The declaration that all that God created was “exceedingly good” in the Genesis account clearly conveys the idea that from the start God wanted only what was good for the world and the human beings he fashioned from the earth. At the same time, however, the biblical narrative presupposes that human beings can attain the good that God desires for them only if they avoid the ways of thinking and behaving that do them harm and instead live in ways that make their well-being possible. According to the logic that runs throughout the biblical texts, the challenge that God faces is precisely that of bringing about such a way of life in the human beings he has created so that the blessings he desires for them may be theirs.