Genesis · Chapter 3

V. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have here an account of the temptation wherewith Satan assaulted our first parents, and which proved fatal to them. And here observe,

(1.) The tempter, the devil in the shape of a serpent. Multitudes of them fell; but this that attacked our first parents, was surely the prince of the devils. Whether it was only the appearance of a serpent, or a real serpent, acted and possessed by the devil, is not certain. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a subtle creature. It is not improbable, that reason and speech were then the known properties of the serpent. And therefore Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which otherwise she must have been.

(2.) That which the devil aimed at, was to persuade Eve to eat forbidden fruit; and to do this, he took the same method that he doth still. 1. He questions whether it were a sin or no, Genesis 3:1,2. He denies that there was any danger in it, Genesis 3:4. 3. He suggests much advantage by it, Genesis 3:5. And these are his common topics. As to the advantage, he suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights.

1. Your eyes shall be opened-You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have; you shall fetch a larger compass in your intellectual views, and see farther into things than now you do.

2. You shall be as gods-As Elohim, mighty gods, not only omniscient but omnipotent too:

3. You shall know good and evil-That is, everything that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. ‘Twas intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil, that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil, that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if this tree would give them a speculative notional knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And,

4. All this presently, In the day you eat thereof-You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

Verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle] We have here one of the most difficult as well as the most important narratives in the whole book of God. The last chapter ended with a short but striking account of the perfection and felicity of the first human beings, and this opens with an account of their transgression, degradation, and ruin. That man is in a fallen state, the history of the world, with that of the life and miseries of every human being, establishes beyond successful contradiction. But how, and by what agency, was this brought about? Here is a great mystery, and I may appeal to all persons who have read the various comments that have been written on the Mosaic account, whether they have ever yet been satisfied on this part of the subject, though convinced of the fact itself. Who was the serpent? of what kind? In what way did he seduce the first happy pair? These are questions which remain yet to be answered. The whole account is either a simple narrative of facts, or it is an allegory. If it be a historical relation, its literal meaning should be sought out; if it be an allegory, no attempt should be made to explain it, as it would require a direct revelation to ascertain the sense in which it should be understood, for fanciful illustrations are endless. Believing it to be a simple relation of facts capable of a satisfactory explanation, I shall take it up on this ground; and, by a careful examination of the original text, endeavour to fix the meaning, and show the propriety and consistency of the Mosaic account of the fall of man. The chief difficulty in the account is found in the question, Who was the agent employed in the seduction of our first parents? The word in the text which we, following the Septuagint, translate serpent, is vjn nachash; and, according to Buxtorf and others, has three meanings in Scripture. 1. It signifies to view or observe attentively, to divine or use enchantments, because in them the augurs viewed attentively the flight of birds, the entrails of beasts, the course of the clouds, &c.; and under this head it signifies to acquire knowledge by experience. 2. It signifies brass, brazen, and is translated in our Bible, not only brass, but chains, fetters, fetters of brass, and in several places steel; see 2 Samuel 22:35 Job 20:24 Psalm 18:34; and in one place, at least filthiness or fornication, Ezekiel 16:36. 3. It signifies a serpent, but of what kind is not determined. In Job 26:13, it seems to mean the whale or hippopotamus: By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath formed the crooked serpent, jrb vjn nachash bariach: as jrb barach signifies to pass on or pass through, and jyrb beriach is used for a bar of a gate or door that passed through rings, &c., the idea of straightness rather than crookedness should be attached to it here; and it is likely that the hippopotamus or sea-horse is intended by it.

In Ecclesiastes 10:11, the creature called nachash, of whatever sort, is compared to the babbler: Surely the serpent (vjn nachash) will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.

In Isaiah 27:1, the crocodile or alligator seems particularly meant by the original: In that day the Lord-shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, &c. And in Isaiah 65:25, the same creature is meant as in Genesis 3:1, for in the words, And dust shall be the serpent’s meat, there is an evident allusion to the text of Moses. In Amos 9:3, the crocodile is evidently intended: Though they be hid in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, (vjnh hannachash,) and he shall bite them. No person can suppose that any of the snake or serpent kind can be intended here; and we see from the various acceptations of the word, and the different senses which it bears in various places in the sacred writings, that it appears to be a sort of general term confined to no one sense. Hence it will be necessary to examine the root accurately, to see if its ideal meaning will enable us to ascertain the animal intended in the text. We have already seen that vjn nachash signifies to view attentively, to acquire knowledge or experience by attentive observation; so ytvjn nichashti, Genesis 30:27: I have learned by experience; and this seems to be its most general meaning in the Bible. The original word is by the Septuagint translated ofiv, a serpent, not because this was its fixed determinate meaning in the sacred writings, but because it was the best that occurred to the translators: and they do not seem to have given themselves much trouble to understand the meaning of the original, for they have rendered the word as variously as our translators have done, or rather our translators have followed them, as they give nearly the same significations found in the Septuagint: hence we find that ofiv is as frequently used by them as serpent, its supposed literal meaning, is used in our version. And the New Testament writers, who seldom quote the Old Testament but from the Septuagint translation, and often do not change even a word in their quotations, copy this version in the use of this word. From the Septuagint therefore we can expect no light, nor indeed from any other of the ancient versions, which are all subsequent to the Septuagint, and some of them actually made from it. In all this uncertainty it is natural for a serious inquirer after truth to look everywhere for information. And in such an inquiry the Arabic may be expected to afford some help, from its great similarity to the Hebrew. A root in this language, very nearly similar to that in the text, seems to cast considerable light on the subject. [Arabic] chanas or khanasa signifies he departed, drew off, lay hid, seduced, slunk away; from this root come [Arabic] akhnas, [Arabic] khanasa, and [Arabic] khanoos, which all signify an ape, or satyrus, or any creature of the simia or ape genus. It is very remarkable also that from the same root comes [Arabic] khanas, the DEVIL, which appellative he bears from that meaning of [Arabic] khanasa, he drew off, seduced, &c., because he draws men off from righteousness, seduces them from their obedience to God, &c., &c. See Golius, sub voce. Is it not strange that the devil and the ape should have the same name, derived from the same root, and that root so very similar to the word in the text? But let us return and consider what is said of the creature in question. Now the nachash was more subtle, µwr[ arum, more wise, cunning, or prudent, than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. In this account we find, 1. That whatever this nachash was, he stood at the head of all inferior animals for wisdom and understanding. 2. That he walked erect, for this is necessarily implied in his punishment-on thy belly (i.e., on all fours) shalt thou go. 3. That he was endued with the gift of speech, for a conversation is here related between him and the woman. 4. That he was also endued with the gift of reason, for we find him reasoning and disputing with Eve. 5. That these things were common to this creature, the woman no doubt having often seen him walk erect, talk, and reason, and therefore she testifies no kind of surprise when he accosts her in the language related in the text; and indeed from the manner in which this is introduced it appears to be only a part of a conversation that had passed between them on the occasion: Yea, hath God said, &c.

Had this creature never been known to speak before his addressing the woman at this time and on this subject, it could not have failed to excite her surprise, and to have filled her with caution, though from the purity and innocence of her nature she might have been incapable of being affected with fear. Now I apprehend that none of these things can be spoken of a serpent of any species. 1. None of them ever did or ever can walk erect. The tales we have had of two-footed and four-footed serpents are justly exploded by every judicious naturalist, and are utterly unworthy of credit. The very name serpent comes from serpo, to creep, and therefore to such it could be neither curse nor punishment to go on their bellies, i.e., to creep on, as they had done from their creation, and must do while their race endures. 2. They have no organs for speech, or any kind of articulate sound; they can only hiss. It is true that an ass by miraculous influence may speak; but it is not to be supposed that there was any miraculous interference here. GOD did not qualify this creature with speech for the occasion, and it is not intimated that there was any other agent that did it; on the contrary, the text intimates that speech and reason were natural to the nachash: and is it not in reference to this the inspired penman says, The nachash was more subtle or intelligent than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made? Nor can I find that the serpentine genus are remarkable for intelligence. It is true the wisdom of the serpent has passed into a proverb, but I cannot see on what it is founded, except in reference to the passage in question, where the nachash, which we translate serpent, following the Septuagint, shows so much intelligence and cunning: and it is very probable that our Lord alludes to this very place when he exhorts his disciples to be wise-prudent or intelligent, as serpents, fronimoi wv oi opeiv and it is worthy of remark that he uses the same term employed by the Septuagint in the text in question: ofiv hn fponimwtatov, the serpent was more prudent or intelligent than all the beasts, &c. All these things considered, we are obliged to seek for some other word to designate the nachash in the text, than the word serpent, which on every view of the subject appears to me inefficient and inapplicable. We have seen above that khanas, akhnas, and khanoos, signify a creature of the ape or satyrus kind. We have seen that the meaning of the root is, he lay hid, seduced, slunk away, &c.; and that khanas means the devil, as the inspirer of evil, and seducer from God and truth. See Golius and Wilmet. It therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or ouran outang kind is here intended; and that Satan made use of this creature as the most proper instrument for the accomplishment of his murderous purposes against the life and soul of man. Under this creature he lay hid, and by this creature he seduced our first parents, and drew off or slunk away from every eye but the eye of God. Such a creature answers to every part of the description in the text: it is evident from the structure of its limbs and their muscles that it might have been originally designed to walk erect, and that nothing less than a sovereign controlling power could induce them to put down hands in every respect formed like those of man, and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed paws prove them to have been designed to walk on all fours. Dr. Tyson has observed in his anatomy of an ouran outang, that the seminal vessels passed between the two coats of the peritoneum to the scrotum, as in man; hence he argues that this creature was designed to walk erect, as it is otherwise in all quadrupeds. Philos. Trans., vol. xxi., p.

340. The subtlety, cunning, endlessly varied pranks and tricks of these creatures, show them, even now, to be more subtle and more intelligent than any other creature, man alone excepted. Being obliged now to walk on all fours, and gather their food from the ground, they are literally obliged to eat the dust; and though exceedingly cunning, and careful in a variety of instances to separate that part which is wholesome and proper for food from that which is not so, in the article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety; and though they have every means in their power of cleansing the aliments they gather off the ground, and from among the dust, yet they never in their savage state make use of any, except a slight rub against their side, or with one of their hands, more to see what the article is than to cleanse it. Add to this, their utter aversion to walk upright; it requires the utmost discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely anything irritates them more than to be obliged to do it. Long observation on some of these animals enables me to state these facts.

Should any person who may read this note object against my conclusions, because apparently derived from an Arabic word which is not exactly similar to the Hebrew, though to those who understand both languages the similarity will be striking; yet, as I do not insist on the identity of the terms, though important consequences have been derived from less likely etymologies, he is welcome to throw the whole of this out of the account. He may then take up the Hebrew root only, which signifies to gaze, to view attentively, pry into, inquire narrowly, &c., and consider the passage that appears to compare the nachash to the babbler. Ecclesiastes 10:11, and he will soon find, if he have any acquaintance with creatures of this genus, that for earnest, attentive watching, looking, &c., and for chattering or babbling, they have no fellows in the animal world. Indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter is all they have left, according to the above hypothesis, of their original gift of speech, of which I suppose them to have been deprived at the fall as a part of their punishment. I have spent the longer time on this subject, 1. Because it is exceedingly obscure; 2. Because no interpretation hitherto given of it has afforded me the smallest satisfaction; 3. Because I think the above mode of accounting for every part of the whole transaction is consistent and satisfactory, and in my opinion removes many embarrassments, and solves the chief difficulties. I think it can be no solid objection to the above mode of solution that Satan, in different parts of the New Testament, is called the serpent, the serpent that deceived Eve by his subtlety, the old serpent, &c., for we have already seen that the New Testament writers have borrowed the word from the Septuagint, and the Septuagint themselves use it in a vast variety and latitude of meaning; and surely the ouran outang is as likely to be the animal in question as vjn nachash and ofiv ophis are likely to mean at once a snake, a crocodile, a hippopotamus, fornication, a chain, a pair of fetters, a piece of brass, a piece of steel, and a conjurer; for we have seen above that all these are acceptations of the original word. Besides, the New Testament writers seem to lose sight of the animal or instrument used on the occasion, and speak only of Satan himself as the cause of the transgression, and the instrument of all evil. If, however, any person should choose to differ from the opinion stated above, he is at perfect liberty so to do; I make it no article of faith, nor of Christian communion; I crave the same liberty to judge for myself that I give to others, to which every man has an indisputable right; and I hope no man will call me a heretic for departing in this respect from the common opinion, which appears to me to be so embarrassed as to be altogether unintelligible. See farther on Genesis 3:7-14, &c.

Yea, hath God said] This seems to be the continuation of a discourse of which the preceding part is not given, and a proof that the creature in question was endued with the gift of reason and speech, for no surprise is testified on the part of Eve.

Verse 1. The serpent was more subtle, &c. — Some would render the word vjn, nachash, here, monkey or baboon, and the word µwr[, arum, intelligent: but it may be demonstrated from divers other passages of the Old Testament, where the same words are used, and from several parts of the New, where they are referred to, that our translators are perfectly right. The former word is used concerning the fiery serpents which bit the people in the wilderness, which certainly were neither monkeys nor baboons, and concerning the serpent of brass, by looking at which the Israelites were healed. See Hebrew, Numbers 21:6-9. It is also used Isaiah 65:25, where, in allusion to verse 14 of this chapter, it is said, Dust shall be the serpent’s meat; but surely dust is not the meat of monkeys. The word is also everywhere rendered Ofiv, ophis, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, which means serpent, and nothing else. The latter word, µwr[, also, is rightly translated, meaning primarily, subtle, or crafty, from µr[, caliditate usus est, and is so rendered Job 5:12, and so interpreted 2 Corinthians 11:3, where the word panourgia is used, which certainly never means intelligence, but always craft or subtlety. Than any beast of the field — Serpents, in general, have a great deal of subtlety. But this one had an extraordinary measure of it, being either only a serpent in appearance, and in reality a fallen angel, or the prince of fallen angels, Satan; or a real serpent possessed and actuated by him. Hence the devil is termed the old serpent, Revelation 20:2, 3. He said unto the woman — Whom it is probable he found alone. In what way he spake to her we are not informed: but it seems most likely that it was by signs of some kind. Some, indeed, have supposed that reason and speech were then the known properties of serpents, and that, therefore, Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which they think she otherwise must have been: but of this there is no proof. Yea, hath God said, &c. — As if he had said, Can it be that God, who has planted this garden with all these beautiful and fruitful trees, and hath placed you in it for your comfort, should deny you the fruit of it? Surely you must either be mistaken, or God must be envious and unkind. His first object was by his insinuations either to beget in them unbelief, as to the reality of the prohibition, and to persuade them that it would be no sin to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, or to produce in them hard thoughts of God, in order to alienate their affections from him. And such are generally his first temptations still. What! has God, who has given you various appetites and passions, forbidden you to gratify them? Surely he has not: but if he has, he must be an unkind being. And how then can you trust in or love him?

