تكوين ٣:١

"The serpent was more subtle than all the beasts of the field, which Jehovah God had made." - The serpent is here described not only as a beast, but also as a creature of God; it must therefore have been good, like everything else that He had made. Subtilty was a natural characteristic of the serpent (Mat 10:16), which led the evil one to select it as his instrument. Nevertheless the predicate ערוּם is not used here in the good sense of φρόνιμος (lxx), prudens, but in the bad sense of πανοῦργος, callidus. For its subtilty was manifested as the craft of a tempter to evil, in the simple fact that it was to the weaker woman that it turned; and cunning was also displayed in what it said: "Hath God indeed said, Ye shall not eat of all the trees of the garden?" כּי אף is an interrogative expressing surprise (as in Sa1 23:3; Sa2 4:11): "Is it really the fact that God has prohibited you from eating of all the trees of the garden?" The Hebrew may, indeed, bear the meaning, "hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree?" but from the context, and especially the conjunction, it is obvious that the meaning is, "ye shall not eat of any tree." The serpent calls God by the name of Elohim alone, and the woman does the same. In this more general and indefinite name the personality of the living God is obscured. To attain his end, the tempter felt it necessary to change the living personal God into a merely general numen divinium, and to exaggerate the prohibition, in the hope of exciting in the woman's mind partly distrust of God Himself, and partly a doubt as to the truth of His word. And his words were listened to. Instead of turning away, the woman replied, "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 ha…

We have here an account of the temptation with which Satan assaulted our first parents, to draw them into sin, and which proved fatal to them. Here observe, I. The tempter, and that was the devil, in the shape and likeness of a serpent. 1. It is certain it was the devil that beguiled Eve. The devil and Satan is the old serpent (Rev 12:9), a malignant spirit, by creation an angel of light and an immediate attendant upon God's throne, but by sin become an apostate from his first state and a rebel against God's crown and dignity. Multitudes of the angels fell; but this that attacked our first parents was surely the prince of the devils, the ring-leader in the rebellion: no sooner was he a sinner than he was a Satan, no sooner a traitor than a tempter, as one enraged against God and his glory and envious of man and his happiness. He knew he could not destroy man but by debauching him. Balaam could not curse Israel, but he could tempt Israel, Rev 2:14. The game therefore which Satan had to play 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 whole race of mankind had here, as it were, but one neck, and at that Satan struck. The adversary and enemy is that wicked one. 2. It was the devil in the likeness of a serpent. Whether it was only the visible shape and appearance of a serpent (as some think those were of which we read, Exo 7:12), or whether it was a real living serpent, actuated and possessed by the devil, is not certain: by God's permission it might be either. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, (1.) Because it is a specious creature, has a spotted dappled skin, and then went erect. Perhaps it was a flying serpent, which seemed to come fr…

3:1-24 The rebellion of the man and the woman shattered their unity and harmony with earth, animals, each other, and God. 3:1 Genesis describes the deceiver as a serpent, one of the animals God created (see also 3:14 and study note). He is later identified as Satan, the great enemy of God’s people (Rev 12:9; 20:2). His manipulative language and his disguise as a serpent, the shrewdest of all creatures, show him as a master deceiver. Satan has various methods for opposing God’s people (see 1 Chr 21:1; Zech 3:1-2); deception remains among his key strategies (cp. 2 Cor 11:3, 14). The Hebrew term for shrewd (‘arum) can be positive (“prudent,” Prov 14:8) or negative (as here; see Job 5:12). It forms a wordplay with “naked” (‘arummim) in Gen 2:25. Adam and Eve were naked and vulnerable; the serpent was shrewd and cunning. • Probably the serpent asked the woman because the prohibition was given to Adam prior to Eve’s creation (see 2:16-17). Adam was probably aware of the serpent’s cunning, having assessed and named all the animals before Eve was created (2:19-20, 23). • Did God really say? The deceiver began by twisting God’s language to cast doubt on God’s goodness. God’s original prohibition applied to only one tree (2:16-17), not to all (any) of them.