In our study of Genesis, we have come to chapter 3 and the account of the fall of man. This is where Satan, working through the serpent, tempts Adam and Eve to follow his counsel rather than God’s command.

The passage opens with these words:

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’”

That first question is important. The serpent’s purpose was clearly to introduce doubt into Eve’s mind. He wanted her to reconsider what God had actually said. Notice also how he framed the question. He made it sound as though God had forbidden all the trees of the garden, as though God were withholding everything from them.

Eve immediately corrected him. She replied that they were free to eat from the trees of the garden except for one. Concerning the tree in the midst of the garden, she said:

“God said, you shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.”

That raises an interesting observation. God had not said anything about touching the tree. Eve had not been present when God originally gave Adam the command regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam had received that instruction directly.

I have sometimes wondered whether Adam, in explaining God’s command to Eve, may have added something similar to what parents often say to children. When something is dangerous, parents sometimes tell a child not merely to avoid it but to stay completely away from it. Perhaps Adam had done something like that. Or perhaps Eve herself concluded that avoiding the tree entirely would be wise. Scripture does not tell us, so we cannot be certain. What is clear is that the serpent approached the woman with his question and began to challenge God’s word.

The Tree in the Midst of the Garden

When Eve refers to the tree in the midst of the garden, it is worth remembering something from Genesis 2.

There we are told:

“Out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food, and the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was there as well. Yet Eve’s attention had become fixed on the forbidden tree rather than on the tree of life.

The serpent then directly contradicted God:

“You surely will not die.”

In Hebrew, emphasis is often created by repeating a word. Rather than saying “surely,” the language intensifies the statement by repeating the idea. In English it might be written like this: “Dying you will not die!” The serpent was emphatically denying God’s warning.

Then he added:

“God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

At first glance, that sounds like a complete lie. Yet later in the chapter, after the fall, God says:

“Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil.”

That does not mean Satan was telling the truth in a righteous way, but it does show that there was a sense in which Adam and Eve gained a knowledge they had not previously possessed. They came to know both good and evil. The tragedy is that such knowledge was not a blessing.

The Pattern of Temptation

Verse 6 describes Eve’s response to the temptation:

“Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise.”

Three observations are given.

The tree was good for food.

It was a delight to the eyes.

It was desirable to make one wise.

That reminds me of what John wrote in 1 John 2:16. There he describes the world system and the ways in which it appeals to fallen humanity:

“The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.”

The same pattern seems to be present here.

The fruit appeared good for food. That relates to the desires of the flesh. Desire itself is not necessarily sinful. God created us with desires. We see food and want to eat. That is normal. The problem comes when those desires are stretched beyond God’s boundaries and become sinful.

The fruit was also a delight to the eyes. Satan regularly works through what we see. The world system Satan has constructed constantly appeals to our eyes. Advertisements, entertainment, and countless other influences are built around that reality.

Finally, the tree was desirable to make one wise. There is an appeal to pride there, a promise of gaining something, becoming something, rising above one’s present condition.

We talked about how Satan later tempted Jesus in the wilderness. One temptation involved food after forty days of fasting. Another involved offering Him the kingdoms of the world. While we may not be able to fit every detail neatly into categories, the same kinds of temptations appear repeatedly throughout Scripture and throughout life.

These are things worth recognizing as we face temptation ourselves.

The First Response to Sin

After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, Scripture says:

“The eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

Immediately they became aware of their condition. They felt vulnerable. They knew they had disobeyed God, and their first instinct was to cover themselves.

Then came one of the most striking moments in the chapter.

“They heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”

The expression literally refers to the breeze of the day, likely the morning breeze that comes as the day begins. When they heard Him coming, Adam and Eve hid themselves among the trees. I suspect this was not the first time God had come to meet with them. God has always desired fellowship with His people. He wanted to be with them.

That is important to remember. When sin entered the world, God could have immediately destroyed Adam and Eve. Instead, He showed mercy. He allowed them to live. He allowed them to have children. He continued His purposes through them.

The same pattern appears later in the days of Noah. God judged the world, but Noah found grace in His eyes.

God is merciful, and He desires fellowship with His people.

“Where Are You?”

God called to Adam and said:

“Where are you?”

Obviously God knew where they were.

One possibility is that He asked the question for their benefit. He wanted them to know He was seeking them.