Verse 1. The serpent. The rabbins and the christian doctors have largely sported their opinions here. St. Cyril contends that Satan assumed the figure of the serpent, and so talked with the woman, while the letter of the text indicates that he spake in the serpent, as the angel spake in Balaam’s ass. The main point here is, the origin of evil, which occasioned the ruin and miseries of man. These most eventful and interesting occurrences were, no doubt, delivered by Adam to Methuselah, and by Methuselah to Noah, and by him and his sons to all the families of the earth. In the next age we find all those simple and holy traditions disguised by fable, that, as hallowed mysteries, they might command the greater reverence of the people, and exalt the wisdom of the priest by his illustrations. The poets of after times, finding those the most popular subjects, clothed the fables in the most beautiful forms of verse. This was done at first like the Voluspa, a northern poem, written in verse of two feet; but afterwards, conformably to the refined ear of Greece and Rome, they were put in hexameters. Old Hesiod says in his Theogony, that Pandora, the first woman, was formed by Vulcan of highly tempered earth, the finest figure of beauty that can be conceived. On being animated, each of the gods honoured her with the most desirable of endowments: Venus gave her beauty, Pallas wisdom, Mercury eloquence, Apollo music, and Juno riches, &c. On this account she was called Pandora; that is, a woman who possessed all endowments. Jupiter, irritated against Prometheus who had stolen the celestial fire, and brought it down to earth; and being desirous to avenge himself on mankind, employed this woman, to whom he gave a closed box full of evils of every kind, and sent it to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus, who most foolishly and stupidly opened the box, and let out all the evils abroad into the world. On perceiving what he had done, his sole hope remained at the bottom of the box, that one day he might possibly repair his error by recovering back into the box, all the evils which had escaped. We are bold to say here, and are supported in the assertion by the most learned men of the last century, that both Jews and Christians have too much despised pagan mythology, inasmuch as it furnishes a cloud of collateral evidence in favour of revelation. What is this Pandora but Eve, the beautiful mother of all living? What is this awful present but Eve bringing the apple to Adam? What is the opening of the box but the criminal desire to know good and evil? What is this hope at the bottom of the box but the promise of redemption by him who shall abolish death, and bring in everlasting righteousness?

THE FIRST SIN, 1-24.

Having given a picture of the original uprightness and blessedness of the first human pair, the writer hastens on to delineate their first transgression. How long man continued in his primeval estate of holiness we are not informed, and suppositions are here worthless. We accept the statements of this Scripture as a narrative of facts. The representation of man’s original transgression, as here given, may, indeed, be admitted to have elements of a symbolical drapery, but there is no part of the narrative which may not be explained literally, and accepted as a truthful description of the most important events in the history of our race. We accordingly reject the rationalistic hypothesis, which treats this momentous event as a mythical representation of man’s breaking loose from the purity and innocence of childhood, and his attaining the conscious use of his reason and of moral freedom. A sound and self-consistent interpretation, according to grammatico-historical principles, requires us also to reject the allegorical explanation, which denies that any real serpent was associated with the original transgression, and maintains that the temptation was entirely subjective or internal.

That Satan was the tempter is evidently the import of such Scripture passages as John 8:44, where our Lord calls him the father of lies in allusion to the record of the original temptation, and Revelation 12:9, where he is called “that old serpent,… the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” That this invisible tempter employed the serpent as his agent in deceiving the woman appears from the obvious import of the language which records the transaction, and also from the consideration that one of the creatures pronounced “very good,” had not in itself alone the lying nature disclosed in the seductive words which this serpent uttered.

The fact that the serpent figures so prominently in the religious symbolism of ancient heathen nations is no good reason for disputing the credibility of this biblical narrative of the fall. Whence arose those ethnic myths of the serpent which seem to personify the evil principle? Is it not more rational to maintain that they sprung from such a momentous fact in human history as this third chapter of Genesis records, than to suppose that they originated in human speculations and fancies touching the conflict of good and evil in the world? As we hold the biblical account of creation to be the true original from which the various ethnic cosmogonies were derived, (see Introd., p. 67,) so we also hold, as the most reasonable hypothesis, that those heathen myths which represent the evil principle in creation under the form of a serpent, had a traditional origin in the fact that the father of lies made use of a serpent in deceiving the mother of mankind.

1. The serpent is here represented as a beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and, therefore, must have been good, as all the rest of the creation. Genesis 1:25. Hence we should not understand the word µwr[, subtile, in a bad sense, implying malignant craftiness, as some expositors have done. This term is frequently employed in the Old Testament in a good sense, as meaning prudent, or sagacious. Such is the import of the Septuagint, fronimov. Our Lord enjoined upon his disciples to be “wise as serpents.” Matthew 10:16. The serpent’s sagacity is seen in its keen eye, its power to charm birds and men, its prudence in avoiding danger, its skill in shielding the head, its most vulnerable part, from the attack of man. The words more subtile do not imply that all other beasts of the field were also subtile, but rather that this feature separated or distinguished the serpent from them. As to the prominence which the serpent holds in the religious symbolism of ancient peoples, Lenormant observes: “These creatures are there used with the most opposite meanings, and it would be contrary to all the rules of criticism to group together and in confusion, as has been done by scholars of former times, the very contradictory notions attached in this way to the different serpents in the ancient myths, in such wise as to create a vast ophiolatric system, derived from a single source, and made to harmonize with the narration of Genesis. But side by side with divine serpents of an essentially favourable and protective character, oracular, or allied with the gods of health, of life, or of healing, we find in all mythologies a gigantic serpent, personifying the nocturnal, hostile power, the evil principle, material darkness, and moral wickedness.” — Beginnings of History, pp. 107, 108. He said unto the woman — The serpent spoke in an intelligible way. Le Clerc (after some of the rabbies) supposes that the serpent tempted Eve, not by language audibly spoken, but by significant signs, and by repeatedly eating the fruit in her sight. Others imagine she was charmed into a visionary or ecstatic condition in which the movements of the serpent seemed to her like words. Some, as we have seen, deny that any real serpent was connected with the event, and hold that the temptation was purely spiritual; while others have denied the agency of Satan in this temptation, and affirmed that the tempter of Eve was nothing but a serpent, which, by repeatedly using the forbidden fruit before her eyes, at length induced her to follow its example. Less strained, and far more compatible with the general doctrine of the Scriptures, is that ancient interpretation which has been commonly received by Christian scholars, namely, that Satan made use of a serpent in his work of falsehood and ruin. There is no sufficient ground for denying the possibility of Satan speaking through the organs of a serpent. Mind and spirit are superior to matter, and control it. A fallen spirit is, in intellect, untold degrees above a brute. The mystery of demoniacal possession is too great for us to allow any a priori assumptions to govern our interpretation. According to the New Testament records, evil spirits usurped the powers of human speech, and entered also into swine. Mark 5:1-17. Why the Almighty should have permitted Satan to make such an approach to the first woman is as idle as to ask why he permits any sin or sinners to exist in his universe. We regard this first temptation and transgression as a great mystery, and a momentous event, but not a myth nor a fable. The mystery of God in Christ, by which God himself becomes flesh and redeems sinful man, implies other mysteries that may well surpass our knowledge. The incarnation, temptation, righteousness, death, and resurrection of the One who accomplishes the work of redemption, furnish to our thought a series of stupendous events; if we believe them, why do we stagger over that which appears startling and wonderful in the offence of the one by whom ‘“judgment came upon all men to condemnation?” Romans 5:18. Yea, hath God said — Or, as the Hebrew strictly implies: Really, is it true that God has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The language seems like the continuation of a conversation, the previous part of which is not given. The question was adapted to awaken doubt in the woman’s mind, and the tempter shrewdly addressed himself to the woman first, as the one more easily to be deceived than the man. Chrysostom thus expands the thought in the serpent’s words: “What good is life in Paradise if we may not enjoy the things which are found therein, but must feel the pain of seeing before our eyes what we are forbidden to take and eat?” Critics have raised a needless and profitless question over the serpent’s use of the name Elohim, rather than Jehovah. Keil thinks, that the tempter felt it necessary to ignore the personality of God by this omission of his covenant name in order to work distrust in the woman’s mind. Lange says, that the demon could not utter the name of the covenant-God Jehovah, not knowing him in that relationship. According to Knobel, the writer omitted the name of Jehovah from fear of profaning it in such a connexion. All which seems far-fetched and worthless. See Introd., pp. 51-54.

V. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have here an account of the temptation wherewith Satan assaulted our first parents, and which proved fatal to them. And here observe,

(1.) The tempter, the devil in the shape of a serpent. Multitudes of them fell; but this that attacked our first parents, was surely the prince of the devils. Whether it was only the appearance of a serpent, or a real serpent, acted and possessed by the devil, is not certain. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a subtle creature. It is not improbable, that reason and speech were then the known properties of the serpent. And therefore Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which otherwise she must have been.

(2.) That which the devil aimed at, was to persuade Eve to eat forbidden fruit; and to do this, he took the same method that he doth still. 1. He questions whether it were a sin or no, Genesis 3:1,2. He denies that there was any danger in it, Genesis 3:4. 3. He suggests much advantage by it, Genesis 3:5. And these are his common topics. As to the advantage, he suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights.

1. Your eyes shall be opened-You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have; you shall fetch a larger compass in your intellectual views, and see farther into things than now you do.

2. You shall be as gods-As Elohim, mighty gods, not only omniscient but omnipotent too:

3. You shall know good and evil-That is, everything that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. ‘Twas intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil, that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil, that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if this tree would give them a speculative notional knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And,

4. All this presently, In the day you eat thereof-You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

Verses 2, 3. The woman said — With a view to defend the conduct of her Maker toward them, against the insinuations of the tempter. We may eat of the trees of the garden — Of all the trees except one. It is only concerning one that God hath said, “Ye shall not eat of it.” But when she adds, Lest ye die, it is evident her faith begins to waver, and she inclines to doubt whether God would fulfil his threatening, which was not, “Lest ye die,” but, “In dying ye shall die;” that is, “Ye shall surely die.” She seems also to have intended to intimate, that if they died, it would not be so much through any particular interference and severity of God in executing his threatening, as through the natural, pernicious effects of the fruit, against which God had only kindly warned them.

2. The woman said — Her pausing to parley with so serious a temptation was a fearful mistake. To entertain the thoughts of an evil spirit is the sure way to become partaker of some measure of his nature.

V. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have here an account of the temptation wherewith Satan assaulted our first parents, and which proved fatal to them. And here observe,

(1.) The tempter, the devil in the shape of a serpent. Multitudes of them fell; but this that attacked our first parents, was surely the prince of the devils. Whether it was only the appearance of a serpent, or a real serpent, acted and possessed by the devil, is not certain. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a subtle creature. It is not improbable, that reason and speech were then the known properties of the serpent. And therefore Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which otherwise she must have been.

(2.) That which the devil aimed at, was to persuade Eve to eat forbidden fruit; and to do this, he took the same method that he doth still. 1. He questions whether it were a sin or no, Genesis 3:1,2. He denies that there was any danger in it, Genesis 3:4. 3. He suggests much advantage by it, Genesis 3:5. And these are his common topics. As to the advantage, he suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights.

1. Your eyes shall be opened-You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have; you shall fetch a larger compass in your intellectual views, and see farther into things than now you do.

2. You shall be as gods-As Elohim, mighty gods, not only omniscient but omnipotent too:

3. You shall know good and evil-That is, everything that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. ‘Twas intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil, that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil, that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if this tree would give them a speculative notional knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And,

4. All this presently, In the day you eat thereof-You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

Verse 3. Neither shall ye touch it] Did not the woman add this to what God had before spoken? Some of the Jewish writers, who are only serious on comparative trifles, state that as soon as the woman had asserted this, the serpent pushed her against the tree and said, “See, thou hast touched it, and art still alive; thou mayest therefore safely eat of the fruit, for surely thou shalt not die.”

Verses 2, 3. The woman said — With a view to defend the conduct of her Maker toward them, against the insinuations of the tempter. We may eat of the trees of the garden — Of all the trees except one. It is only concerning one that God hath said, “Ye shall not eat of it.” But when she adds, Lest ye die, it is evident her faith begins to waver, and she inclines to doubt whether God would fulfil his threatening, which was not, “Lest ye die,” but, “In dying ye shall die;” that is, “Ye shall surely die.” She seems also to have intended to intimate, that if they died, it would not be so much through any particular interference and severity of God in executing his threatening, as through the natural, pernicious effects of the fruit, against which God had only kindly warned them.

3. Neither shall ye touch it — This is the woman’s own addition to the commandment as given in Genesis 2:17, and is thought by many to imply that in her own mind the commandment was too severe. The tempter started a thought which she develops, as if soliloquizing: “Yes, it is even so. We may eat of all other fruit, but this particular tree we must not even touch, lest we die!” And thus the way is prepared for bolder words from the deceiver.

V. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have here an account of the temptation wherewith Satan assaulted our first parents, and which proved fatal to them. And here observe,

(1.) The tempter, the devil in the shape of a serpent. Multitudes of them fell; but this that attacked our first parents, was surely the prince of the devils. Whether it was only the appearance of a serpent, or a real serpent, acted and possessed by the devil, is not certain. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a subtle creature. It is not improbable, that reason and speech were then the known properties of the serpent. And therefore Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which otherwise she must have been.

(2.) That which the devil aimed at, was to persuade Eve to eat forbidden fruit; and to do this, he took the same method that he doth still. 1. He questions whether it were a sin or no, Genesis 3:1,2. He denies that there was any danger in it, Genesis 3:4. 3. He suggests much advantage by it, Genesis 3:5. And these are his common topics. As to the advantage, he suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights.

1. Your eyes shall be opened-You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have; you shall fetch a larger compass in your intellectual views, and see farther into things than now you do.

2. You shall be as gods-As Elohim, mighty gods, not only omniscient but omnipotent too:

3. You shall know good and evil-That is, everything that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. ‘Twas intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil, that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil, that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if this tree would give them a speculative notional knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And,

4. All this presently, In the day you eat thereof-You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

Verse 4. Ye shall not surely die] Here the father of lies at once appears; and appears too in flatly contradicting the assertion of God. The tempter, through the nachash, insinuates the impossibility of her dying, as if he had said, God has created thee immortal, thy death therefore is impossible; and God knows this, for as thou livest by the tree of life, so shalt thou get increase of wisdom by the tree of knowledge.

Verses 4, 5. The tempter, finding that the woman began to doubt whether eating this fruit was a crime, and if it were, whether punishment would follow, now became more bold in his attack, and, giving God the lie direct, asserted roundly, “Ye shall not surely die.” So far from it, you shall have much advantage from eating of this tree. He suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them, not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights. 1st, Your eyes shall be opened — You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have: your intellectual views shall be extended, and you shall see further into things than now you do. 2d, Ye shall be as gods — As Elohim, mighty gods, beings of a higher order. 3d, Ye shall know good and evil — That is, every thing that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. It was intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil; that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil; that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if the tree would give them a speculative knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And, 4th, All this presently; In the day ye eat thereof — You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

4. Ye shall not surely die — A direct and malicious contradiction of God’s word as given in Genesis 2:17. Here the devil is revealed as Satan, the adversary, “a liar, and the father of it.” John 8:44. This daring advance in the temptation is commonly supposed to imply a noticeable wavering on the part of the woman.

V. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have here an account of the temptation wherewith Satan assaulted our first parents, and which proved fatal to them. And here observe,

(1.) The tempter, the devil in the shape of a serpent. Multitudes of them fell; but this that attacked our first parents, was surely the prince of the devils. Whether it was only the appearance of a serpent, or a real serpent, acted and possessed by the devil, is not certain. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a subtle creature. It is not improbable, that reason and speech were then the known properties of the serpent. And therefore Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which otherwise she must have been.

(2.) That which the devil aimed at, was to persuade Eve to eat forbidden fruit; and to do this, he took the same method that he doth still. 1. He questions whether it were a sin or no, Genesis 3:1,2. He denies that there was any danger in it, Genesis 3:4. 3. He suggests much advantage by it, Genesis 3:5. And these are his common topics. As to the advantage, he suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights.

1. Your eyes shall be opened-You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have; you shall fetch a larger compass in your intellectual views, and see farther into things than now you do.

