Genesis 3:22

_AND THE LORD GOD SAID, BEHOLD, THE MAN IS BECOME AS ONE OF US, TO KNOW GOOD AND EVIL: AND NOW, LEST HE PUT FORTH HIS HAND, AND TAKE ALSO OF THE TREE OF LIFE, AND EAT, AND LIVE FOR EVER:_ Behold, the man is become as one of us. This was not spoken in irony, as is commonly supposed-an expression of feeling that might have suited the mind of Satan, not the character of God; but it was said in deep compassion. The words should be rendered, 'Behold what has (by sin) become of the man who was as one of us!' formed at first in our image, a holy and happy being: How sad his condition now! TO KNOW GOOD AND EVIL - (see the note at Genesis 3:5.) This knowledge, if absolute, is a divine attribute; but man, who was created with the knowledge of good only, acquired by his transgression the experimental knowledge of evil also, and thenceforth brought himself, by that attempt at

22._Behold, the man is become as one of us _(214) An ironical reproof, by which God would not only prick the heart of man, but pierce it through and through. He does not, however, cruelly triumph over the miserable and afflicted; but, according to the necessity of the disease, applies a more violent remedy. For, though Adam was confounded and astonished at his calamity, he yet did not so deeply reflect on its cause as to become weary of his pride, that he might learn to embrace true humility. We may add, that God inveighed, by this irony, (215) not more against Adam himself then against his posterity, for the purpose of commending modesty to all ages. The particle, “Behold,” denotes that the sentence is pronounced upon the cause then in hand. And, truly, it was a sad and horrid spectacle; that he, in whom recently the glory of the Divine image was shining, should lie hidden

22-24 God bid man go out; told him he should no longer occupy and enjoy that garden: but man liked the place, and was unwilling to leave it, therefore God made him go out. This signified the shutting out of him, and all his guilty race, from that communion with God, which was the bliss and glory of paradise. But man was only sent to till the ground out of which he was taken. He was sent to a place of toil, not to a place of torment. Our first parents were shut out from the privileges of their state of innocency, yet they were not left to despair. The way to the tree of life was shut. It was henceforward in vain for him and his to expect righteousness, life, and happiness, by the covenant of works; for the command of that covenant being broken, the curse of it is in full force: we are all undone, if we are judged by that covenant. God revealed this to Adam, not to drive him to despair, b...

Verse Genesis 3:22. _BEHOLD, THE MAN IS BECOME AS ONE OF US_] On all hands this text is allowed to be difficult, and the difficulty is increased by our translation, which is opposed to the original Hebrew and the most authentic versions. The Hebrew has היה _hayah_, which is the third person preterite tense, and signifies _was_, not _is_. The _Samaritan text_, the _Samaritan version_, the _Syriac_, and the _Septuagint_, have the same tense. These lead us to a very different sense, and indicate that there is an ellipsis of some words which must be supplied in order to make the sense complete. A very learned man has ventured the following paraphrase, which should not be lightly regarded: "_And the Lord God said, The man_ _who WAS like one of us_ in purity and wisdom, is now fallen and robbed of his excellence; he has added לדעת _ladaath_, t...

- XVII. The Execution 24. כרוּב _kerûb_ ברך in Aramaic: “carve, plow”; Persian: “grip, grasp.” This word occurs about eighty-seven times in the Hebrew scriptures; in sixty of which it refers to carved or embroidered figures; in twenty-two to the living being in the vision of Ezekiel Ezekiel 1; in two figuratively to the king of Tyre Ezekiel 28:14, Ezekiel 28:16; in two to a being on which the Lord is poetically described as riding 2 Samuel 22:11; Psalms 18:11

EXPOSITION GENESIS 3:20 Arraigned, convicted, judged, the guilty but pardoned pair prepare to leave their garden home—the woman to begin her experience of sorrow, dependence, and subjection; the man to enter upon his life career of hardship and toil, and both to meet their doom of certain, though it might be of long-delayed, death. The impression made upon their hearts by the Divine Clemency, though not directly stated by the historian, may be inferred from what is next recorded as having happened within the precincts of Eden ere they entered on their exile. AND ADAM CALLED (not prior to the fall, reading the verb as a pluperfect (Calvin), nor after the birth of Cain, transferring the present verse to Genesis 4:2 (Knobel), but subsequent to the promise of the

AND THE LORD GOD SAID,.... The Word of the Lord God, as the Jerusalem Targum; not to the ministering angels, as the Targum of Jonathan but within himself, or to the other two divine Persons: BEHOLD, THE MAN IS BECOME AS ONE OF US, TO KNOW GOOD AND EVIL; which is generally understood as an irony or sarcasm at man's deception by Satan, who promised man, and he expected to be as gods, knowing good and evil; behold the man, see how much like a god he looks, with his coat of skin upon his back, filled with shame and confusion for his folly, and dejected under a sense of what he had lost, and in a view of what he was sentenced to; yet must be understood not as rejoicing in man's misery, and insulting over him in it, but in order the more to convince him of his folly, and the more to humble him, and bring him to a more open repentance for affecting what he did, and giving credit to the devil i...

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...