Another possibility comes from the way we sometimes use similar language. Suppose you always hang your car keys on the same rack. One day you place them somewhere else. When you go looking for them, you say, “Where are my keys?” You do not mean they are lost forever. You mean they are not where they are supposed to be. Perhaps there is something of that idea here. Adam and Eve were not where they ought to have been.

Adam answered:

“I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

I find it interesting that he did not say he was ashamed. He said he was afraid. Fear had entered the relationship.

God had warned them that death would result from disobedience. Adam and Eve had never seen death. They may not have fully understood what it meant, but they knew they had violated God’s command and they feared the consequences.

God then asked:

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten the tree which I commanded you not to eat?”

Immediately the blame-shifting began.

Adam answered:

“The woman you gave me to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.”

He managed to point in two directions at once. The woman was responsible, and God was responsible for giving him the woman. We do that sometimes, don’t we? We blame God for the circumstances we’re in, and those circumstances may have been caused by our decisions.

God then turned to Eve.

She answered:

“The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

She acknowledged that she had been deceived, but she also shifted responsibility to the serpent.

The Curse on the Serpent

God then addressed the serpent.

Because of what he had done, he would be cursed above the animals and would crawl on his belly and eat dust all the days of his life.

Then comes a remarkable prophecy:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.”

There would be hostility between the serpent and the woman’s offspring.

Ultimately this points forward to Christ, who would come as a descendant of Eve.

In Hebrew the same word is used in both parts of the statement – the bruising of the head and the bruising of the heel. The difference is not in the action itself but in where the blow lands. A crushing blow to the heel is not normally fatal. A crushing blow to the head is.

Satan would strike at Christ, and Christ would ultimately crush Satan.

The attempt made against Christ did not succeed. Christ’s victory did.

The Woman and Her Husband

God then turned to Eve and said:

“Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.”

To understand that statement, it helps to compare it with Genesis 4.

There God warned Cain:

“Sin is lying at the door and its desire is for you, but you shall rule over it.”

The structure of the language is essentially the same.

Sin desired to control Cain, but Cain was responsible to rule over it.

In Genesis 3, the woman’s desire is said to be for her husband, and he is said to rule over her.

I understand this in light of the relationship God originally established between man and woman. Earlier in Genesis, the woman was created as a suitable helper for the man. I compared that idea to a stepladder. One side supports the other. The support stands opposite the climbing side, yet it exists for the benefit of the whole structure.

A wife was created to help and support her husband. Sometimes that support may involve disagreement or caution. A husband may be moving too quickly in some direction, and a wise wife may help him think more carefully. A husband can do the same for his wife.

The problem described here is not healthy support. It is conflict within the relationship.

The man may abuse his role by becoming harsh, bossy, or dictatorial.

The woman may push against his leadership in ways that undermine and subvert it. In doing so she may step out of her legitimate role as a supportive helper and become competitor for leadership.

That tension becomes part of the curse.

God had given leadership responsibility to the man, but now the relationship would be marked by struggle instead of harmony.

Pain, Childbearing, and the Effects of the Fall

Before speaking of the relationship between husband and wife, God said:

“I will greatly multiply your pain and conception.”

I had not thought much about that phrase before studying it. One possibility is that the language simply combines conception and childbirth into a single idea. The whole process would now be marked by pain and difficulty.

Another possibility relates to the dramatic changes brought about by the fall.

Before sin entered the world, people were apparently intended to live indefinitely. Even after the fall, the earliest generations lived extraordinarily long lives.

There would have been no need for childbearing to be concentrated into a relatively brief span of years. But once lifespans began to shorten, the command to be fruitful and multiply had to be fulfilled within a much narrower timeframe.

The fall also introduced sickness, miscarriage, and death into human experience.

Whether the phrase refers simply to the pain associated with childbirth or to the broader difficulties connected with conception and bearing children in a fallen world, the point is clear: the whole process would now be harder because of sin.

The consequences of the fall would touch every area of life, including marriage, family, and the bearing of children.

The next section of Genesis turns to Adam and to the curse placed upon the ground itself, but that takes us beyond the passage we considered during this session.

*Some articles on this publication or website are adapted from my recorded Bible teaching. I use transcription and editing tools (including AI-assisted editing) to convert spoken lectures into readable written form. The ideas, interpretations, and theological conclusions are my own and come directly from my teaching.