2. You shall be as gods-As Elohim, mighty gods, not only omniscient but omnipotent too:

3. You shall know good and evil-That is, everything that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. ‘Twas intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil, that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil, that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if this tree would give them a speculative notional knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And,

4. All this presently, In the day you eat thereof-You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

Verse 5. Your eyes shall be opened] Your understanding shall be greatly enlightened and improved; and ye shall be as gods, כאלהים kelohim, like God, so the word should be translated; for what idea could our first parents have of gods before idolatry could have had any being, because sin had not yet entered into the world? The Syriac has the word in the singular number, and is the only one of all the versions which has hit on the true meaning. As the original word is the same which is used to point out the Supreme Being, Genesis 1:1, so it has here the same signification, and the object of the tempter appears to have been this: to persuade our first parents that they should, by eating of this fruit, become wise and powerful as God, (for knowledge is power,) and be able to exist for ever, independently of him.

Verses 4, 5. The tempter, finding that the woman began to doubt whether eating this fruit was a crime, and if it were, whether punishment would follow, now became more bold in his attack, and, giving God the lie direct, asserted roundly, “Ye shall not surely die.” So far from it, you shall have much advantage from eating of this tree. He suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them, not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights. 1st, Your eyes shall be opened — You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have: your intellectual views shall be extended, and you shall see further into things than now you do. 2d, Ye shall be as gods — As Elohim, mighty gods, beings of a higher order. 3d, Ye shall know good and evil — That is, every thing that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. It was intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil; that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil; that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if the tree would give them a speculative knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And, 4th, All this presently; In the day ye eat thereof — You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.

5. For God doth know — The Satanic utterance here recorded is a specimen of blasphemously changing God’s truth into a lie. The deceiver would make the woman believe that God was keeping her in ignorance of some great good. Your eyes shall be opened — “’Your eyes,’” says the voice of the tempter, ‘instead of closing in death, will be for the first time truly opened.’ Here it is to be remarked that the hour when unbelief is born is immediately the birth hour of superstition.… And so, in like manner, is every sin a senseless and superstitious belief in the salutary effects of sin.” — Lange. Ye shall be as gods — Rather, as God. The tempter would pervert the image of God in man by inducing a false aspiration. Elohim has made you in his own image, and yet withholds from you the honour and glory of knowing good and evil. Break this bond, eat this forbidden fruit, and you will at once become like Elohim, your Maker.

V. 6, 7, 8. Here we see what Eve’s parley with the tempter ended in: Satan at length gains his point. God tried the obedience of our first parents by forbidding them the tree of knowledge, and Satan doth as it were join issue with God, and in that very thing undertakes to seduce them into a transgression; and here we find how he prevailed, God permitting it for wise and holy ends.

(1.) We have here the inducements that moved them to transgress. The woman being deceived, was ring-leader in the transgression, 1 Timothy 2:14

1. She saw that the tree was-It was said of all the rest of the fruit trees wherewith the garden of Eden was planted, that they were pleasant to the sight, and good for food. 2. She imagined a greater benefit by this tree than by any of the rest, that it was a tree not only not to be dreaded, but to be desired to make one wise, and therein excelling all the rest of the trees. This she saw, that is, she perceived and understood it by what the devil had said to her.

She gave also to her husband with her-‘Tis likely he was not with her when she was tempted; surely if he had, he would have interposed to prevent the sin; but he came to her when she had eaten, and was prevailed with by her to eat likewise. She gave it to him; persuading him with the same arguements that the serpent had used with her; adding this to the rest, that she herself had eaten of it, and found it so far from being deadly that it was extremely pleasant and grateful.

And he did eat-This implied the unbelief of God’s word, and confidence in the devil’s; discontent with his present state, and an ambition of the honour which comes not from God. He would be both his own carver, and his own master, would have what he pleased, and do what he pleased; his sin was in one word disobedience, Romans 5:19, disobedience to a plain, easy and express command, which he knew to be a command of trial. He sins against light and love, the clearest light and the dearest love that ever sinner sinned against. But the greatest aggravation of his sin was, that he involved all his posterity in sin and ruin by it. He could not but know that he stood as a public person, and that his disobedience would be fatal to all his seed; and if so, it was certainly both the greatest treachery and the greatest cruelty that ever was. Shame and fear seized the criminals, these came into the world along with sin, and still attend it.

The Eyes of them both were opened-The eyes of their consciences; their hearts smote them for what they had done Now, when it was too late, they saw the happiness they were fallen from, and the misery they were fallen into. They saw God provoked, his favour forfeited, his image lost; they felt a disorder in their own spirits, which they had never before been conscious of; they saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds, and captivating them both to sin and wrath; they saw that they were naked, that is, that they were stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their paradise state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God; laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven and earth, and their own consciences. And they sewed or platted fig leaves together, and, to cover, at least, part of their shame one from another, made themselves aprons. See here what is commonly the folly of those that have sinned: they are more solicitous to save their credit before men, than to obtain their pardon from God. And they

heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day-Tis supposed he came in a human shape; in no other similitude than that wherein they had seen him when he put them into paradise; for he came to convince and humble them, not to amaze and terrify them. He came not immediately from heaven in their view as afterwards on mount Sinai, but he came in the garden, as one that was still willing to be familiar with them. He came walking, not riding upon the wings of the wind, but walking deliberately, as one slow to anger. He came in the cool of the day, not in the night, when all fears are doubly fearful; nor did he come suddenly upon them, but they heard his voice at some distance, giving them notice of his coming; and probably it was a still small voice, like that in which he came to enquire after Elijah. And they

hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God-A sad change! Before they had sinned, if they heard the voice of the Lord God coming towards them, they would have run to meet him, but now God was become a terror to them, and then no marvel they were become a terror to themselves.

Verse 6. The tree was good for food] 1. The fruit appeared to be wholesome and nutritive. And that it was pleasant to the eyes. 2. The beauty of the fruit tended to whet and increase appetite. And a tree to be desired to make one wise, which was, 3. An additional motive to please the palate. From these three sources all natural and moral evil sprang: they are exactly what the apostle calls the desire of the flesh; the tree was good for food: the desire of the eye; it was pleasant to the sight: and the pride of life; it was a tree to be desired to make one wise. God had undoubtedly created our first parents not only very wise and intelligent, but also with a great capacity and suitable propensity to increase in knowledge. Those who think that Adam was created so perfect as to preclude the possibility of his increase in knowledge, have taken a very false view of the subject. We shall certainly be convinced that our first parents were in a state of sufficient perfection when we consider, 1. That they were endued with a vast capacity to obtain knowledge. 2. That all the means of information were within their reach. 3. That there was no hinderance to the most direct conception of occurring truth. 4. That all the objects of knowledge, whether natural or moral, were ever at hand. 5. That they had the strongest propensity to know; and, 6. The greatest pleasure in knowing. To have God and nature continually open to the view of the soul; and to have a soul capable of viewing both, and fathoming endlessly their unbounded glories and excellences, without hinderance or difficulty; what a state of perfection! what a consummation of bliss! This was undoubtedly the state and condition of our first parents; even the present ruins of the state are incontestable evidences of its primitive excellence. We see at once how transgression came; it was natural for them to desire to be increasingly wise. God had implanted this desire in their minds; but he showed them that this desire should be gratified in a certain way; that prudence and judgment should always regulate it; that they should carefully examine what God had opened to their view; and should not pry into what he chose to conceal. He alone who knows all things knows how much knowledge the soul needs to its perfection and increasing happiness, in what subjects this may be legitimately sought, and where the mind may make excursions and discoveries to its prejudice and ruin. There are doubtless many subjects which angels are capable of knowing, and which God chooses to conceal even from them, because that knowledge would tend neither to their perfection nor happiness. Of every attainment and object of pursuit it may be said, in the words of an ancient poet, who conceived correctly on the subject, and expressed his thoughts with perspicuity and energy:— Est modus in rebus: sunt certi denique fines,

Quos ulta citraque nequit consistere rectum.

HOR. Sat., lib. i., Sat. 1., ver. 106.

“There is a rule for all things; there are in fine fixed and stated limits, on either side of which righteousness cannot be found.” On the line of duty alone we must walk.

Such limits God certainly assigned from the beginning: Thou shalt come up to this; thou shalt not pass it. And as he assigned the limits, so he assigned the means. It is lawful for thee to acquire knowledge in this way; it is unlawful to seek it in that. And had he not a right to do so? And would his creation have been perfect without it?

Verse 6. When the woman saw, (or perceived) — But how? Certainly by believing Satan and disbelieving God. Here we see what her parley with the tempter ended in; Satan, at length, gains his point; God permitting it for wise and holy ends. And he gains it: 1st, By injecting unbelief respecting the divine declaration. 2d, By the lust of the flesh: she saw that the tree was good for food, agreeable to the taste, and nutritive. 3d, By the lust of the eye, that it was pleasant to the eye. 4th, By the pride of life, a tree not only not to be dreaded, but to be desired to make one wise. In a similar way Satan still tempts, and too often prevails: by unbelief and their own lusts, men, being tempted and drawn away (exelkomenov, drawn out of God, James 1:14) from his fear and love, and obedience to his will, are enticed, insnared, and overcome.

She gave also to her husband with her — It is likely he was not with her when she was tempted; surely if he had been, he would have interposed to prevent the sin; but he came to her when she had eaten, and was prevailed with, by her, to eat likewise. She gave it to him; persuading him with the same arguments that the serpent had used with her; adding this, probably, to the rest, that she herself had eaten of it, and found it so far from being deadly, that it was extremely pleasant and grateful. And he did eat — This implied unbelief of God’s word, and confidence in the devil’s; discontent with his present state and an ambition of the honour which comes not from God. His sin was disobedience, as St. Paul terms it, Romans 5:19, and that to a plain, easy, and express command, which he knew to be a command of trial. He sins against light and love, the clearest light and the dearest love that ever sinner sinned against. But the greatest aggravation of his sin was, that by it he involved all his posterity in sin and ruin. He could not but know that he stood as a public person, and that his disobedience would be fatal to all his seed; and if so, it was certainly both the greatest treachery and the greatest cruelty that ever was.

Ver. 6. And he did eat. She allured him by the arguments used by the serpent, and by the more weighty one of her own example. Thus by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; for our will was in his will, and our consent in his consent; so death passed on all. But thanks be to God, that we are now born under the new covenant, so that no man can die eternally for Adam’s sin.

6. Good for food… pleasant to the eyes… to be desired to make one wise — Observe the threefold form of this first temptation. First, appeal is made to the animal appetite; next, to the longing eye; and then to an ambition to become wise and godlike. Thus, too, the apostle comprehends all generic forms of human temptation under “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” 1 John 2:16. It is notable that when this same old serpent attempted the ruin of the Second Adam he employed the same threefold method of assault. The first, was based upon his sense of hunger; the second, was a suggestion to exhibit a vain display at the temple of God; and the third, to make himself a hero-god of the world. Comp. Matthew 4:1-11. After the failure of the first Adam and the triumph of the Second in conflict with the devil, we may not plead that we are ignorant of Satan’s devices. She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat — So it is that “when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin,” (James 1:15,) and the heart walks after the eyes. Job 31:7. Her husband with her — This is understood by some to imply that Adam was present with the woman during her temptation; but such a supposition seems inconsistent with the narrative, which exhibits Satan and the woman so prominently, and makes no allusion to the man. Better, therefore, to understand the hm[, with her, of his subsequent partnership with her in transgression. Manifestly we have here a very concise record of a most important event. The great facts are stated, the guile of the tempter is exposed, and the sad result is chronicled. Other details are not attempted.

V. 6, 7, 8. Here we see what Eve’s parley with the tempter ended in: Satan at length gains his point. God tried the obedience of our first parents by forbidding them the tree of knowledge, and Satan doth as it were join issue with God, and in that very thing undertakes to seduce them into a transgression; and here we find how he prevailed, God permitting it for wise and holy ends.

(1.) We have here the inducements that moved them to transgress. The woman being deceived, was ring-leader in the transgression, 1 Timothy 2:14

1. She saw that the tree was-It was said of all the rest of the fruit trees wherewith the garden of Eden was planted, that they were pleasant to the sight, and good for food. 2. She imagined a greater benefit by this tree than by any of the rest, that it was a tree not only not to be dreaded, but to be desired to make one wise, and therein excelling all the rest of the trees. This she saw, that is, she perceived and understood it by what the devil had said to her.

She gave also to her husband with her-‘Tis likely he was not with her when she was tempted; surely if he had, he would have interposed to prevent the sin; but he came to her when she had eaten, and was prevailed with by her to eat likewise. She gave it to him; persuading him with the same arguements that the serpent had used with her; adding this to the rest, that she herself had eaten of it, and found it so far from being deadly that it was extremely pleasant and grateful.

And he did eat-This implied the unbelief of God’s word, and confidence in the devil’s; discontent with his present state, and an ambition of the honour which comes not from God. He would be both his own carver, and his own master, would have what he pleased, and do what he pleased; his sin was in one word disobedience, Romans 5:19, disobedience to a plain, easy and express command, which he knew to be a command of trial. He sins against light and love, the clearest light and the dearest love that ever sinner sinned against. But the greatest aggravation of his sin was, that he involved all his posterity in sin and ruin by it. He could not but know that he stood as a public person, and that his disobedience would be fatal to all his seed; and if so, it was certainly both the greatest treachery and the greatest cruelty that ever was. Shame and fear seized the criminals, these came into the world along with sin, and still attend it.

The Eyes of them both were opened-The eyes of their consciences; their hearts smote them for what they had done Now, when it was too late, they saw the happiness they were fallen from, and the misery they were fallen into. They saw God provoked, his favour forfeited, his image lost; they felt a disorder in their own spirits, which they had never before been conscious of; they saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds, and captivating them both to sin and wrath; they saw that they were naked, that is, that they were stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their paradise state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God; laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven and earth, and their own consciences. And they sewed or platted fig leaves together, and, to cover, at least, part of their shame one from another, made themselves aprons. See here what is commonly the folly of those that have sinned: they are more solicitous to save their credit before men, than to obtain their pardon from God. And they

heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day-Tis supposed he came in a human shape; in no other similitude than that wherein they had seen him when he put them into paradise; for he came to convince and humble them, not to amaze and terrify them. He came not immediately from heaven in their view as afterwards on mount Sinai, but he came in the garden, as one that was still willing to be familiar with them. He came walking, not riding upon the wings of the wind, but walking deliberately, as one slow to anger. He came in the cool of the day, not in the night, when all fears are doubly fearful; nor did he come suddenly upon them, but they heard his voice at some distance, giving them notice of his coming; and probably it was a still small voice, like that in which he came to enquire after Elijah. And they

hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God-A sad change! Before they had sinned, if they heard the voice of the Lord God coming towards them, they would have run to meet him, but now God was become a terror to them, and then no marvel they were become a terror to themselves.

Verse 7. The eyes of them both were opened] They now had a sufficient discovery of their sin and folly in disobeying the command of God; they could discern between good and evil; and what was the consequence? Confusion and shame were engendered, because innocence was lost and guilt contracted.

Let us review the whole of this melancholy business, the fall and its effects.

