3
1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” 1:24,25
2. And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit
of the trees of the garden; 2:16,17
3. “but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest
you die.’”
4. Then the serpent said to the woman,”You will not surely die.
5. “For God knows that In the day you eat of it your eyes
will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil.” v. 7; Hab. 1:13
6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make
one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her
husband with her, and he ate.
7. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. v. 21; 2:25
8. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Jer. 23:24
This chapter starts with the downfall of mankind and the introduction of Satan and sin into the world. A lot of people say that they would not have done what Adam and Eve did and that they could have resisted Satan’s temptation. Also people who do not know the truth would also ask, why even have the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden? What was God thinking? All we have to do is go to the scriptures for these answers. ( Rev 12:3-9). From these verses we can see that Satan was able to deceive a third of the angels into rebelling against God. The Dragon spoken of in Rev 12:3 is none other than Satan himself. In the bible stars can be another name for angels ( Judges. 5:20, Job. 38: 4-7, Rev. 1:2o), These angels were in the presence of God all mighty and saw him for all his majesty and glory. So if Satan can deceive these angels, then it was no hard task to deceive man into eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Satan has been deceiving man ever since the time of the garden. So why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden? God gave us a conscious, and the ability to choose right from wrong. God doesn’t want robots that are programmed to do as he wishes. He wants every man and woman to Have the right to choose for themselves whether or not if they want to love Him, follow Him and live His way of life. You can look it it in this manner; When a person is looking for a mate to spend the rest of their life with, the one thing they look for is does this person love me for who I am, and not being pressured into loving me for fear of retribution. Deep down inside everyone is looking for true love and not being forced or coerced into loving us. We were made in the image of God, He is looking for true love and we carry that same trait. God does not force His will upon us. We see that God gave us dominion over the earth. We were to rule over all living things (Gen 1:28) Once Satan convinced Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he took over dominion of the earth from man. Sin has now entered the world. Satan is the representative of sin. Instantly Adam and Eve lost their innocence and became ashamed of their nakedness. It was sin that told them them they were naked and in turn made them feel ashamed, and covered themselves, and hid from God.
9. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10. So he said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11. And He said,”Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat? 2:17
As soon as Adam had eaten from the tree of knowledge he immediately saw that he was naked and felt ashamed and guilty. Not only for what he had done, but that he saw his nakedness for what it is. In a sense he has lost the innocence of a child, for children, when they are young, do not know how to distinguish between right from wrong, and good from evil. It’s a growing process that a child goes thru where eventually they learn of these things. So Adam has now become a man and his inner conscious tells him he is naked, and now he feels ashamed.
Where was God at this time? He was in the garden of Eden. This tells me that God was here on earth at the beginning. In verse eight we see that God was walking in the Garden, and then in verse ten Adam says that he heard God’s voice in the garden. God is dwelling with man in the garden. Now that sin has entered the world, man will no longer have direct access to Him. after the 1,000 year reign of Christ is over, God Himself will once again dwell on the earth with man (Rev 21:1-5 ). Once Satan is defeated for good (after the battle of Gog and Magog) and he is cast in the lake of fire, along with the anti-Christ and the false prophet, satan and Sin will longer be around to influence man. Then God will be able to dwell with man. God is Holy, without sin, He is the epitome of all that is righteous, and true, Therefore God cannot, and will not dwell in a place that has sin.
Before Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, man had direct access to God. There was no need for high priest or even Jesus Christ himself. Since sin had not yet entered the world there was no need for Jesus Christ to be the propitiation of man (Rom 3:25, 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10 ). Yet with that said, God new beforehand, that sin would enter the world and the knowledge of good and evil. So in His infinite wisdom He knew before the foundation of the world that we would need a savior (1Pet 1:18-20, Heb 9:26).
