Genesis Ch. 3: Did the Snake and the Woman Get a Bad Rep?

Genesis Chapter 3 tells the story of “the fall.” 

v. 1 The serpent is described as the craftiest (sensible, shrewd, prudent, or subtle) of God’s creatures. 

The serpent is not characterized as being evil, maybe cunning but not evil.   A matter of fact, in verse 31 of Chapter 1 says, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”  I’m assuming that this includes the serpent.  Of course, if chapter 3 was written by the same author as chapter 2, maybe the idea of everything being created good does not apply.

The serpent approaches the woman and asks her, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

v.2-3 The woman tells the serpent what God forbad; her and the man are not to eat or touch the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden.  God tells them if they eat the forbidden fruit they will die.

V. 4-5  The serpent tells the women that she will not die but will be like God(s) (knowing good and evil).

Technically the snake was not lying.  The woman did not die when she ate. (This verse gives argument over whether Adam and Eve were created immortal and now potentially made mortal by the decision to eat the fruit).  The woman did receive knowledge of good and evil which made her more divine. See v. 22.

V. 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye (the word used here indicates yearning, desirability or lust), and would make her wise. (She craved wisdom.) She ate and gave it to her husband (who was with her the entire time) and he ate too. 

I find it interesting that Adam did not interrupt the conversation between the serpent and the woman.  He just stood there and followed her lead. He said nothing, did nothing, and prevented nothing. Did the snake approach the woman because he knew that Adam would follow her lead?  Was she easier to reason with? Was the serpent appealing to her vanity by offering her wisdom?  Was the snake simply trying to tell her how to become a god?

v. 7 Both of their eyes were “opened” and they became aware of their nakedness so they made themselves underwear out of fig leaves. 

I assume that before this revelation of nudity, they were living in a state of purity where their sexuality was not viewed as something alarming but as a natural state of being.  Opened eyes could be representative of perversity, shame or simply sexual potency or awareness.

v. 8 The man and woman heard God walking and hid themselves in the trees.

v. 9 God asked the man where he was.

v. 10 The man answered that he heard God in the garden and hid himself because he was afraid and naked.

v.11 God asked him who told him he was naked and if he had eaten the forbidden fruit.

v. 12 The man tells God that the woman gave him the fruit and he ate.

This is the beginning of the blame game and the lack of taking responsibility for one’s own actions.

v. 13 God asks the woman what did she do and she blames the snake. She accuses the serpent of tricking her into eating. 

The word tricked (נשׁא, nâshâ') here means to beguile, lead astray or to seduce. The serpent tempted her.

v. 14-15 God curses the serpent and makes him crawl upon his belly for the rest of its life. God makes the serpent and humans enemies forever. 

God does not question the serpent as he did the man and woman. God automatically knows that the serpent is guilty.

v. 16 God tells the woman that she will have painful childbirth and that her desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her.

Maybe this is the reason why women are so loving and forgiving towards men regardless of their many indiscretions.  It is also a down fall that someone who is created equally in God’s image is made to submit.

v. 17-19 God tells the man that because he listened to his wife he will have to work all the days of his life.

v. 20 The man names his wife Eve because she is the mother of all the living.

v. 21 God made them clothes out of animal skins and clothed them.

v. 22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.’  

Who is God talking to? Doesn’t this prove that man and woman wasn’t made immortal from the beginning? The serpent was not lying.  The woman and man did become like God. If they would have eaten the other fruit they would also be immortal. God did not want eternal life for the man and the woman.  God did not want the man and woman to know good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil is divine knowledge.

v. 23 God sent them out of Eden to till the ground form which he was taken.

v. 24 God drove them out of Eden (pleasure, delight) and placed cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the tree of life.