1. From the New Testament we learn that Satan associated himself with the creature which we term the serpent, and the original the nachash, in order to seduce and ruin mankind; 2 Corinthians 11:3 Revelation 12:9 20:2. 2. That this creature was the most suitable to his purpose, as being the most subtle, the most intelligent and cunning of all beasts of the field, endued with the gift of speech and reason, and consequently one in which he could best conceal himself. 3. As he knew that while they depended on God they could not be ruined, he therefore endeavoured to seduce them from this dependence. 4. He does this by working on that propensity of the mind to desire an increase of knowledge, with which God, for the most gracious purposes, had endued it. 5. In order to succeed, he insinuates that God, through motives of envy, had given the prohibition-God doth know that in the day ye eat of it, ye shall be like himself, &c. 6. As their present state of blessedness must be inexpressibly dear to them, he endeavours to persuade them that they could not fall from this state: Ye shall not surely die -ye shall not only retain your present blessedness, but it shall be greatly increased; a temptation by which he has ever since fatally succeeded in the ruin of multitudes of souls, whom he persuaded that being once right they could never finally go wrong. 7. As he kept the unlawfulness of the means proposed out of sight, persuaded them that they could not fall from their steadfastness, assured them that they should resemble God himself, and consequently be self-sufficient, and totally independent of him; they listened, and fixing their eye only on the promised good, neglecting the positive command, and determining to become wise and independent at all events, they took of the fruit and did eat.

Let us now examine the effects.

1. Their eyes were opened, and they saw they were naked. They saw what they never saw before, that they were stripped of their excellence; that they had lost their innocence; and that they had fallen into a state of indigence and danger. 2. Though their eyes were opened to see their nakedness, yet their mind was clouded, and their judgment confused. They seem to have lost all just notions of honour and dishonour, of what was shameful and what was praise-worthy. It was dishonourable and shameful to break the commandment of God; but it was neither to go naked, when clothing was not necessary. 3. They seem in a moment, not only to have lost sound judgment, but also reflection: a short time before Adam was so wise that he could name all the creatures brought before him, according to their respective natures and qualities; now he does not know the first principle concerning the Divine nature, that it knows all things, and that it is omnipresent, therefore he endeavours to hide himself among the trees from the eye of the all-seeing God! How astonishing is this! When the creatures were brought to him he could name them, because he could discern their respective natures and properties; when Eve was brought to him he could immediately tell what she was, who she was, and for what end made, though he was in a deep sleep when God formed her; and this seems to be particularly noted, merely to show the depth of his wisdom, and the perfection of his discernment. But alas! how are the mighty fallen! Compare his present with his past state, his state before the transgression with his state after it; and say, is this the same creature? the creature of whom God said, as he said of all his works, He is very good-just what he should be, a living image of the living God; but now lower than the beasts of the field? 4. This account could never have been credited had not the indisputable proofs and evidences of it been continued by uninterrupted succession to the present time. All the descendants of this first guilty pair resemble their degenerate ancestors, and copy their conduct. The original mode of transgression is still continued, and the original sin in consequence. Here are the proofs. 1. Every human being is endeavouring to obtain knowledge by unlawful means, even while the lawful means and every available help are at hand. 2. They are endeavouring to be independent, and to live without God in the world; hence prayer, the language of dependence on God’s providence and grace, is neglected, I might say detested, by the great majority of men. Had I no other proof than this that man is a fallen creature, my soul would bow to this evidence. 3. Being destitute of the true knowledge of God they seek privacy for their crimes, not considering that the eye of God is upon them, being only solicitous to hide them from the eye of man. These are all proofs in point; but we shall soon meet with additional ones. See on Genesis 3:10, 12.

Verse 7. The eyes of them both — Of their minds and consciences, which hitherto had been closed and blinded by the arts of the devil; were opened — As Satan had promised them, although in a very different sense. Now, when it was too late, they saw the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they were fallen into. They saw God was provoked, his favour forfeited, and his image lost. They felt a disorder in their own spirits, of which they had never before been conscious. They saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds, and captivating them both to sin and wrath; they saw that they were naked — That is, that they were stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their paradise state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God; laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven, and earth, and their own consciences. And they sewed, or platted fig leaves together — And, to cover at least part of their shame one from another, made themselves aprons — See here what is commonly the folly of those that have sinned: they are more solicitous to save their credit before men, than to obtain their pardon from God!

7. Knew that they were naked — Here is a stinging irony. Literally, Opened were the eyes of both of them, and they knew that — naked were they! Their eyes were opened, indeed, as the serpent had predicted, but his word was like the lying oracles of the heathen world, which contained a delusive double sense. What were their eyes opened to know? That they were like God? No; but that they were naked! Here is a standing type of the vanity, vexation, shame, and confusion of face into which the glowing assurances of the old serpent always lead. Aprons — Or girdles, of fig leaves, fastened about the hips.

V. 6, 7, 8. Here we see what Eve’s parley with the tempter ended in: Satan at length gains his point. God tried the obedience of our first parents by forbidding them the tree of knowledge, and Satan doth as it were join issue with God, and in that very thing undertakes to seduce them into a transgression; and here we find how he prevailed, God permitting it for wise and holy ends.

(1.) We have here the inducements that moved them to transgress. The woman being deceived, was ring-leader in the transgression, 1 Timothy 2:14

1. She saw that the tree was-It was said of all the rest of the fruit trees wherewith the garden of Eden was planted, that they were pleasant to the sight, and good for food. 2. She imagined a greater benefit by this tree than by any of the rest, that it was a tree not only not to be dreaded, but to be desired to make one wise, and therein excelling all the rest of the trees. This she saw, that is, she perceived and understood it by what the devil had said to her.

She gave also to her husband with her-‘Tis likely he was not with her when she was tempted; surely if he had, he would have interposed to prevent the sin; but he came to her when she had eaten, and was prevailed with by her to eat likewise. She gave it to him; persuading him with the same arguements that the serpent had used with her; adding this to the rest, that she herself had eaten of it, and found it so far from being deadly that it was extremely pleasant and grateful.

And he did eat-This implied the unbelief of God’s word, and confidence in the devil’s; discontent with his present state, and an ambition of the honour which comes not from God. He would be both his own carver, and his own master, would have what he pleased, and do what he pleased; his sin was in one word disobedience, Romans 5:19, disobedience to a plain, easy and express command, which he knew to be a command of trial. He sins against light and love, the clearest light and the dearest love that ever sinner sinned against. But the greatest aggravation of his sin was, that he involved all his posterity in sin and ruin by it. He could not but know that he stood as a public person, and that his disobedience would be fatal to all his seed; and if so, it was certainly both the greatest treachery and the greatest cruelty that ever was. Shame and fear seized the criminals, these came into the world along with sin, and still attend it.

The Eyes of them both were opened-The eyes of their consciences; their hearts smote them for what they had done Now, when it was too late, they saw the happiness they were fallen from, and the misery they were fallen into. They saw God provoked, his favour forfeited, his image lost; they felt a disorder in their own spirits, which they had never before been conscious of; they saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds, and captivating them both to sin and wrath; they saw that they were naked, that is, that they were stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their paradise state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God; laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven and earth, and their own consciences. And they sewed or platted fig leaves together, and, to cover, at least, part of their shame one from another, made themselves aprons. See here what is commonly the folly of those that have sinned: they are more solicitous to save their credit before men, than to obtain their pardon from God. And they

heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day-Tis supposed he came in a human shape; in no other similitude than that wherein they had seen him when he put them into paradise; for he came to convince and humble them, not to amaze and terrify them. He came not immediately from heaven in their view as afterwards on mount Sinai, but he came in the garden, as one that was still willing to be familiar with them. He came walking, not riding upon the wings of the wind, but walking deliberately, as one slow to anger. He came in the cool of the day, not in the night, when all fears are doubly fearful; nor did he come suddenly upon them, but they heard his voice at some distance, giving them notice of his coming; and probably it was a still small voice, like that in which he came to enquire after Elijah. And they

hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God-A sad change! Before they had sinned, if they heard the voice of the Lord God coming towards them, they would have run to meet him, but now God was become a terror to them, and then no marvel they were become a terror to themselves.

Verse 8. The voice of the Lord] The voice is properly used here, for as God is an infinite Spirit, and cannot be confined to any form, so he can have no personal appearance. It is very likely that God used to converse with them in the garden, and that the usual time was the decline of the day, היום לרוח leruach haiyom, in the evening breeze; and probably this was the time that our first parents employed in the more solemn acts of their religious worship, at which God was ever present. The time for this solemn worship is again come, and God is in his place; but Adam and Eve have sinned, and therefore, instead of being found in the place of worship, are hidden among the trees! Reader, how often has this been thy case!

Verse 8. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking, &c. — It is supposed he came in a human shape; in that wherein they had seen him, when he put them into paradise. For he came to convince and humble, not to amaze and terrify them. And they hid themselves, &c. — A sad change! Before they had sinned, if they heard the voice of the Lord God coming toward them, they would have run to meet him; but now God was become a terror to them, and then no marvel they were become a terror to themselves.

8. Heard the voice of the Lord — Some interpreters understand this voice to have been the sound or noise made by the approach of Jehovah. Comp. “sound of a going” in 2 Samuel 5:24. But the two following verses imply that it was the voice of Jehovah calling, rather than the noise of his movement, that is here intended. Both ideas, however, may be combined, for the anthropomorphism here is a notable feature of the description. The voice that called was the well-known voice of One who had spoken to them before, and who now came walking to and fro in the garden as aforetime, but his voice now inspired fear rather than delight. In the cool of the day — Literally, at the wind of the day. That is, at the time of the evening breeze. It was the closing day of Adam’s Eden life, and, as Delitzsch has observed, that hour is adapted to weaken the dissipating impressions and excitements of the day, and beget a stillness in the soul. Then arise in man’s heart the sentiments of sadness and loneliness, of longing, and of the love of home. “Thus with our first parents: when evening comes, the first intoxication of the Satanic delusion subsides, stillness reigns within; they feel themselves isolated from the communion of God, parted from their original home, while the darkness, as it comes rushing in upon them, makes them feel that their inner light has gone out.” Hid themselves — This action was on their part a confession of conscious guilt and shame.

V. 9. Where art thou?-This enquiry after Adam may be looked upon as a gracious pursuit in order to his recovery. If God had not called to him to reduce him, his condition had been as desperate as that of fallen angels.

Verse 9. The Lord God called, (probably with a loud voice,) Where art thou? — This inquiry after Adam, may be looked upon as a gracious pursuit in order to his recovery. If God had not called to him to reduce him, his condition had been as desperate as that of fallen angels.

9. Where art thou — hkya, where — thou? or, where (shall I find) thee? How is it that I must now search for thee, who hast been wont to watch for my coming, and hail it with delight? The entire passage is in condescension to human conceptions. Not that Jehovah was unable to find the guilty one, but to intensify the picture of the sinner attempting to hide himself from Omniscience. Here, truly, is revealed the Good Shepherd seeking after the lost sheep.

V. 10. I heard thy voice in the garden: and I was afraid-Adam was afraid because he was naked; not only unarmed, and therefore afraid to contend with God, but unclothed and therefore afraid so much as to appear before him.

Verse 10. I was afraid, because I was naked] See the immediate consequences of sin. 1. SHAME, because of the ingratitude marked in the rebellion, and because that in aiming to be like God they were now sunk into a state of the greatest wretchedness. 2. FEAR, because they saw they had been deceived by Satan, and were exposed to that death and punishment from which he had promised them an exemption. How worthy is it of remark that this cause continues to produce the very same effects! Shame and fear were the first fruits of sin, and fruits which it has invariably produced, from the first transgression to the present time.

Verse 10. I was afraid, because I was naked — He confesses his nakedness, which was evident; but makes no mention of his sin. This he wished rather to hide, feeling, indeed, the shameful effects of it, but not yet being truly penitent for it.

Ver. 10. I was naked. He knew he was naked before; but now he felt the shame of unbelief, and pride, and concupiscence; and therefore shunned his Maker’s presence.

10. I was afraid, because I was naked — Adam’s self-defence was a self-betrayal. Fear, consequent upon a sense of guilt, distracts the reason, demoralizes the judgment, and exposes the transgressor to certain condemnation. His nakedness was, for the moment, more prominent in his thought than a proper sense of his guilt.

V. 11. Who told thee that thou wast naked?-That is, how camest thou to be sensible of thy nakedness as thy shame?

Hast thou eaten of the tree?-Tho’ God knows all our sins, yet he will know them from us, and requires from us an ingenuous confession of them, not that he may be informed, but that we may be humbled. Whereof I commanded thee not to eat of it, I thy maker, I thy master, I thy benefactor, I commanded thee to the contrary. Sin appears most plain and most sinful in the glass of the commandment.

Verse 11. Who told thee thou wast naked? — That is, how camest thou to be sensible of thy nakedness as thy shame? Hast thou eaten of the tree — Though God knows all our sins, yet he will know them from us, and requires from us an ingenuous confession of them, not that he may be informed, but that we may be humbled; whereof I commanded thee — Not to eat of it; I thy Maker, I thy Master, I thy Benefactor, I commanded thee to the contrary. Sin appears most plain and most sinful in the glass of the commandment.

11. Who told thee — A question adapted to suggest to him the cause of his sense of nakedness. How is it that thou wast never conscious of thy nakedness before? This plea of nakedness was itself a confession of guilt.

Verse 12. And the man said, &c.] We have here some farther proofs of the fallen state of man, and that the consequences of that state extend to his remotest posterity. 1. On the question, Hast thou eaten of the tree? Adam is obliged to acknowledge his transgression; but he does this in such a way as to shift off the blame from himself, and lay it upon God and upon the woman! This woman whom THOU didst give to be with me, ydm[ immadi, to be my companion, (for so the word is repeatedly used,) she gave me, and I did eat. I have no farther blame in this transgression; I did not pluck the fruit; she took it and gave it to me. 2. When the woman is questioned she lays the blame upon God and the serpent, (nachash.) The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Thou didst make him much wiser than thou didst make me, and therefore my simplicity and ignorance were overcome by his superior wisdom and subtlety; I can have no fault here, the fault is his, and his who made him so wise and me so ignorant. Thus we find that, while the eyes of their body were opened to see their degraded state, the eyes of their understanding were closed, so that they could not see the sinfulness of sin; and at the same time their hearts were hardened through its deceitfulness. In this also their posterity copy their example. How few ingenuously confess their own sin! They see not their guilt. They are continually making excuses for their crimes; the strength and subtlety of the tempter, the natural weakness of their own minds, the unfavourable circumstances in which they were placed, &c., &c., are all pleaded as excuses for their sins, and thus the possibility of repentance is precluded; for till a man take his sin to himself, till he acknowledge that he alone is guilty, he cannot be humbled, and consequently cannot be saved. Reader, till thou accuse thyself, and thyself only, and feel that thou alone art responsible for all thy iniquities, there is no hope of thy salvation.

12. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me — Observe the natural effort of a fallen nature to excuse its own guilt by casting the blame on another. And not only is the woman blamed, but a sinister reflection on Jehovah himself appears in the words whom thou gavest to be with me. This woman by my side, whom thou gavest to be my companion and helper, she has been the occasion of my eating the forbidden fruit.

V. 13. What is this that thou hast done?-Wilt thou own thy fault? Neither of them does this fully. Adam lays all the blame upon his wife: She gave me of the tree-Nay, he not only lays the blame upon his wife, but tacitly on God himself.

The woman thou gavest me, and gavest to be with me as my companion, she gave me of the tree. Eve lays all the blame upon the serpent; the serpent beguiled me. The prisoners being found guilty by their own confession, besides the infallible knowledge of the Judge, and nothing material being offered in arrest of judgment, God immediately proceeds to pass sentence, and in these verses he begins (where the sin began) with the serpent. God did not examine the serpent, nor ask him what he had done, but immediately sentenced him, (1.) Because he was already convicted of rebellion against God. (2.) Because he was to be for ever excluded from pardon; and why should any thing be said to convince and humble him, who was to find no place for repentance?

