Genesis 3:1-6

Recommended Resources:

The Bible Project Why God Tests His People | YouTube video

The Bible Project Tree of Life | YouTube video

Commentary:

3:1- This phrase “beast of the field” (living thing from the land) refers to any land animal. It’s oddly specific and makes me wonder if there was perhaps a more arum creature in the sea or sky. The phrase “living thing from the land” usually encompasses only animals, but there is a homonym that can include humans. So perhaps the text is saying the nachash was wiser than humans. I’m not sure we’re supposed to read anything into that; it just stood out to me.

There are different ways to interpret the nachash’s opening statement here. The common view is that he’s haggling with the woman, purposefully appearing uninformed in order to lure her in. Others make a case that the nachash was presenting a false statement which the woman then interrupts. “As E. A. Speiser has noted, the subordinate conjunction that introduces the serpent’s first utterance does not have the sense of ‘truly’ that most translators assign it, and is better construed as the beginning of a (false) statement that is cut off in midsentence by Eve’s objection that the ban is not on all the trees of the Garden. . . .” The verse would then read, “And he said to the woman, ‘Though God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden--” And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the garden’s trees. . . .” -Robert Alter, Translation and Commentary

Fight the urge to call the woman Eve, as she will not be given that name until after their failure. Through this whole story, she is simply Ishah—the woman.

3:2- There’s an odd detail about the location of the trees that isn’t usually brought up. In Genesis 2:9, only the Tree of Life is specifically said to be in the middle of the Garden. I think it’s implied that the trees are side by side in the middle of the Garden, but the Tree of Discerning Good and Not Good is not specifically said to be in the center. Here, the woman says they can’t eat from the tree in the middle of the Garden. That has led some to say she was actually eating from the Tree of Life rather than the Tree of Discerning Good and Not Good. I don’t think that view holds up, but it is strange how the description of being in the middle of the Garden switched to the other tree.

Much ink has been spilled over the use and misuse of God’s words in these verses. Some think the woman’s words are different because God gave a second set of unrecorded instructions. Others say that the man miscommunicated the original command to her. (Some believe this was accidental; others suggest he did it purposefully because he didn’t trust her to get it right on her own. That second option is unnecessarily derogatory and should likely not be entertained.) Still others say that Eve misrepresented God’s words herself. (Some believe this was accidental on her part, like forgetting the exact wording; others suggest she was playing fast and loose with God’s commands, allowing a foothold for the devil.) The text doesn’t provide a reason, so how you interpret it is up to you. Personally, I lean toward viewing this text as a warning against re-presenting God’s words as something they are not. I think the woman heard the same command from God that the man did—"Don’t eat from this tree.” But she chose to apply that her own way. In the woman’s error, I find a warning for all of us. Be careful not to equate your understanding of God’s words with God’s actual words. That’s a sure way to get into a lot of trouble. (Consider how the Bible frequently warns against drunkenness, yet we’ve built an entire culture that says God doesn’t want you to drink at all. We still make the same mistakes today.)

It is interesting that the woman removes the infinitive absolute from God’s statement (dying you will die). The serpent exactly negated what God said, the only other difference being he made it plural to apply to both the human and the woman as two separate entities.

3:3- The woman's focus on not touching the tree draws attention to the absence of this stipulation previously. At the risk of offending many, I’d dare say that the woman was the first fundamentalist. She added a further prohibition to God’s basic commands as if His line between good and evil wasn’t good enough. It’s worth noting that “Don’t touch” becomes the refrain of much of Leviticus and Deuteronomy though it was initially absent here. Love of God and others may prevent you from stepping over certain lines. But a rigid fundamental adherence to a singular point of view leads one to say, “Don’t go anywhere near the line for fear of stepping over accidentally.”

When the woman added in the part about not “touching” the tree, she used a rather forceful word for striking something. It’s used in the Exodus story of striking the doorposts with blood. I’m not sure what significance we could glean from this, but it seems a bit of an odd choice here.

3:4- Interestingly enough, the nachash introduces the infinitive absolute back into the conversation. “You will not die to die.” It almost could be read, “You would die to not die.” I don’t think that holds up grammatically in the context, but it does lead one to consider the lengths humanity goes not to face the inevitabilities of life.