12. Then the man said,”The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 2:22
13. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”
I see this all the time in life today. No one wants to be accountable for their wrongdoings, (it’s always someones else’s fault). Adam actually blames God for his actions: he says to God “The woman whom you gave to me.” Adam is saying: that if God had not given Adam this woman, then he would not have been tempted to eat the fruit in the first place. God, being all knowing, knew what Adam and Eve had done. God was asking rhetorical questions in verses 9-13. I believe that God wanted to see how they would respond to his question: would they take responsibility for their actions of what they had done? would they ask forgiveness for disobeying Him? As we can see they tried to throw the blame on someone else. Not once does Adam and Eve acknowledge their sin and ask God for forgiveness. We can only speculate as to what would have happened if they had done so. Would God have forgiven them? I believe he would: for God is rich in mercy. But there still Has to be a price to pay for sinning. If not, then they would go on sinning. If a murderer is not punished for his crime, then what’s to stop him from doing it again? Now the punishment phase begins.
14. So the Lord God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all
cattle, v. 17
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust Is.65:25
All the days of your life,
◊15. And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your seed and
her Seed; Rom. 16:20; Rev. 12:9
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise his heel.”
Notice that God does not ask Satan any questions. There is no need. God is all too familiar with Satan’s ways and knows that he is the true cause for what has happened. God immediately begins with the punishment phase. In my opinion verses 14 gives us clues as to the characteristics of the serpent before God cursed it. First it suggest that the serpent was either above the cattle and the beast of the field or like them as far as its position on the earth. Secondly, it is, arguably suggested by many in christian faith, that the serpent originally had legs. There is also scientific proof that shows that snakes once did have legs and maybe even arms of some sort. Fossils have been found in Lebanon showing a snake with a leg at the hip area. This helps support the genesis account that the serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly all the days of its life. When you look at the beginning of verse 15 you will notice a star. According to my format for this writing, any time there is a clear star before the verse, it indicates a future fulfillment of the Messiah. This enmity that God puts between the seed of the woman and Satan are a representation of the hatred between Satan’s world of wickedness and all that is evil in the world, and the light of the world which is Jesus Christ and the church, and all that is good and righteous. The bruising of the head of Satan by her seed is accomplished by the death and Resurrection of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. the resurrection of Christ was the final blow to the head of Satan. For God himself came down to earth, Became flesh, and beat Satan as a human being. In my own take here, I see the head as a representation of life: without the head there is no life. By bruising Satan’s head he dealt the death blow to Satan. Now on the other part of the equation the bruising of the heal by Satan upon the woman’s seed is a representation of Satan’s persecution of the saints and the true church of God. Because he could only bruise the heel of the woman’s seed, he could not, or should I say cannot succeed in his bid to destroy the woman’s seed.
16. To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your
sorrow and your
conception;
In pain you shall bring forth
children;
Your desire shall be for your husband, Eph. 5:22; Titus 2:4,5
And he shall rule over you.”
This punishment laid upon Eve is not only applied to her, but also to all women who will come after her until our redemption. Obviously, before sin there was no sorrow. Once sin entered the world so did sorrow, but the woman would feel more sorrow than man. If we look at the different characteristic between man and woman, it is obvious that women are far more emotional than men. Women are very fragile in this sense and let the littlest things upset them, as opposed to men who are stronger emotionally and seem to just shrug things off. Women cry more than men, they get their feelings hurt more, and when someone hurts them, they will never forget. For those men who have ever been married, you know what I’m talking about. You may have said or done something ten twenty years ago, and she will bring it up when the opportunity deems necessary. As far as conception is concerned, how many times has it been said, that until you’ve experienced childbirth you haven’t experienced pain. This is arguably one of the most painful things a human can experience. I say arguably because I myself have suffered first second and third degree burns all at once, and until you go through the fire like I have you have not experienced pain (this is according to me). The last two curses go hand in hand with one another “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Maybe this desire can explain for one, why so many women will stay in an abusive relationship with their spouse or boyfriends. How many times have people said “why does she keep going back to him?” it’s that desire to be with that one particular man and that hope, that when he says he will never do it again, he means it. And because of this desire they will allow the man to rule over them in all aspects of their life. Now there are those women who won’t let the abuse continue and do leave the abuser. i’m just using this as an example. This has been the norm throughout history until the twentieth century, and the birth of the women’s rights movement.
