible does NOT say the days of creation were prophetic, but that they were literal and established the cycle of time for us: seven days = 1 week.

And the trees were literal...

You are correct. One thousand years does not "equal" one day. It "represents" one day. Note the use of the word "as" to create a simile.


The first thousand-year "day" that we may notice in scripture is the one spoken of in Genesis 2:17. Obviously, Adam did not die the very day he ate the fruit. Neither did Eve, or she wouldn't have had any children. But Adam "only" lived 930 years--short of a full thousand years. He died that "day." By the end of that "day," his "punishment" (as relates to this topic) came.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.