Verse 13. What is this thou hast done? — Wilt thou own thy fault? Neither of them does this fully. Adam lays all the blame on his wife; nay, tacitly, on God. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me as my companion, she gave me of the tree. Eve lays all the blame on the serpent. The serpent beguiled me.

13. The serpent beguiled me — The woman also, in her turn, throws the blame of her offence upon another. The serpent, she pleads, had imposed upon her by deception.

V. 14. To testify a displeasure against sin, God fastens a curse upon the serpent,

Thou art cursed above all cattle-Even the creeping things, when God made them, were blessed of him, Genesis 1:22, but sin turned the blessing into a curse.

Upon thy belly shalt thou go-No longer upon feet, or half erect, but thou shalt crawl along, thy belly cleaving to the earth.

Dust thou shalt eat-Which signifies a base and despicable condition.

Verse 14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent] The tempter is not asked why he deceived the woman; he cannot roll the blame on any other; self-tempted he fell, and it is natural for him, such is his enmity, to deceive and destroy all he can. His fault admits of no excuse, and therefore God begins to pronounce sentence on him first. And here we must consider a twofold sentence, one on Satan and the other on the agent he employed. The nachash, whom I suppose to have been at the head of all the inferior animals, and in a sort of society and intimacy with man, is to be greatly degraded, entirely banished from human society, and deprived of the gift of speech. Cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field-thou shalt be considered the most contemptible of animals; upon thy belly shalt thou go-thou shalt no longer walk erect, but mark the ground equally with thy hands and feet; and dust shalt thou eat-though formerly possessed of the faculty to distinguish, choose, and cleanse thy food, thou shalt feed henceforth like the most stupid and abject quadruped, all the days of thy life-through all the innumerable generations of thy species. God saw meet to manifest his displeasure against the agent employed in this melancholy business; and perhaps this is founded on the part which the intelligent and subtle nachash took in the seduction of our first parents. We see that he was capable of it, and have some reason to believe that he became a willing instrument.

Verse 14. God said unto the serpent — In passing sentence, God begins where the sin began, with the serpent, which, although only an irrational creature, and therefore not subject to a law, nor capable of sin and guilt, yet, being the instrument of the devil’s wiles and malice, is punished as other beasts have been when abused by the sin of man, and this partly for the punishment, and partly for the instruction of man, their lord and governor.

Upon thy belly shalt thou go — And “no longer on thy feet, or half erect,” say Mr. Henry and Mr. Wesley, (as it is probable this serpent, and others of the same species, had before done,) “but thou shalt crawl along, thy belly cleaving to the earth,” the dust of which thou shalt take in with thy food. And thou, and all thy kind, shall be reckoned most despicable and detestable, (Isaiah 65:25, Micah 7:17,) and be the constant objects of the hatred of mankind. But this sentence, directed against the serpent, chiefly respected the infernal spirit that actuated it, and his curse is intended under that of the serpent, and is expressed in terms which, indeed, properly and literally agreed to the serpent; but were mystically to be understood as fulfilled in the devil; who is “cursed above all irrational animals; is left under the power of invincible folly and malice, and, in disgrace, is depressed below the vilest beasts, and appointed to unspeakable misery when they are insensible in death.” — Brown.

14. The Lord God said — Now follows the threefold judgment, pronounced first upon the serpent, next upon the woman, (verse 16,) and finally upon man, (17-19.) The malediction against the serpent (verses 14, 15) is itself threefold. The prime tempter is not asked, What is this thou hast done? for “the trial had now reached the fountain-head of sin, the purely evil purpose, the demoniacal, having no deeper ground, and requiring no further investigation.” — Lange. Cursed above all cattle — Not that other cattle or beasts were in their measure cursed, any more than in verse 1 it is implied that they were subtile. Nor is the meaning cursed by all cattle, (as Gesenius, Lex., under ˆm;) but, cursed from all; that is, thou only out of all. As the serpent was distinguished from all the beasts on account of his subtilty, (verse 1,) so is he doomed to a like distinction in this condemnation. “The ground was cursed for man’s sake,” says Keil, “but not the animal world for the serpent’s sake, nor even along with the serpent.” Upon thy belly shalt thou go — Thou shalt ever be thought of as an abominable crawler. Comp. Leviticus 11:42. This has been supposed by many to imply that the shape and movements of the serpent were miraculously changed by this curse. Thus Delitzsch: “As its speaking was the first demoniacal miracle, so is this transformation the first divine.” Some have supposed that originally the serpent walked erect; others, that it had wings like a cherub, and could fly. All this, however, is in the realm of conjecture, and not necessarily implied in the words. The serpent may have crawled and eaten dust before as well as after the curse, but as all was then very good, no sense of shame, or curse, or humiliation, attached to these conditions. As the nakedness of the man and the woman excited no thoughts of shame or improper exposure, so the creeping things of the earth, and the serpent among them, had no unfavourable associations attached to their bestial shape or habits. But the serpent’s connexion with man’s sin caused him, as apart from all other beasts, to have his natural form and locomotion cursed into that which ever suggests disgust, meanness, and enmity. Dust shalt thou eat — For being a crawler on the ground and eating its food in the dirt, the serpent must needs devour much dust along with his food. Hence to “lick the dust like a serpent” is a proverbial expression. Micah 7:17. “And while all other creatures shall escape from the doom which has come upon them in consequence of the fall of man, (Isaiah 65:25,) the serpent, the instrument used in the temptation, shall, agreeably to the words in the sentence, all the days of thy life, remain condemned to a perpetual abasement, thus prefiguring the fate of the real tempter, for whom there is no share in the redemption.” — Hengstenberg.

V. 15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman-The inferior creatures being made for man, it was a curse upon any of them to be turned against man, and man against them. And this is part of the serpent’s curse.

1. A perpetual reproach is fastened upon him. Under the cover of the serpent he is here sentenced to be, (1.) Degraded and accursed of God. It is supposed, pride was the sin that turned angels into devils, which is here justly punished by a great variety of mortifications couched under the mean circumstances of a serpent, crawling on his belly, and licking the dust. (2.) Detested and abhorred of all mankind: even those that are really seduced into his interest, yet profess a hatred of him. (3.) Destroyed and ruined at last by the great Redeemer, signified by the bruising of his head; his subtle politics shall be all baffled, his usurped power entirely crushed.

2. A perpetual quarrel is here commenced between the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of the devil among men; war proclaimed between the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent, Revelation 12:7. It is the fruit of this enmity, (1.) That there is a continual conflict between God’s people and him. Heaven and hell can never be reconciled, no more can Satan and a sanctified soul. (2.) That there is likewise a continual struggle between the wicked and the good. And all the malice of persecutors against the people of God is the fruit of this enmity, which will continue while there is a godly man on this side heaven, and a wicked man on this side hell.

3. A gracious promise is here made of Christ as the deliverer of fallen man from the power of Satan. By faith in this promise, our first parents, and the patriarchs before the flood, were justified and saved; and to this promise, and the benefit of it, instantly serving God day and night they hoped to come. Notice is here given them of three things concerning Christ. (1.) His incarnation, that he should be the seed of the woman. (2.) His sufferings and death, pointed at in Satan’s bruising his heel, that is, his human nature. (3.) His victory over Satan thereby. Satan had now trampled upon the woman, and insulted over her; but the seed of the woman should be raised up in the fulness of time to avenge her quarrel, and to trample upon him, to spoil him, to lead him captive, and to triumph over him, Colossians 2:15.

Verse 15. I will put enmity between thee and the woman] This has been generally supposed to apply to a certain enmity subsisting between men and serpents; but this is rather a fancy than a reality. It is yet to be discovered that the serpentine race have any peculiar enmity against mankind, nor is there any proof that men hate serpents more than they do other noxious animals. Men have much more enmity to the common rat and magpie than they have to all the serpents in the land, because the former destroy the grain, &c., and serpents in general, far from seeking to do men mischief, flee his approach, and generally avoid his dwelling. If, however, we take the word nachash to mean any of the simia or ape species, we find a more consistent meaning, as there is scarcely an animal in the universe so detested by most women as these are; and indeed men look on them as continual caricatures of themselves. But we are not to look for merely literal meanings here: it is evident that Satan, who actuated this creature, is alone intended in this part of the prophetic declaration. God in his endless mercy has put enmity between men and him; so that, though all mankind love his service, yet all invariably hate himself. Were it otherwise, who could be saved? A great point gained towards the conversion of a sinner is to convince him that it is Satan he has been serving, that it is to him he has been giving up his soul, body, goods, &c.; he starts with horror when this conviction fastens on his mind, and shudders at the thought of being in league with the old murderer. But there is a deeper meaning in the text than even this, especially in these words, it shall bruise thy head, or rather, awh hu, HE; who? the seed of the woman; the person is to come by the woman, and by her alone, without the concurrence of man. Therefore the address is not to Adam and Eve, but to Eve alone; and it was in consequence of this purpose of God that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin; this, and this alone, is what is implied in the promise of the seed of the woman bruising the head of the serpent. Jesus Christ died to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and to destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil. Thus he bruises his head-destroys his power and lordship over mankind, turning them from the power of Satan unto God; Acts 26:18. And Satan bruises his heel-God so ordered it, that the salvation of man could only be brought about by the death of Christ; and even the spiritual seed of our blessed Lord have the heel often bruised, as they suffer persecution, temptation, &c., which may be all that is intended by this part of the prophecy.

Verse 15. I will put enmity, &c. — The whole race of serpents are, of all creatures, the most disagreeable and terrible to mankind, and especially to women: but the devil, who seduced the woman, and his angels, are here meant, who are hated and dreaded by all men, even by those that serve them, but more especially by good men. And between thy seed — All carnal and wicked men, who, in reference to this text, are called the children and seed of Satan; and her seed — That is, her offspring, first and principally CHRIST, who, with respect to this promise, is termed, by way of eminence, her seed, (see Galatians 3:16, 19,) whose alone work it is to bruise the serpent’s head, to destroy the policy and power of the devil. But also, secondly, all the members of Christ, all believers and holy men, are here intended, who are the seed of Christ and the implacable enemies of the devil and his works, and who overcome him by Christ’s merit and power. It shall bruise thy head — The principal instrument of the serpent’s fury and mischief, and of his defence; and also the chief seat of his life, which, therefore, men chiefly strike at, and which, being upon the ground, a man may conveniently tread upon and crush to pieces. Applied to Satan, this denotes his subtlety and power, producing death, which Christ, the Seed of the woman, destroys by taking away its sting, which is sin. Thou shalt bruise his heel — The part which is most within the serpent’s reach, and on which, being bruised by it, the serpent is provoked to fix its venomous teeth, but a part remote from the head and heart, and therefore wounds there, though painful, are yet not deadly nor dangerous, if they be observed in time. Understood of Christ, the seed of the woman, his heel means, first, his humanity, whereby he trod upon the earth, and which the devil, through the instrumentality of wicked men, bruised and killed; and, secondly, his people, his members, whom Satan, in divers ways, bruises, vexes, and afflicts while they are on earth, but cannot reach either Christ their head in heaven, or themselves when they shall be advanced thither. In this verse, therefore, notice is given of a perpetual quarrel commenced between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil among men: war is proclaimed between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, Revelation 12:7. It is the fruit of this enmity, 1st, That there is a continual conflict between God’s people and him. Heaven and hell can never be reconciled, no more can Satan and a sanctified soul. 2d, That there is likewise a continual struggle between the wicked and the good. And all the malice of persecutors against the people of God is the fruit of this enmity, which will continue while there is a godly man on this side heaven, and a wicked man on this side hell. But, 3d, A gracious promise also is here made of Christ, as the deliverer of fallen man from the power of Satan. By faith in this promise, our first parents, and the patriarchs before the flood, were justified and saved; and to this promise, and the benefit of it, instantly serving God day and night, they hoped to come.

Ver. 15. The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head. St. Paul remarks here, that the word seed or son, is in the singular number, Galatians 3:16; and St. John adds, that the promise is to be understood in the largest sense, the complete destruction of the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8. It was probably accompanied with many other cheering words to fallen man.

On this promise all patriarchal religion and hope were founded. The promised Messiah was their sun and shield, their rock and refuge in the time of trouble. It was the cheering theme sung by all the Hebrew seers. Noah transmitted it to posterity through his sons, as the dearest of all paternal trusts. The Sybils sung this hope in every temple of ancient Egypt and Greece. It was sung also by Vola, our northern pythoness, in her Voluspa, to cheer the dreary evenings of the Goths, and the Scandinavian race.

The Grecian mythology, by Minerva, most assuredly designates the Messiah. “Jupiter,” says Hesiod, “produced Minerva of his own brain, when as yet he had not produced any creature.”—Theogony, ver. 886, 924,

925. The Greeks call her Aqhnh Athenè, from Aqhlov, unsuckled; that is, she had no mother. Here is the faith that Messiah is one substance with the Father.

The titles which the poets give to Minerva, coincide with the Lord Christ. She is called the goddess of wisdom, and Christ is called the wisdom of God, in the bosom of the Father. Proverbs 8:22. Ecclus. 24:3. She is called goddess of armies, and Christ through all the old testament is called the Lord of Hosts.

“The fable of SEMELE, a name composed of Shem and El, the name of God, held up the same faith to the ancient world. She being pregnant by Jupiter, arrayed in divine majesty, whose splendour consumed her, the child Bacchus was snatched from the flames, or splendour of glory, and sewed up in his father’s thigh, to fulfil the time of pregnancy. Thus the son was twice born by divine and human geniture. He possesses two natures, divine and human, as is often celebrated in the hymns of Orpheus. Thus, it must be admitted, that the heathen knew the promise of our redemption.”— Dr. Stukeley.

They knew more: they knew that “bruising the heel” meant killing the promised heir of all. And to this alone can we refer the oblation of vicarious sacrifices for sin upon the atoning altar, which in times of great extremity was extended by every nation to human victims. Enmity. This is indeed the same word with regard to the Serpent, and the Woman’s Seed; but the difference is great between the enmity of Satan, and the holy indignation of the Lord. He hateth all iniquity, but he is merciful and gracious. He hath sworn that he will have war with Amalek for ever: I would say, with the Serpent’s brood, and all the works of darkness. He will make no treaty with the Amorite, but he is longsuffering. He will chase darkness before him, in the unfoldings of future generations, till death himself be swallowed up of immortality and life. The Saviour is here the perfect model for the church to follow.

15. Enmity between thee and the woman — That a sense of enmity exists between the entire serpent race and mankind is a conspicuous fact, account for it as we may. But no better reason for it can be given than that presented in this Scripture, namely, because it was basely associated with man’s original sin. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. — It is difficult to ascertain the precise meaning of the word ãwv, here rendered bruise. It occurs but three times, namely, here, Job 9:17, and Psalm 139:11. The Septuagint renders it here by threw, to watch for; in Job by ektribw, to rub; in the Psalm by katapatew, to tread upon. The Vulgate translates it by two different words in this passage, contero, to bruise, in the first sentence, and insidior, to lie in wait for, in the second, but in Psalm 139 it has conculco, to tread upon. The word evidently denotes some sort of deadly stroke or wound, and the universal habit of man to seek to wound the serpent’s head, while the serpent is apt to wound the heel, (comp. Genesis 49:17,) confirms the realistic character of this narrative.