17. Then to Adam he said, “Because you have headed the
voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I
commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: 2:17
“Cursed is the ground for your
sake; v. 14
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Adam did what so many people have done throughout time, and that is to disobey God, and to head the voice of others. So therefore Adam too must be punished for his part in disobeying God’s command. All the days of man’s life they will have to work hard to put food on the table for themselves and or their family.
18. Both thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat of the herb of
the field.
19. In the sweat of the face you
shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are, 2:7; 5:5
And to dust you shall return.”
I know I keep saying this, but it is what it is. “Before sin entered the world,” God was providing Adam with all his needs. Now Adam will have to labor for his food. Now, not only will there be fruit and herbs growing in abundance, but now there will be “thorns and thistles” which Adam will have to work till sweat rolls down his face in order to keep his garden fruitful, until the day he dies. In sin lies death, so now that Adam has sinned, so to will he return to ground in which he was formed. Adam could have lived forever had he obeyed God, and never have experienced all that comes from knowing sin, and good and evil: pain, sorrow, to name a few, and yes even death.
20. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was
the mother of all living. 2:23
Eve (H2332): חוּה: chavvâh
BDB Definition: Eve = “life” or “living”
1) the first woman, wife of Adam
The strong concordance and the BDB both concur that the definition of Eve is life-giver. Just a reminder to the reader; BDB is the Hebrew definition and the strong s is the Hebrew, and Greek/Aramaic interpretation.
21. Also for Adam the Lord God made tunics of skin, and
clothed them. v.7
In order for God to make the tunics of skin, there had to be a shedding of blood, and the sacrifice of the animal that the skins came from. This sacrifice and the shedding of blood is both a reminder of the penalty of sin and the atonement thereof. The nakedness of Adam And Eve is the sin part which had to be covered up. The only way to cover their nakedness, and to be reconciled with God, was to use the skin of the animal for this covering. Since Adam and Eve were the only human beings on the earth at this time, and sin had just reared its ugly head for the first time, there was yet no need for animal sacrifices. This being the case, only God could perform this ritual that would be acceptable to him. The bible doesn’t go into detail of how all this went down, it just gives us a glimpse. Therefore, in my opinion, I believe that God had Adam and Eve witness this sacrifice, this way they could pass down this ritual to their children and so on and so forth. How else would Cain and Abel know about offerings to God. This would therefore, as in the Sabbath rest, show that before the law came down through Moses on mount Sinai, men were already obliged to sacrifice to God for their sins. Abraham is proof of this. During his time, Abraham already knew how to offer sacrifices to God, and he was doing so, as commanded by God.
22. Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become
like one of Us, to know good and evil. And lest he put out his
hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”- v. 5; 12:9
23. therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of
Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
24. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at
the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which
turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. v.22
God said in Gen.2:17 That if Adam and Eve were to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they would die.
Gen 2:17 but you shall not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
When Satan told Eve that she “surely wouldn’t die,” he was using half truths. They surely didn’t die once they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but when they did eat of it, As God said, they began the dying process and they surely did die. I have a saying myself that goes like this, “On the day we are born we begin to die” On the day that Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge they began to die. Until God’s kingdom is established here on earth: and I’m talking about after the great white throne judgment, man is not allowed access to the tree of life. In my opinion, if man could access the tree of life, then they would live in their sin forever and ever, never dying, Then it could never been said, “For the wages of sin is death,” (Rom 6:23), Also in His loving mercy, He cannot allow His creation to live in sin for eternity. Even though they that are of the world would think it would be a good thing, they don’t realize the truth, which is that sin brings misery in one form or another, therefore God cannot see His creation, made in His likeness, live in such pain and suffering. (Rev 22:1-3).