Bible Commentaries

The Temptation and the Fall of Man

This chapter describes how 'by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin' (Romans 5:12). Although there is here no ambitious attempt to search out the origin of evil in the universe, the biblical account of the Fall pierces the depth of the human heart, and brings out the genesis of sin in man. The description, as already said, is true to life and experience.

There is no certain Babylonian counterpart to the biblical narrative of the Fall.

1. The serpent] The writer here sets himself to answer the question how evil came into the heart of man, who was created pure. His answer is that it came from without; it did not originate with man. And herein lies the hope of victory. The wrong approaches us from outside ourselves, and is not the native product of our own heart. There are present in our world beings and objects which, consciously or unintentionally, draw us towards that which is wrong; channels of sense, intellect, aspirations by which we may be touched The narrative tells us that man was tempted by some evil power, whose personality remains in the background. But this power must have made use of a medium, which could not have been another human being, seeing there were as yet only Adam and Eve. That it was an animal was therefore a natural assumption. On two grounds the writer was left to fix upon the serpent as the medium of the temptation. One was the natural habits of the creature, its stealthy movements, its deadly venom, and the instinctive feeling of repulsion which the very sight of it provokes. These things are all suggestive of the insidious approach and fatal power of temptation. The other was the fact that already the serpent in older mythologies was associated with the powers of darkness. In Babylonian belief Tiamat, the power of darkness and chaos, and the opponent of the god of light, was represented as a gigantic dragon, also known as Rahab and Leviathan (Job 9:13; RV Job 26:12; RV Psalms 74:13-14; Psalms 89:10; Isaiah 27:1; Amos 9:3); while to the Persians the serpent was the emblem of AngraMainyu, the hostile god. In later times, when the power of evil was more definitely personified by the Israelites as Satan, the serpent remained as the symbol under which he was popularly conceived. See e.g. Revelation 12:9; Revelation 20:2.

*A. von Dillmann, the greatest of all commentators on Genesis.

There can be no doubt that our author intended to teach that an actual serpent was the tempter. As one of our deepest thinkers puts it: 'There was an animal nature in Eve to which the animal nature in an inferior animal could speak.' We who have been taught that 'our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,' are almost irresistibly led to think of the serpent as a mere agent of him that is called the Devil and Satan (Revelation 12:9); but we shall miss something of the instructiveness of the narrative if we do not, in the first instance, take the simple view originally intended. St. Paul, we must remember, adhered to it: 'The serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness' (2 Corinthians 11:3).

And he said] An ancient Jewish legend represents all the animals as having had the gift of speech, and using one language, until the day when Adam was expelled from Eden.

The woman] She is first addressed, as an easier prey to temptation (cp. 1 Timothy 2:14). Observe that the serpent exaggerates the prohibition, and suggests that it is an undue curtailment of liberty. Sin usually begins as a revolt against authority.

2, 3. The woman denies that the prohibition extends to every tree. It applies only to one, and its object is man's own safety. She also adds that the danger is such that they are forbidden even to touch the tree. Evil is to be kept at arm's length.

4. The serpent grows bolder on seeing that the woman is willing to argue the matter, and now flatly denies the truth of the divine warning. It. is due not to a solicitude for man's safety, but to an ulterior motive, the envy or jealousy of God. The serpent avers that the threatened penalty will not be exacted, that God has selfishly kept out of their sight a great boon which men may gain; that He is unwilling to see them rise too high. So the serpent sows discord between man and his Maker, by misrepresenting God's character.

5. As gods] RV 'as God.' It probably means here, as divine beings, like the angels. Cp. Genesis 3:22.

6. 'Our great security against sin consists in our being shocked at it. Eve gazed and reflected when she should have fled' (Newman). Here we see the physical basis of temptation, the lust of the flesh, which 'when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin' (James 1:15). She gave also unto her husband] It is not in malice, but with a sincere view to his advantage, that she persuades the man to eat of the fruit.

7. They knew that they were naked] The serpent's promise (Genesis 3:5) is fulfilled, but not in the way expected. 'To the pure all things are pure' (cp. Genesis 2:25), but the act of sin is immediately followed by the sense of guilty shame. 'To innocence, standing in undisturbed union with God, everything natural is good and pure (Genesis 2:25). So soon as, however, by the act of disobedience, the bond of union with God is broken, and the sensuous nature of man has released itself from the dominion of the spirit which rests in God, it stands there naked and bare and calls forth in its possessor inevitably the feeling of weakness, unworthiness and impurity' (D.). The first result of disobedience is the awakening of conscience. 'They lost Eden and they gained a conscience' (Newman). The whole story of the Fall is a parable of every sinner's experience. In every temptation there are an exciting cause without and an answering inclination within: every act of submission to temptation is a choice exercised by the will: and the result of sin is an uneasy conscience and a haunting sense of shame. Aprons] RM 'girdles.' There is a Jewish legend to the effect that at the moment of the Fall the leaves dropped off all the trees but the fig.

8-13. Conscience is a witness-bearer to God. Accordingly the accusing voice of conscience is followed by that of God in judgment.