But while this Scripture is capable of such a simple and literal interpretation, it has also its profounder allusions. As the serpent was but the instrument of the devil, the father of lies, (see note on verse 1,) so the curse pronounced against the crooked, crawling beast has a deeper application to Satan and his seed. The base crawling, the dust-eating, and the heel-biting of serpents symbolize the habits of the old serpent, the devil. He evermore moves about his demoniacal work in conscious condemnation, as if in trembling (James 2:19) and in torment. Matthew 8:29. Like unto the natural enmity existing between the serpent-race and man is that irrepressible conflict between Satan and the redeemed man. Tayler Lewis suggests that head and heel in this Scripture may denote the strong contrast between the methods of contest of these two eternal foes. The seed of the woman fights in a bold and manly way, and strikes openly at the head. Biting or striking at the heel, on the contrary, “denotes the mean, insidious character of the devil’s warfare, not only as carried on by the equivocating appetites, but also as waged by infidels and self-styled rationalists in all ages, who never meet Christianity in a frank and manly way.”

But who, in this deeper sense, is that “seed” who shall bruise the serpent’s head? The masculine pronoun HE (awh) is not without significance. The reading is not ipsa, she herself, as the Vulgate has it, and which some Romanists understand of the Virgin Mary; nor it, of the English version, which fails to convey the force of the Hebrew, awh. We fully accord with the great body of Christian interpreters who recognise here the first Messianic prophecy, the protevangelium. But this prophecy, given in Paradise before the expulsion of the transgressors, should not be explained exclusively of the personal Messiah. That promised seed comprehends also the redeemed humanity of which he is Head — that great company who both suffer with him and with him shall also be glorified. Romans 8:17. The final triumph will not be won without much bloodshedding and many wounds. The old serpent has more than once bruised the great Conqueror’s heel, and many of the faithful “have resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Hebrews 12:4. So only those who belong to Christ as their great head and leader, are the seed of promise; all others, though born of woman, by espousing the serpent’s cause and doing the lusts of the devil (John 8:44) are of the seed of the serpent, a “generation of vipers,” (Matthew 23:33,) whose end is perdition. “Against the natural serpent,” says Keil, “the conflict may be carried on by the whole human race — by all who are born of woman — but not against Satan. As he is a foe who can only be met with spiritual weapons, none can encounter him successfully but such as possess and make use of spiritual arms. Hence the idea of the seed is modified by the nature of the foe. If we look at the natural development of the human race, Eve bore three sons, but only one of them, namely, Seth, was really the seed by which the human family was preserved through the flood, and perpetuated in Noah. So, again, of the three sons of Noah, Shem, the blessed of Jehovah, from whom Abraham descended, was the only one in whose seed all nations were to be blessed; and that not through Ishmael, but through Isaac alone. Through these constantly repeated acts of divine selection, which were not arbitrary exclusions, but were rendered necessary by differences in the spiritual condition of the individuals concerned, the seed to which the victory over Satan was promised was determined, and ceased to be co-extensive with physical descent. This spiritual seed culminated in Christ, in whom the Adamitic family terminated, henceforward to be renewed by Christ as the Second Adam, and to be restored by him to its original exaltation and likeness to God.… On the other hand, all who have not regarded and preserved the promise, have fallen into the power of the old serpent, and are to be regarded as the seed of the serpent, whose head will be trodden under foot.” Matthew 23:33; John 8:44; 1 John 3:8. Comp. the conflict between Michael and his angels, and the dragon and his angels in Revelation 12:7-9.

V. 16. We have here the sentence past upon the woman; she is condemned to a state of sorrow and a state of subjection: proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride. (1.) She is here put into a state of sorrow; one particular of which only is instanced in, that in bringing forth children, but it includes all those impressions of grief and fear which the mind of that tender sex is most apt to receive, and all the common calamities which they are liable to. It is God that multiplies our sorrows, I will do it: God, as a righteous Judge, doth it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God as a tender Father doth it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from it. (2.) She is here put into a state of subjection: the whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is for sin made inferior.

Verse 16. Unto the woman he said] She being second in the transgression is brought up the second to receive her condemnation, and to hear her punishment: I will greatly multiply, or multiplying I will multiply; i.e., I will multiply thy sorrows, and multiply those sorrows by other sorrows, and this during conception and pregnancy, and particularly so in parturition or child-bearing. And this curse has fallen in a heavier degree on the woman than on any other female. Nothing is better attested than this, and yet there is certainly no natural reason why it should be so; it is a part of her punishment, and a part from which even God’s mercy will not exempt her. It is added farther, Thy desire shall be to thy husband -thou shalt not be able to shun the great pain and peril of child-bearing, for thy desire, thy appetite, shall be to thy husband; and he shall rule over thee, though at their creation both were formed with equal rights, and the woman had probably as much right to rule as the man; but subjection to the will of her husband is one part of her curse; and so very capricious is this will often, that a sorer punishment no human being can well have, to be at all in a state of liberty, and under the protection of wise and equal laws.

Verse 16. We have here the sentence passed on the woman: she is condemned to a state of sorrow and subjection: proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow — In divers pains and infirmities peculiar to thy sex; and thy conception — Thou shalt have many, and those oft-times fruitless conceptions and abortive births. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children — With more pain than any other creatures undergo in bringing forth their young: a lasting and terrible proof this that human nature is in a fallen state! Thy desire shall be to thy husband — That is, as appears from Genesis 4:7, where the same phrase is used, Thy desires shall be referred or submitted to thy husband’s will and pleasure, to grant or deny them as he sees fit. She had eaten of the forbidden fruit, and thereby had committed a great sin, in compliance with her own desire, without asking her husband’s advice or consent, as in all reason she ought to have done in so weighty and doubtful a matter, and therefore she is thus punished. He shall rule over thee — Seeing for want of thy husband’s rule and guidance thou wast seduced, and didst abuse the power and influence I gave thee, by drawing thy husband into sin, thou shalt now be brought to a lower degree; and whereas thou wast made thy husband’s equal, thou shalt henceforward be his inferior, and he shall rule over thee — As thy lord and governor.

Ver. 16. I will multiply the sorrows of thy conception. This reading is more appropriate to the spirit of the text than the authorized version.—Dr. Anselm Bayly’s Hebrews Gram.

16. Unto the woman he said — A fourfold sentence: 1) multiplied pains of conception and pregnancy; 2) the pangs of childbirth; 3) the desire of the husband; and 4) the subjection to the authority of the man. Or the sentence may be treated as twofold by connecting the first and second together, the pains of pregnancy and childbirth being naturally associated; and the third and fourth are, in like manner, closely related in thought. The words thy sorrow and thy conception are properly regarded by most commentators as a hendiadys, meaning the sorrow of thy conception. The anxiety and pains of woman in conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are a most impressive commentary on this Scripture. The travail of childbirth is frequently alluded to as the image of deepest distress. Isaiah 13:8; Jeremiah 30:6; Micah 4:9. Thy desire shall be to thy husband — Not sensual desire, though that may be remotely implied, but that instinctive inclination and tendency of heart which the female sex has ever shown toward man. The woman seems to have aspired to headship and leadership, but, being first in transgression, is doomed to be the “weaker vessel,” instinctively clinging to the man who has lordship over her.

V. 17. Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife-He excused the fault, by laying it on his wife, but God doth not admit the excuse; tho’ it was her fault to persuade him to eat it, it was his fault to hearken to her.

Cursed is the ground for thy sake-And the effect of that curse is, Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee-The ground or earth, by the sin of man, is made subject to vanity, the several parts of it being not so serviceable to man’s comfort and happiness, as they were when they were made. Fruitfulness was its blessing for man’s service, Genesis 1:11-29, and now barrenness was its curse for man’s punishment.

Verse 17. Unto Adam he said] The man being the last in the transgression is brought up last to receive his sentence: Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife-“thou wast not deceived, she only gave and counselled thee to eat; this thou shouldst have resisted;” and that he did not is the reason of his condemnation. Cursed is the ground for thy sake-from henceforth its fertility shall be greatly impaired; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it-be in continual perplexity concerning the seed time and the harvest, the cold and the heat, the wet and the dry. How often are all the fruits of man’s toll destroyed by blasting, by mildew, by insects, wet weather, land floods, &c.! Anxiety and carefulness are the labouring man’s portion.

Verse 17. Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife — Obeyed her word and counsel, contrary to my express command. He excused the fault by laying it on his wife, but God doth not admit the excuse: though it was her fault to persuade him to eat, it was his fault to hearken to her. Cursed is the ground for thy sake — It shall now yield both fewer and worse fruits, and not even those without more care and trouble to thy mind, and the minds of thy posterity, and more labour to your bodies than otherwise would have been requisite. The earth, for the sin of man, was made subject to vanity; fruitfulness was its blessing for man’s service, and now barrenness is its curse for man’s punishment.

17. Unto Adam he said — The examination began with Adam, (verse 9,) and the offence was traced to the serpent, (verse 13;) the condemnation was pronounced first upon the serpent (verse 14) and last upon the man. The curse pronounced against the man seems manifold. It contains, at least, five elements of woe: 1) On account of him the very soil is cursed, and, as a penal result of that curse, 2) the ground he tills will produce thorns and thistles along with the herb which is to be his food. Verse 18. Moreover, 3) the cultivation of the grain which is to be his food, will involve toilsome and tiring labour, causing the sweat to stand upon his face, (verse 19,) and consequently, 4) his very eating will be in sorrow. 5) At last he himself must die and return to the dust from which he was taken. Because thou hast hearkened… and hast eaten — To listen was a culpable weakness, to eat the forbidden fruit a crime. The plea of Adam (in verse 12) is of no avail. For the weakness of hearkening to his transgressing wife he must expend his manly strength in life-long painful struggle with a cursed soil, and for his own transgression of the commandment he must return to dust. Cursed is the ground — Instead of a delightful Paradise, he shall find the ground becoming barren and unfruitful. Often since this general curse was uttered has God, by special judgments, cursed the land for the sins of the people. See Isaiah 24:1-6; Jeremiah 23:10. In sorrow shalt thou eat — ˆwbx[, labour, distress. The same word employed in verse 16 to denote the woman’s sorrow. Her perpetual reminder of the original sin is to be the pain of childbearing; his, the corresponding sorrow of oppressive labour for food in the midst of manifold vocations.

Verse 18. Thorns also and thistles, &c.] Instead of producing nourishing grain and useful vegetables, noxious weeds shall be peculiarly prolific, injure the ground, choke the good seed, and mock the hopes of the husbandman; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field-thou shalt no longer have the privilege of this garden of delights, but must go to the common champaign country, and feed on such herbs as thou canst find, till by labour and industry thou hast raised others more suitable to thee and more comfortable.

In the curse pronounced on the ground there is much more implied than generally appears. The amazing fertility of some of the most common thistles and thorns renders them the most proper instruments for the fulfilment of this sentence against man. Thistles multiply enormously; a species called the Carolina sylvestris bears ordinarily from 20 to 40 heads, each containing from 100 to 150 seeds.

Another species, called the Acanthum vulgare, produces above 100 heads, each containing from 3 to 400 seeds. Suppose we say that these thistles produce at a medium only 80 beads, and that each contains only 300 seeds; the first crop from these would amount to 24,000. Let these be sown, and their crop will amount to 576 millions. Sow these, and their produce will be 13,824,000,000,000, or thirteen billions, eight hundred and twenty-four thousand millions; and a single crop from these, which is only the third year’s growth, would amount to 331,776,000,000,000,000, or three hundred and thirty-one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six billions; and the fourth year’s growth will amount to

7,962,624,000,000,000,000,000, or seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-two trillions, six hundred and twenty-four thousand billions. A progeny more than sufficient to stock not only the surface of the whole world, but of all the planets of the solar system, so that no other plant or vegetable could possibly grow, allowing but the space of one square foot for each plant.

The Carduus vulgatissimus viarum, or common hedge thistle, besides the almost infinite swarms of winged seeds it sends forth, spreads its roots around many yards, and throws up suckers everywhere, which not only produce seeds in their turn, but extend their roots, propagate like the parent plant, and stifle and destroy all vegetation but their own. As to THORNS, the bramble, which occurs so commonly, and is so mischievous, is a sufficient proof how well the means are calculated to secure the end. The genista, or spinosa vulgaris, called by some furze, by others whins, is allowed to be one of the most mischievous shrubs on the face of the earth. Scarcely any thing can grow near it, and it is so thick set with prickles that it is almost impossible to touch it without being wounded. It is very prolific; almost half the year it is covered with flowers which produce pods filled with seeds. Besides. it shoots out roots far and wide, from which suckers and young plants are continually springing up, which produce others in their turn. Where it is permitted to grow it soon overspreads whole tracts of ground, and it is extremely difficult to clear the ground of its roots where once it has got proper footing. Such provision has the just God made to fulfil the curse which he has pronounced on the earth, because of the crimes of its inhabitants. See Hale’s Vegetable Statics.

18. Thorns also and thistles — Not that these had never yet grown, though they may not have existed in the garden. They become a curse and a plague by often outstripping the better herbs. They become luxuriant in spite of human effort to root them up and destroy them, while the much desired edible products of the soil demand great labour, sweat, and care. This fact should also remind fallen man that evil will grow in his heart more readily than good, and the “fruits of the Spirit” are not obtained and kept except by constant watching and working. The wild olive grows untilled, but not the good olive-tree; if that receive not cultivation, it will also run wild. Romans 11:24. Thou shalt eat the herb of the field — These words may be understood as enhancing the idea of the curse and vexation of thorns and thistles just mentioned. Thus taking herb, in the broad sense of vegetable products necessary to man’s subsistence, the thought would be: The herb of the field will be necessary for thy subsistence; but not as heretofore will it grow without the troublesome admixture of thorns and thistles. These ugly growths will furnish an element of vexation in procuring thy daily bread. But a better view is, that which takes the herb of the field as a sad contrast of the fruit of the trees of the garden. Genesis 2:16; compare Genesis 3:2. The fruits of Eden, furnished in profusion and without laborious toil, shall be thine no longer, but in their stead thou shalt be compelled to eat the herbs of the field.

V. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread-His business before he sinned was a constant pleasure to him; but now his labour shall be a weariness.

Unto dust shalt thou return-Thy body shall be forsaken by thy soul, and become itself a lump of dust, and then it shall be lodged in the grave, and mingle with the dust of the earth.

Verse 19. In the sweat of thy face] Though the whole body may be thrown into a profuse sweat, if hard labour be long continued, yet the face or forehead is the first part whence this sweat begins to issue; this is occasioned by the blood being strongly propelled to the brain, partly through stooping, but principally by the strong action of the muscles; in consequence of this the blood vessels about the head become turgid through the great flux of blood, the fibres are relaxed, the pores enlarged, and the sweat or serum poured out. Thus then the very commencement of every man’s labour may put him in mind of his sin and its consequences. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.] God had said that in the day they ate of the forbidden fruit, dying they should die-they should then become mortal, and continue under the influence of a great variety of unfriendly agencies in the atmosphere and in themselves, from heats, colds, drought, and damps in the one, and morbid increased and decreased action in the solids and fluids of the other, till the spirit, finding its earthly house no longer tenable, should return to God who gave it; and the body, being decomposed, should be reduced to its primitive dust. It is evident from this that man would have been immortal had he never transgressed, and that this state of continual life and health depended on his obedience to his Maker. The tree of life, as we have already seen, was intended to be the means of continual preservation. For as no being but God can exist independently of any supporting agency, so man could not have continued to live without a particular supporting agent; and this supporting agent under God appears to have been the tree of life.

oligh de keisomesqa

koniv, ostewn luqentwn.

Anac. Od. 4., v. 9.

“We shall lie down as a small portion of dust, our bones being dissolved.”