3:5- Allow me to pose a controversial question—What if the nachash was telling the truth here? What he said came true. By eating from the tree, they did gain the power of a god. They could now determine good and evil on their own. The problem is not that the nachash was lying. It’s that he was selling them something they didn’t need and couldn’t use. We don’t need to be like gods when we are the likeness and image of God already.

The word for God here is still plural, so I’d argue there’s a solid case for translating it, “You will become like gods.” Since the nachash is often seen as a fallen spiritual being, a member of the elohim class himself, he wasn’t just saying they’d be like Yahweh. He was saying they’d be like him. He wanted to be like them and played off their wanting to be like him. One of the most important truths to learn in life is that the people you’re jealous of are usually jealous of you. We often grasp for what others have, only to find that they are no happier than we and indeed subject to the same misconception as we.

The New American Commentary notes how this story parallels the Mesopotamian Adapa myth. In that tale, “it was possible for the hero to obtain the wisdom of the gods, granted by Ea, but be denied divine immortality. Thus the mortal could obtain one feature of divinity without becoming divine.”

3:6- Up until this point, God has been declaring what is good. Here, humanity reaches out and defines good on its own terms for the first time. That is the truest definition of sin—when I define good and evil based on what seems best to me in the moment regardless of how it affects you. Everything about this passage is an inversion of God’s ideal. Even how the woman perceives the tree is the reverse of how God did. In Genesis 2:9, the trees are first called good to the eyes, then good for food. Here, the woman sees that the tree is good for food and good to the eyes.

There’s some debate about how exactly to translate this phrase. The tree is literally called “lust to the eyes and lovely to look at.” You could also say it was a tree “desirable to succeed.” To spiritualize for a moment, that’s just begging for you to consider what “trees” of success you’re grasping for in your life. In other words, whose approval are you craving? Mom? Dad? In-laws? Kids? Boss? Pastor? You’ll never be who you’re supposed to be if you’re grasping for success on their terms. You have to go solely off the way of Yahweh—that simply by virtue of being His creation, you are loved and worthy and enough in Him.

The story of Adam and Eve is the story of all of us. Simply by nature of being human, we have been given everything we need. Yet we grasp and claw at the few things outside of our control that can’t possibly make us any happier than we already have the ability to be. I believe the main message we’re supposed to get from the Garden story is that in following Yahweh’s way and living in His blessing, you are free to give up the pursuit of meaning. You’re free to just step back and be. Whatever achievement or validation you’re looking for outside of yourself is rendered redundant by the gift of God. Even more so by the gift of His Son. While we so often choose to take from our own Trees of Discerning Good and Not Good, Jesus set a new example for us—to give rather than take when faced with a tree of testing.

I wonder if the woman paused as she reached out to the tree to see if she would die before moving forward with eating. If your standard adds to the Bible, it will often lead to worse sin, not greater morality, especially in the next generation. It is common for Christian parents to claim that God’s fence was at x point when God really said y. When the next generation reached x and nothing happened, they proceeded past y as well. Humans do not play the role of standard-setter well. That’s God’s role. Or in the slightly altered words of Captain America, “There's only one God, ma'am. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like [you].”

The presence of the human during this event is a subject of debate. The text does not provide clear information, leaving room for different interpretations. Some look at his absence until the end to say that he wasn’t present. They’ll often then try to make some point about how the woman was only fooled because her man wasn’t there to set her straight. That’s insulting to women and doesn’t fit the narrative. Others point to the very end that says, “her husband with her” and assert that Adam was indeed there. They then often proceed to blame his bad leadership. But “her husband with her” could still apply if he had just showed up at that point. Furthermore, Biblical Hebrew didn’t have the same punctuation our modern texts do. So, you could also argue that the verse should read, “She gave to her husband, and he ate with her.” If that’s the case, it might mean that she went and found him. It’s not clear how much time goes by before the initial encounter with the nachash and the appearance of Yahweh. There was obviously enough time to find a fig tree and sew together the leaves. I don’t think we can know for sure at what point the woman’s husband showed up, so we have to hold to any position loosely and not make arguments off it. Ultimately, the focus should not be on assigning blame to the human or woman. Both made the same choice to eat from the tree.