Genesis 3:2

_AND THE WOMAN SAID UNTO THE SERPENT, WE MAY EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREES OF THE GARDEN:_ We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. Eve answered well. She displayed wisdom in extolling the extent of the liberty which God had granted to her and her partner, ingenuous honesty in adhering to the divine command as she had received it, and in rehearsing it as of unquestionable certainty; and although, in introducing the phrase, "neither shall ye touch it," (Genesis 3:3) she was adding words not found in the authentic form of the divine command, and apparently mistaking the real ground on which the interdict had been given, she evidently spoke under a sincere and strong impression of the strict and inviolable character of the prohibition. However, the closing words, "lest ye die," seem to imply that she ascribed the prohibition to the dangerous nature of the tree, an

1-5 Satan assaulted our first parents, to draw them to sin, and the temptation proved fatal to them. The tempter was the devil, in the shape and likeness of a serpent. Satan's plan was to draw our first parents to sin, and so to separate between them and their God. Thus the devil was from the beginning a murderer, and the great mischief maker. The person tempted was the woman: it was Satan's policy to enter into talk with her when she was alone. There are many temptations to which being alone gives great advantage; but the communion of saints tends very much to their strength and safety. Satan took advantage by finding her near the forbidden tree. They that would not eat the forbidden fruit, must not come near the forbidden tree. Satan tempted Eve, that by her he might tempt Adam. It is his policy to send temptations by hands we do not suspect, and by those that have most influence upon...

- Section III - The Fall - The Fall 1. נחשׁ _nachash_ “serpent; related: hiss,” Gesenius; “sting,” Mey. ערוּם _'ārûm_ “subtle, crafty, using craft for defence.” 7. תפר _tāpar_ “sew, stitch, tack together.” חגורה _chăgôrâh_ “girdle, not necessarily apron.” This chapter continues the piece commenced at Genesis 2:4. The same combination of divine names is found here, except in the dialogue between the serpent and the woman, where God (אלהים _'ĕlohı̂ym_) alone is used. It is natural for the tempter to use only the more distant and abstract name of God. It narrat

EXPOSITION GENESIS 3:1 How long the paradisiacal state of innocence and felicity continued the historian does not declare, probably as not falling within the scope of his immediate design. Psalms 49:12 has been thought, though without sufficient reason, to hint that man's Eden life was of comparatively short duration. The present chapter relates the tragic incident which brought it to a termination. Into the question of the origin of moral evil in the universe it does not enter. The recta-physical problem of how the first thought of sin could arise in innocent beings it does not attempt to resolve. It seeks to explain the genesis of evil with reference to man. Nor even with regard to this does it aim at an exhaustive dissertation, but only at such a statement of its begin

AND THE WOMAN SAID UNTO THE SERPENT,.... Or to him that spoke in the serpent, which she might take to be a messenger from heaven, a holy angel: had she known who it was, she might be chargeable with imprudence in giving an answer, and carrying on a conversation with him; and yet even supposing this, she might have a good design in her answer; partly to set the matter in a true light, and assert what was truth; and partly to set forth the goodness and liberality of God, in the large provision he had made, and the generous grant he had given them: from this discourse of Eve and the serpent, no doubt Plato g had his notion of the first men discoursing with beasts: WE MAY EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREES OF THE GARDEN; of all and every one of them, which is to be understood, excepting the one after mentioned; so far are we from being debarred from eating of any, which the speech of the Serpent...

Genesis 3:1. _Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?_ He began with a question. How much of evil begins with questioning! The serpent does not dare to state a lie, but he suggests one: «Has God refused you all the fruit of these many trees that grow in the garden?» Genesis 3:2. _And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die._ Eve had begun to feel the fascination of the evil one, for she softened down the word of God. The Lord had said concerning th

CHAPTER 3 The Fall of Man _ 1. The serpent and the woman (Genesis 3:1)_ 2. The fall and the immediate results (Genesis 3:6) 3. Jehovah Elohim questions Adam (Genesis 3:8) 4. His question to the woman (Genesis 3:13) 5. The curse upon the serpent (Genesis 3:14) 6. The first prophecy (Genesis 3:15) 7. The sentence upon the woman (Genesis 3:16)

Among the animals formed by Yahweh, in His first attempt to provide man with a companion, was the serpent; at that time either a quadruped or holding itself erect. It was eminent among its fellows for cleverness. In antiquity serpents were often regarded as mysteriously gifted with wisdom or cunning, sometimes as good but more often as evil. It is a mistake to think of it here as an incarnation of the devil; the ability to speak and reason is quite commonly attributed to the animals in folk-stories. Its wisdom is shown in the familiarity with the nature of the tree, its cunning in the intentional mistake it makes as to the prohibition, by which the woman is led to correct it and thus the opening for conversation is made. Craftily it contrives to instil a resentment at God's unreasonableness into the woman's mind: can it really be that God has insisted on a condition so unheard-of as this...

AND THE WOMAN SAID UNTO THE SERPENT. The great mistake of the mother of our race was to dally for. moment with the tempter. She ought, on the instant, to have said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Whoever pauses to listen to the wooing of temptation is almost certain to fall. She explains that there had been. free grant of all the trees of the garden upon. single condition....

MAY EAT. Misquoted from Genesis 2:16 by not repeating the emphatic Figure _Polyptoton_, and thus omitting the emph. "freely"....