Verse 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread — His business, before he sinned, was a constant pleasure to him; but now his labour shall be a weariness. Unto dust shalt thou return — Thy body shall be forsaken by thy soul, and become itself a lump of dust, and then it shall be lodged in the grave, and mingle with the dust of the earth.

19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread — Not only shall the sweat oppress thee in thy toil, but even when thou sittest to eat bread, it shall appear on thy face. “This sentence includes all the sorrows, pains, and sweating toils to which men are subject in gaining a livelihood.” — Jacobus. “No man eats bread but by the sweat of some man’s face.” — Conant. Dust thou art, (Genesis 2:7) and unto dust shalt thou return — Excluded from the garden and the tree of life, man must, sooner or later, suffer bodily dissolution. He may live nine hundred and thirty years, (Genesis 5:5,) but the death will surely come. The perfection and vigour of the first man may reasonably be believed to have been the cause of patriarchal longevity. The vigour of the race gradually deteriorated until human life rarely continued beyond a hundred years. See note introductory to chapter 5.

V. 20. God having named the man, and called him Adam, which signifies red earth, he in farther token of dominion named the woman, and called her Eve-That is, life. Adam bears the name of the dying body, Eve of the living soul. The reason of the name is here given, some think by Moses the historian, others by Adam himself,

because she was-That is, was to be the mother of all living. He had called her Isha, woman, before, as a wife; here he calls her Evah, life, as a mother. Now, 1. If this was done by divine direction, it was an instance of God’s favour, and, like the new naming of Abraham and Sarah, it was a seal of the covenant, and an assurance to them, that notwithstanding their sin, he had not reversed that blessing wherewith he had blessed them, Be fruitful and multiply: it was likewise a confirmation of the promise now made, that the seed of the woman, of this woman, should break the serpent’s head. 2. If Adam did of himself, it was an instance of his faith in the word of God.

Verse 20. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.] A man who does not understand the original cannot possibly comprehend the reason of what is said here. What has the word Eve to do with being the mother of all living? Our translators often follow the Septuagint; it is a pity they had not done so here, as the Septuagint translation is literal and correct: kai ekalesen adam to onoma thv gunaikov autou zwh, oti mhthr pantwn twn zwntwn “And Adam called his wife’s name Life, because she was the mother of all the living.” This is a proper and faithful representation of the Hebrew text, for the hwj Chavvah of the original, which we have corrupted into Eve, a word destitute of all meaning, answers exactly to the zwh of the Septuagint, both signifying life; as does also the Hebrew yj chai to the Greek zwntwn, both of which signify the living.

It is probable that God designed by this name to teach our first parents these two important truths: 1. That though they had merited immediate death, yet they should be respited, and the accomplishment of the sentence be long delayed; they should be spared to propagate a numerous progeny on the earth. 2. That though much misery would be entailed on his posterity, and death should have a long and universal empire, yet ONE should in the fulness of time spring from the woman, who should destroy death, and bring life and immortality to light, 2Ti 1:10. Therefore Adam called his wife’s name Life, because she was to be the mother of all human beings, and because she was to be the mother of HIM who was to give life to a world dead in trespasses, and dead in sins, Ephesians 2:1, &c.

Verse 20. God having named the man, and called him Adam, which signifies red earth; Adam, in further token of dominion, named the woman, and called her Eve, that is, life. Thus Adam bears the name of the dying body, Eve, of the living soul. Though for her sin she was justly sentenced to a present death, yet, by God’s infinite mercy, and by virtue of the promised seed, she was both continued in life herself, and made the mother of all living. Adam had before called her Isha, woman, as a wife; here he calls her Evah, life, as a mother. Now, 1st, If this name were given her by divine direction, it was an instance of God’s favour, and, like the new naming of Abraham and Sarah, it was a seal of the covenant, and an assurance to them, that, notwithstanding their sin, he had not reversed that blessing wherewith he had blessed them. Be fruitful and multiply. It was likewise a confirmation of the promise now made, that the seed of the woman, of this woman, should break the serpent’s head. 2d, If Adam did it of himself, it was an instance of his faith in the word of God.

20. Eve… the mother of all living — The account of man’s original sin concludes with four statements too important and suggestive to have been accidental. The new naming of the woman, (comp. Genesis 2:23,) the first clothing, the expulsion from the garden of Eden, and the two sacred symbols placed at the gate, are full of significance. The name Eve, hwj, Hhavvah, from the intensive stem hyj, signifies life-spring, or quickener of life. Given in the very face of the death foreshadowed by the penal sentence, it seems to have arisen from Adam’s faith in the promise that the woman’s Seed should wound the serpent’s head. In Genesis 2:23 he named her Woman, in view of her origin; here he names her Eve, in view of her hopeful destiny.

V. 21. These coats of skin had a significancy. The beasts whose skins they were, must be slain; slain before their eyes to shew them what death is. And probably ‘tis supposed they were slain for sacrifice, to typify the great sacrifice which in the latter end of the world should be offered once for all. Thus the first thing that died was a sacrifice, or Christ in a figure.

Verse 21. God made coats of skins] It is very likely that the skins out of which their clothing was made were taken off animals whose blood had been poured out as a sin-offering to God; for as we find Cain and Abel offering sacrifices to God, we may fairly presume that God had given them instructions on this head; nor is it likely that the notion of a sacrifice could have ever occurred to the mind of man without an express revelation from God. Hence we may safely infer, 1. That as Adam and Eve needed this clothing as soon as they fell, and death had not as yet made any ravages in the animal world, it is most likely that the skins were taken off victims offered under the direction of God himself, and in faith of HIM who, in the fulness of time, was to make an atonement by his death. And it seems reasonable also that this matter should be brought about in such a way that Satan and death should have no triumph, when the very first death that took place in the world was an emblem and type of that death which should conquer Satan, destroy his empire, reconcile God to man, convert man to God, sanctify human nature, and prepare it for heaven.

Verse 21. Unto Adam and his wife did God make — By his own word, or by the ministry of angels; coats of skins — Of beasts slain, either to show them what death is, or rather, as is more probable, in sacrifice to God, to prefigure the great sacrifice which, in the latter days, should be offered once for all. Thus the first animal that died was a sacrifice, or Christ in a figure. God clothed them: 1st, to defend them from the heat and cold, and other injuries of the air to which they were now to be exposed: 2d, to remind them of their fall, which had made that nakedness, which was before innocent and honourable, an occasion of sin and shame, and therefore it needed a covering. God also, by this act of kindness, probably intended to show his care even of fallen man, to encourage his hopes of mercy through a Mediator, and thereby to invite him to repentance.

21. Coats of skins — To procure these, animals must have been slain, and this was probably done by the man in accordance with a divine commandment. With much reason, therefore, have Christian divines believed that this was the origin of sacrifices, the offering of blood as an atonement for the soul. Comp. Leviticus 17:11. Possibly these animals were slain for food, but Genesis 9:3, taken in connexion with Genesis 1:29, 30, has been thought to imply that animal food was not used by man before the flood. The covering of skins might have been an appropriate object-lesson to enforce the deeper lesson of the covering of guilt by the shedding of vicarious blood. Only by symbol could this deep lesson be then set forth.

V. 22. Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil-See what he has got, what advantages, by eating forbidden fruit! This is said to humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sin and folly, that seeing themselves thus wretchedly deceived by following the devil’s counsel, they might henceforth pursue the happiness God offers, in the way he prescribes.

Verse 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 hyh 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, to the knowledge of the good, by his transgression the knowledge of the evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever in this miserable state, I will remove him, and guard the place lest he should re-enter. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,” &c. This seems to be the most natural sense of the place. Some suppose that his removal from the tree of life was in mercy, to prevent a second temptation. He before imagined that he could gain an increase of wisdom by eating of the tree of knowledge, and Satan would be disposed to tempt him to endeavour to elude the sentence of death, by eating of the tree of life. Others imagine that the words are spoken ironically, and that the Most High intended by a cutting taunt, to upbraid the poor culprit for his offence, because he broke the Divine command in the expectation of being like God to know good from evil; and now that he had lost all the good that God had designed for him, and got nothing but evil in its place, therefore God taunts him for the total miscarriage of his project. But God is ever consistent with himself; and surely his infinite pity prohibited the use of either sarcasm or irony, in speaking of so dreadful a catastrophe, that was in the end to occasion the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and passion, the death and burial, of Him in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, Colossians 2:9.

In Genesis 1:26,27, we have seen man in the perfection of his nature, the dignity of his office, and the plenitude of his happiness. Here we find the same creature, but stripped of his glories and happiness, so that the word man no longer conveys the same ideas it did before. Man and intellectual excellence were before so intimately connected as to appear inseparable; man and misery are now equally so. In our nervous mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon, we have found the word [A.S.] God signifying, not only the Supreme Being, but also good or goodness; and it is worthy of especial note that the word [A.S.] man, in the same language, is used to express, not only the human being so called, both male and female, but also mischief, wickedness, fraud, deceit, and villany. Thus a simple monosyllable, still in use among us in its first sense, conveyed at once to the minds of our ancestors the two following particulars: 1. The human being in his excellence, capable of knowing, loving, and glorifying his Maker. 2. The human being in his fallen state, capable of and committing all kinds of wickedness. “Obiter hic notandum,” says old Mr. Somner in his Saxon Dictionary, “venit, [A.S.] Saxonibus et DEUM significasse et BONUM: uti [A.S.] et hominem et nequitiam.

Here it is to be noted, that among the Saxons the term GOD signified both the Divine Being and goodness, as the word man signified both the human being and wickedness.” This is an additional proof that our Saxon ancestors both thought and spoke at the same time, which, strange as it may appear, is not a common case: their words in general are not arbitrary signs; but as far as sounds can convey the ideal meaning of things, their words do it; and they are so formed and used as necessarily to bring to view the nature and proper ties of those things of which they are the signs. In this sense the Anglo-Saxon is inferior only to the Hebrew.

Verse 22. The Lord God said — In his own eternal mind: Behold, the man is become as one of us — See what he has got, what advantages, by eating forbidden fruit! This is said to humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sin and folly, that, seeing themselves thus wretchedly deceived by following the devil’s counsel, they might henceforth pursue the happiness God offered, in the way he prescribed.

Here is another evident proof of a plurality of persons or subsistences in the Godhead. Compare Genesis 1:26, and 11:7. If it be said that God speaks this of himself and the angels, it must be replied that no mention has yet been made of the angels, and that it is unreasonable to think that the great God should level himself with angels, and give them, as the expression intimates, a kind of equality with himself.

Lest he take also of the tree of life — The sentence is defective, and, it seems, must be supplied thus: Care must be taken, and man must be banished hence, lest he take of the tree of life, as he took of the tree of knowledge, and thereby profane that sacrament of eternal life, and persuade himself that he shall live for ever. To prevent this, (verse 23,) the Lord God sent him forth — Expelled him with shame and violence; from the garden of Eden — So as never to restore him to that earthly paradise.

22. As one of us, to know good and evil — The plural form of expression is the so-called plural of majesty, as in Genesis 1:26. Some, however, imagine that the angels are here addressed. The likeness is defined and limited by the words, to know good and evil, and this entire utterance of Jehovah Elohim is a solemn declaration of judgment. The allusion to the serpent’s words, in verse 5, is too marked to be denied, and hence we may allow that this word of the Lord contains an element of irony. This opinion is not to be set aside by the assertion that irony, at the expense of a fallen soul, would befit Satan rather than Jehovah. The irony is an element of the penal judgment, and as Goeschell (quoted in Lange) well observes, “a divine irony is everywhere the second stage in all divine acts of punishment.” Lange himself thus paraphrases: “He is become like God; true, alas! God pity him! He knows now, in his guilty consciousness, the difference between good and evil.” God, in his infinite holiness and wisdom, possesses absolute knowledge of good and evil, but not by participation in the evil. By a perfect knowledge and possession of good, sinning is with him immutably impossible. Hebrews 6:18. Man should have attained like knowledge in a normal way, not by an opening of his eyes through disobedience. Compare note on Genesis 2:17. Take also of the tree of life — The word also does not necessarily imply “that the man had not yet eaten of the tree of life,” (Keil,) nor are we to suppose that once eating of the fruit of that tree would secure exemption from death. Often, during his sojourn in Eden, might he have eaten of that tree. But now, lest by continuing to eat he maintain himself in immortal vigour, he must be excluded from the garden, and allowed no access to the tree of life.

V. 23. He sent him forth-Bid him go out, told him he should no longer occupy and enjoy that garden; but he was not willing to part with it.

23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth — The divine utterance in the previous verse was impressively left unfinished, a notable example of aposiopesis. The writer here passes abruptly to state what immediately followed the penal sentence, as if unwilling to express the awful words of the Judge. To till the ground from whence he was taken — His toilsome labour in the dust is to be a constant reminder both of his bodily origin and of his future dissolution. Compare verse 19.

V. 24. God drove him out-This signified the exclusion of him and his guilty race from that communion with God which was the bliss and glory of paradise. But whether did he send him when he turned him out of Eden? He might justly have chased him out of the world, Job 18:18, but he only chased him out of the garden: he might justly have cast him down to hell, as the angels that sinned were, when they were shut out from the heavenly paradise, 2 Peter 2:4, but man was only sent to till the ground out of which he was taken. He was only sent to a place of toil, not to a place of torment. He was sent to the ground, not to the grave; to the work-house, not to the dungeon, not to the prison-house; to hold the plough, not to drag the chain: his tilling the ground would be recompensed by his eating its fruits; and his converse with the earth, whence he was taken, was improveable to good purposes, to keep him humble, and to mind him of his latter end. Observe then, That though our first parents were excluded from the privileges of their state of innocency, yet they were not abandoned to despair; God’s thoughts of love designing them for a second state of probation upon new terms.

And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, a detachment of cherubim, armed with a dreadful and irresistible power, represented by flaming swords which turned every way, on that side the garden which lay next to the place whither Adam was sent, to keep the way that led to the tree of life.

Verse 24. So he drove out the man] Three things are noted here: 1. God’s displeasure against sinful man, evidenced by his expelling him from this place of blessedness; 2. Man’s unfitness for the place, of which he had rendered himself unworthy by his ingratitude and transgression; and, 3. His reluctance to leave this place of happiness. He was, as we may naturally conclude, unwilling to depart, and God drove him out.

He placed at the east] מכדם mikkedem, or before the garden of Eden, before what may be conceived its gate or entrance; Cherubims, הכרבים hakkerubim, THE cherubim. Hebrew plurals in the masculine end in general in im: to add an s to this when we introduce such words into English, is very improper; therefore the word should be written cherubim, not cherubims. But what were these? They are utterly unknown. Conjectures and guesses relative to their nature and properties are endless. Several think them to have been emblematical representations of the sacred Trinity, and bring reasons and scriptures in support of their opinion; but as I am not satisfied that this opinion is correct, I will not trouble the reader with it. From the description in Exodus 26:1,31; 1 Kings 6:29,32; 2 Chronicles 3:14, it appears that the cherubs were sometimes represented with two faces, namely, those of a lion and of a man; but from Ezekiel 1:5, &c.;Ezekiel 10:20,21, we find that they had four faces and four wings; the faces were those of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle; but it seems there was but one body to these heads. The two-faced cherubs were such as were represented on the curtains and veil of the tabernacle, and on the wall, doors, and veil of the temple; those with four faces appeared only in the holy of holies.