8. On the anthropomorphism of this v. see intro. to Genesis 2:4 to Genesis 3:24. Cool of the day] lit. 'in the evening breeze,' i.e. in the evening when the heat of the day is tempered with a cool breeze, enabling Orientals to walk abroad; cp. Genesis 24:63; Song of Solomon 2:17. Adam] RV 'the man': see on Genesis 2:7. Hid themselves] Hitherto they have been able to meet God in trustful simplicity: now conscious guilt moves them to hide from His presence. But the attempt is vain.

10. The man's answer shows that a change has come over him. He was not wont to be afraid of God.

11. The question does not imply that God does not already know what has occurred. But He compels the man to make a full confession.

12. Instead of frankly confessing his sins, the man lays the blame upon the woman. Observe also that he even tries to lay part at least of the blame upon God Himself (whom Thou gavest to be with me). This is a most life-like touch in the picture of the moral state which sin produces.

13. The woman in turn blames the serpent. Man is always inclined to blame the outward incitement to sin, rather than the inward inclination.

14-19. The Judgment.

14. The serpent, being the tempter and prime mover in the transgression, is judged first. It would appear that the writer conceived of the serpent as originally walking on feet. Its crawling in the dust, and taking dust into its mouth with its food (cp. Isaiah 65:25; Micah 7:17 and the figurative expression 'to lick the dust,' Psalms 72:9; Isaiah 49:23) are marks of its degradation.

15. Nature's social union is also broken. The serpent race is an object of abhorrence, even though many kinds of serpents possess a remarkable beauty and grace. The curse, however, goes beyond this. There is a mingling of the literal and the allegorical in the sentence. The serpent, as representing the spirit of revolt from God, will continue to be the tempter of man. Man and the power of evil will be at constant feud. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel] cp. Romans 16:20. While each will hurt the other, it is here implied that man will have the best of the serpent in the end. The seed of the woman means the human race as sprung from her. But in the course of history it becomes more and more evident that mankind is unable of itself to gain the complete victory over evil. This has been achieved by One alone, in whom this word of hope has been fulfilled. It is, therefore, with justice that Christians read in this promise the Protevangelium, or first proclamation of the Good Tidings of the final victory over sin. It is in Christ that the seed of the woman crushes the serpent.

16. The woman is now judged. Her doom is pain, chiefly the pain of child-bearing, and a position of subjection to and dependence on man. There is abundant evidence in human nature of the close connexion of sin and suffering, though our Lord warns us against uncharitably arguing back from the fact of suffering to previous sin, in special instances, and in the case of others. See e.g. Luke 13:1-5; John 9:1-3, and cp. the whole argument of the book of Job. In the case of child-bearing, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the pain and danger connected with it have been increased by the accumulated wrongdoing of mankind. Among the lower animals the process of birth is much easier.

17. The judgment on the man. Work had already been appointed as the duty of men (Genesis 2:15). But it was not laborious. The change from innocence to sin is marked by the change of order from the keeping of the garden to the tilling of the ground (Genesis 3:23). Henceforth work is to be done under adverse conditions. The connexion between the sin of man and the productiveness of the earth is not so easily traced, but the conditions of labour are undoubtedly made harder by the evils and inequalities of human society due to man's sin and selfishness.

19. Till thou return unto the ground] The story does not assume that man was created physically immortal. But the inevitable certainty of death is now seen to increase the sadness of his earthly lot. It is sin which gives death its sting (1 Corinthians 15:56); and though the Redemption of Christ has not abolished physical death, yet it gives victory over death, by removing the guilt and fear that make it so appalling and hopeless: cp. Hebrews 2:14, Hebrews 2:15.

20. Eve] Heb. Havvah, 'life.'

21. God does not cease to care for man, even though he has rebelled against Him: cp. Matthew 5:45.

22-24. Now that man has used his power of free-will to disobey God and become alienated from Him, a perpetuation of his sinful life would have been a curse rather than a blessing. Physical immortality which, according to the writer, he might have gained by eating of the tree of life, is therefore denied to him. But the blessing forfeited 'by one man's offence' is restored 'by the obedience of one' (Romans 5:12-21). In Christian thought Adam is 'a figure of Him that was to come.' Adam and Christ are the originators of two different streams of humanity; and as those descended from Adam by physical generation inherit the consequences of his disobedience, in virtue of an undoubted law or principle of heredity, or of the solidarity of the human race, so those regenerated in spirit through Christ enjoy the fruit of His perfect obedience, and have a right to the tree of life. 'As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'

24. Cherubims] RV 'the Cherubim' (plur. of 'Cherub'). These mystic beings are mentioned as attendants of God in various passages of the OT. (Psalms 18:10; Ezekiel 1, 10). Here they appear as the guardians of God's abode: cp.

Ezekiel 28:13-17, also on Exodus 25:18; Exodus 32:4. When the Psalmist says that 'Jehovah rode upon a cherub and did fly,' he is obviously describing a thunderstorm with its swift storm-clouds; and when he goes on to speak of the 'brightness before Him,' he suggests a connexion between the flaming sword of this v. and the lightningflash.

To keep the way of the tree of life] man, it would appear, had not yet eaten of the tree of life, not having felt the need of it. But now, when his knowledge of evil has brought him the fear of death, and he has realised the value of this tree, he is prevented even from approaching it. The tree of life, however, though denied to man on this side the grave, will be found by those who overcome in the conflict with evil, in the midst of the Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:2).