The word brk or bwrk kerub never appears as a verb in the Hebrew Bible, and therefore is justly supposed to be a word compounded of k ke a particle of resemblance, like to, like as, and br rab, he was great, powerful, &c. Hence it is very likely that the cherubs, to whatever order of beings they belonged, were emblems of the ALL-MIGHTY, and were those creatures by whom he produced the great effects of his power. The word br rab is a character of the Most High, Proverbs 26:10: The great God who formed all; and again in Psalm 48:2, where he is called the Great King, br Ëlm melech rab. But though this is rarely applied as a character of the Supreme Being in the Hebrew Bible, yet it is a common appellative of the Deity in the Arabic language. [Arabic] rab, and [Arabic] rab’ulalameen Lord of both worlds, or, Lord of the universe, are expressions repeatedly used to point out the almighty energy and supremacy of God. On this ground, I suppose, the cherubim were emblematical representations of the eternal power and Godhead of the Almighty. These angelic beings were for a time employed in guarding the entrance to Paradise, and keeping the way of or road to the tree of life. This, I say, for a time; for it is very probable that God soon removed the tree of life, and abolished the garden, so that its situation could never after be positively ascertained.

By the flaming sword turning every way, or flame folding back upon itself, we may understand the formidable appearances which these cherubim assumed, in order to render the passage to the tree of life inaccessible. Thus terminates this most awful tragedy; a tragedy in which all the actors are slain, in which the most awful murders are committed, and the whole universe ruined! The serpent, so called, is degraded; the woman cursed with pains, miseries, and a subjection to the will of her husband, which was never originally designed; the man, the lord of this lower world, doomed to incessant labour and toil; and the earth itself cursed with comparative barrenness! To complete all, the garden of pleasure is interdicted, and this man, who was made after the image of God, and who would be like him, shamefully expelled from a place where pure spirits alone could dwell. Yet in the midst of wrath God remembers mercy, and a promise of redemption from this degraded and cursed state is made to them through HIM who, in the fulness of time, is to be made flesh, and who, by dying for the sin of the world, shall destroy the power of Satan, and deliver all who trust in the merit of his sacrifice from the power, guilt, and nature of sin, and thus prepare them for the celestial Paradise at the right hand of God. Reader, hast thou repented of thy sin? for often hast thou sinned after the similitude of thy ancestor’s transgression. Hast thou sought and found redemption in the blood of the Lamb? Art thou saved from a disposition which led thy first parents to transgress? Art thou living a life of dependence on thy Creator, and of faith and loving obedience to him who died for thee? Wilt thou live under the curse, and die eternally? God forbid! Return to him with all thy soul, and receive this exhortation as a call from his mercy. To what has already been said on the awful contents of this chapter, I can add little that can either set it in a clearer light, or make its solemn subject more impressive. We see here that by the subtlety and envy of the devil sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and we find that death reigned, not only from Adam to Moses, but from Moses to the present day. Flow abominable must sin be in the sight of God, when it has not only defaced his own image from the soul of man, but has also become a source of natural and moral evil throughout every part of the globe! Disruption and violence appear in every part of nature; vice, profligacy, and misery, through all the tribes of men and orders of society. It is true that where sin hath abounded, there grace doth much more abound; but men shut their eyes against the light, and harden their hearts against the truth. Sin, which becomes propagated into the world by natural generation, growing with the growth and strengthening with the strength of man, would be as endless in its duration, as unlimited in its influence, did not God check and restrain it by his grace, and cut off its extending influence in the incorrigibly wicked by means of death. How wonderful is the economy of God! That which entered into the world as one of the prime fruits and effects of sin, is now an instrument in his hands to prevent the extension of its contagion. If men, now so greatly multiplied on the earth, and fertile in mischievous inventions, were permitted to live nearly a thousand years, as in the ancient world, to mature and perfect their infectious and destructive counsels, what a sum of iniquity and ruin would the face of the earth present! Even while they are laying plans to extend the empire of death, God, by the very means of death itself, prevents the completion of their pernicious and diabolic designs. Thus what man, by his wilful obstinacy does not permit grace to correct and restrain, God, by his sovereign power, brings in death to control. It is on this ground that wicked and blood-thirsty men live not out half their days; and what a mercy to the world that it is so! They who will not submit to the sceptre of mercy shall be broken in pieces by the rod of iron. Reader, provoke not the Lord to displeasure; thou art not stronger than he. Grieve not his Spirit, provoke him not to destroy thee; why shouldst thou die before thy time? Thou hast sinned much, and needest every moment of thy short life to make thy calling and election sure. Shouldst thou provoke God, by thy perseverance in iniquity, to cut thee off by death before this great work is done, better for thee thou hadst never been born!

How vain are all attempts to attain immortality here! For some thousands of years men have been labouring to find out means to prevent death; and some have even boasted that they had found out a medicine capable of preserving life for ever, by resisting all the attacks of disease, and incessantly repairing all the wastes of the human machine. That is, the alchymistic philosophers would have the world to believe that they had found out a private passage to the tree of immortality; but their own deaths, in the common order of nature, as well as the deaths of the millions which make no such pretensions, are not only a sufficient confutation of their baseless systems, but also a continual proof that the cherubim, with their flaming swords, are turning every way to keep the passage of the tree of life. Life and immortality are, however, brought to light by the Gospel; and he only who keepeth the sayings of the Son of God shall live for ever. Though the body is dead-consigned to death, because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness; and on those who are influenced by this Spirit of righteousness, the second death shall have no power! GENESIS

Verse 24. So he drove out the man — This signified the exclusion of him and his guilty race from that communion with God which was the bliss and glory of paradise. But whither did he send him when he turned him out of Eden? He might justly have chased him out of the world, Job 18:18; but he only chased him out of the garden: he might justly have cast him down to hell, as the angels that sinned were, when they were shut out from the heavenly paradise, 2 Peter 2:4; but man was only sent to till the ground out of which he was taken. He was only sent to a place of toil, not to a place of torment. He was sent to the ground, not to the grave; to the workhouse, not to the dungeon, not to the prison-house; to hold the plough, not to drag the chain: his tilling the ground would be recompensed by his eating its fruits; and his converse with the earth, whence he was taken, was improvable to good purposes, to keep him humble, and to remind him of his latter end. Observe, then, that though our first parents were excluded from the privileges of their state of innocence, yet they were not abandoned to despair; God’s thoughts of love designed them for a second state of probation upon new terms. And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, a detachment of cherubim, armed with a dreadful and irresistible power, represented by flaming swords which turned every way — On that side the garden which lay next to the place whither Adam was sent, to keep the way that led to the tree of life.

24. Cherubim, and a flaming sword — More accurately the Revised Version: the cherubim, and the flame of a sword. There is nothing in this narrative to assure us that these cherubim were “real creatures, and not mere symbols.” (Murphy.) Their introduction into a history of what was real does not prove that they, any more than the flaming sword, were real creatures. Rather, both cherubim and sword were significant symbols placed at the east of the garden of Eden, in sight of our first parents, (as Moses lifted up a brazen serpent in view of penitent Israel, Numbers 21:9,) and adapted to inculcate some important fact or lesson of divine revelation, The flame of the sword — probably a flame of fire in the form of a sword — would have served as a symbol of divine justice to intensify the certainty of retributive judgment on every transgressor. Such a spectacle, turning to and fro before the eyes of the first man, was a significant “object lesson” to inspire holy fear of God, the righteous Judge. In connexion with the words of promise (verse 15) and the doctrine of sacrifice and atonement, (verse 21, note,) it was necessary to impress the lesson that the Justifier must himself be just. See Romans 3:26. But what was the appearance of the cherubim, and what did they signify? In Ezekiel 1:5-14, they are represented as “living creatures,” combining the four highest types of animal life, namely, man, lion, ox, and eagle, and moving in closest connexion with the mystic wheels of divine providence and judgment. Ezekiel 1:15-21. Over their heads was enthroned the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah. Ezekiel 1:26-28. In Revelation 4:6-8, they appear also as living creatures “in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne,” and the New Testament seer combines with them some features peculiar to the seraphim of Isaiah 6:2, 3. These latter seem to have been the same in the heavenly temple as the cherubim were in the temple and tabernacle. Moses was commanded to make two cherubim of gold, and place them in the holy of holies, one at each end of the mercy-seat, with their faces toward each other, and their wings spread out over the mercy-seat. Exodus 25:18-20. Hence Jehovah was thought of as dwelling with, or sitting upon, the cherubim. 1 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 6:2; Psalm 80:1; 99:1; Isaiah 37:16. Whatever the various import of these composite figures, we should observe that they everywhere appear in most intimate relation to the glory of God, and to be filled with intensity of life. As now the flaming sword symbolized the righteous judgment of God and proclaimed his fearful justice, so, on the other hand, the cherubim were suggestive symbols of the eternal life and heavenly glory to be secured to man through the mystery of redemption. Their composite form would serve to illustrate the immanence and intense activity of God in all created life — an incarnation or embodiment of divine life in earthly form, by which all that was lost in Eden might be restored to heavenly places in Christ. Thus the Edenic symbols were a grand apocalypse, revealing the glorious truth that man, redeemed and filled with the Spirit, shall again have power over the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. Comp. Revelation 2:7, and 22:14. Though of composite form, and representing the highest kinds of creature-life on earth, those symbols had pre-eminently the likeness of a man. Ezekiel 1:5. Jehovah is the God of the living, and has about the throne of his glory the highest symbols of life. So at the gate of Eden and in the holy of holies, the cherubim were signs and pledges that in the ages to come, having made peace through the blood of the cross, God would “reconcile all things unto himself,” whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens, (Colossians 1:20,) and sanctify them in his glory. Exodus 29:43. The redeemed are to “reign in life” through Jesus Christ. Romans 5:17. It is significant, therefore, that these prophetic symbols were set to keep the way of the tree of life. That way was not to be closed up forever. It was guarded both by justice and love, and will be until the work of redemption becomes complete, and “there shall be no more curse.” Revelation 22:3. Then the redeemed of Adam’s race, having washed their robes, shall have the right to come to the tree of life, and shall “enter through the gates into the city.” Revelation 22:14. The New Testament vision of new heavens and new earth, and New Jerusalem, are but a fuller revelation of what was shown in symbol at the east of the garden of Eden. The whole earth shall become a blessed Eden, (comp. Micah 4:1-5,) the holy city shall, like the happy garden, become its holy of holies, into which fallen man, having washed his robes, shall freely enter, for then, in the highest reality, “the tabernacle of God” shall be “with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 21:3, 4. It is significant, that in the New Testament Apocalypse no cherubim appear about the throne of God and the Lamb. For the mere symbols of redeemed humanity are supplanted by the innumerable multitude in blood-washed robes, (comp. Revelation 7:9-17,) from whom the curse has been removed, and who take the places of the cherubim and seraphim about the throne, behold the glory of Christ, (comp. John 17:24,) look upon the face of God and the Lamb, act as his servants, and have his name upon their foreheads. Revelation 22:3, 4. So the New Testament Apocalypse completes what the one at the garden of Eden but dimly foreshadowed.

CONCLUDING NOTE ON GENESIS 3.

This third chapter of Genesis presents a number of the most mysterious questions occurring to the mind of man, but it does not solve the mysteries. We recognise in it four elements of symbolic revelation. We may well hesitate to interpret all its statements in their extreme realistic and literal sense, but we may at the same time perceive that this unique narrative deals with momentous facts, not with fancies. “It is just as little a mere allegory,” says Lange, “as the human race itself is a mere allegory.” In its descriptions and manifold suggestions it is in harmony with the deepest experiences of the human heart, and with all other lessons of divine revelation. Among its lessons we note the following:

1. The problem of moral evil is connected with a spiritual world, and with a demoniacal being, who had become sinful and malicious before man appeared. Already God’s universe was somewhere dark with hell. How evil entered — when and where the tempter first appeared — are questions which this Scripture suggests but does not answer. That sin originated in an abuse of moral freedom is implied in this account of man’s first sin. That the tempter was in fact a personal evil nature, acting in the guise of a serpent, appears from later revelations of Scripture. See especially John 8:44, and Revelation 12:9. That the old serpent, the devil, is chief of legions of like demoniac beings appears from the New Testament, and there is no good reason for believing that this doctrine of evil spirits was first learned by the Jews in the land of their exile.

2. The wiles of the devil notably appear in the craft with which he tempted Eve; and his threefold appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the lust of power, (see note on verse 6,) are strikingly analogous to the three temptations of our Lord. The credibility of this ancient narrative is confirmed by this fidelity of its description to the manifold experiences of men in the midst of foul temptation. As human nature is ever the same in its weakness and exposure, so the wiles of the old adversary continue the same from age to age.

3. But whilst Satan has mysteriously obtruded himself into the realm of human life and experience, so, on the other hand, a merciful but righteous God has, by many supernatural theophanies, revealed himself to man. His interposition is for the purpose of crushing the old serpent’s head. The enmity will be exhibited through ages of conflict. Satan will be permitted to reveal himself with all variety of power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness, (2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10;) but, on the other hand, the mystery of God in Christ will also be revealed by many miraculous signs, and by symbolic revelations adapted to cheer and strengthen those who look for redemption. The benevolent Creator adapts himself to the wants of his creatures, and gradually unfolds a revelation of infinite wisdom and worth. So far from acceding to the rationalistic assumption that the miraculous in human history is impossible and incredible, we rather assume the opposite, suggested by this narrative of man’s original estate and first sin — that, to overcome the evil one, miraculous interposition of a stronger than Satan is to be expected. And so all the theophanies and all the miracles recorded in the ancient Scriptures are but a fitting preparation for the incarnation and redeeming work of the Son of God. In keeping with this it is notable that the two impressive symbols revealed at the gate of Paradise embody the substance of all subsequent Scripture revelation.

4. How far man’s original sin affected the physical creation may be left an open question. The ground was cursed for man’s sake, (verses 17, 18,) and some have thought that all suffering of animals is a consequence of human sin. Here, however, we should proceed with great caution. Decay and death in the vegetable and animal world appeared long before the creation of man, as the fossil rocks abundantly declare. The passage in Romans 8:19-21, even if understood of the animal creation, does not affirm that the subjection to suffering was a penalty or consequence of man’s sin. Many things have been made a curse to man; thorns and thistles, cold and heat, pestilence and famine, ravenous beasts and destructive insects, have scourged the sons of Adam. But while these facts abundantly confirm the word spoken in verses 17 and 18, there is no proof that any part of the physical or animal world suffered change on account of man’s sin. So the serpent’s form and man’s nakedness were made a curse, but not by undergoing any natural or physical change.

But while we may deny that suffering and death in the animal creation are a consequence of man’s sin, we may well hesitate to affirm that they are in no way whatever a consequence of sin. The existence of the Satanic tempter suggests that sin was in the world before God planted the garden of Eden. We may even venture the statement that before a serpent appeared among “the beasts of the field,” “that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan,” was abroad in the world. But whether the first sin known in the universe of God originated with Satan we may not affirm. As little do we know what havoc and disorder had been previously introduced into creation by wicked “principalities and powers.” Ephesians 6:12. This we do know, that sin spreads ruin and death in the moral world, and, reigning in the spirit of man, it affects his body also, and subjects him to manifold miseries. Who can say how far sin and rebellion in mighty spirits of wickedness in the heavenly regions (Ephesians 6:12) may have had to do in subjecting the creation of God to suffering and death? We know also that,in the gracious economy of our heavenly Father, suffering and tribulation are made to serve a wise disciplinary purpose, and to work for us an eternal glory. 2 Corinthians 4:17. The rich depths of divine wisdom and knowledge are too great for our understanding, (Romans 11:33;) and, for aught we know, the power of Christ’s mediation may so extend to “things in the heavens” (Colossians 1:20) as to reconcile disorders and mischiefs introduced by sin before the foundation of this earth.