Genesis 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The serpent asks the woman about God's command, and tells her she will not die; she eats fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden and gives some to her husband, and he eats. Their eyes are opened, they cover themselves and hide, and the LORD God questions them, then speaks in turn to the serpent, the woman, and the man. God makes clothes of skins for the couple, says the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil, and sends him out of the garden to work the ground. Cherubim and a flaming sword are placed on the east side of the garden to guard the way to the tree of life.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field.
   • The LORD God had made the beasts of the field.
   • The serpent spoke to the woman.
   • The serpent asked whether God had said they were not to eat of the trees of the garden.
   • The serpent's question is ambiguous between 'you shall not eat from any tree of the garden' and 'you shall not eat from every tree of the garden.'
2. 3:2
   • The woman answered the serpent.
   • The woman said they may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden.
3. 3:3
   • The woman said God had spoken about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden.
   • The woman said God had commanded them not to eat of that tree.
   • The woman said God had commanded them not to touch it.
   • The woman said the reason was lest they die.
4. 3:4
   • The serpent said to the woman that they would not surely die.
5. 3:5
   • The serpent said God knows what will happen.
   • The serpent said that on the day they eat of it their eyes will be opened.
   • The serpent said they will become like God, or like divine beings; the word is ambiguous between the two.
   • The serpent said they will know good and evil.
6. 3:6
   • The woman saw that the tree was good for food.
   • The woman saw that the tree was a delight to the eyes.
   • The woman saw that the tree was desirable for gaining insight.
   • The woman took of the tree's fruit.
   • The woman ate it.
   • The woman gave some also to her husband, who was with her.
   • Her husband ate it.
7. 3:7
   • The eyes of both of them were opened.
   • They knew that they were naked.
   • They sewed fig leaves together.
   • They made loincloths for themselves.
8. 3:8
   • They heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden.
   • This happened at the breeze of the day.
   • The man and his wife hid from the presence of the LORD God.
   • They hid among the trees of the garden.
9. 3:9
   • The LORD God called to the man.
   • The LORD God asked him where he was.
10. 3:10
    • The man said he heard God's voice in the garden.
    • The man said he was afraid.
    • The man said he was afraid because he was naked.
    • The man said he hid himself.
11. 3:11
    • God asked who told the man that he was naked.
    • God asked whether the man had eaten from the tree.
    • God had commanded the man not to eat from that tree.
12. 3:12
    • The man answered.
    • The man said the woman was given to be with him by God.
    • The man said the woman gave him fruit from the tree.
    • The man said he ate.
13. 3:13
    • The LORD God asked the woman what she had done.
    • The woman answered.
    • The woman said the serpent deceived her.
    • The woman said she ate.
14. 3:14
    • The LORD God spoke to the serpent.
    • God said the serpent had done this.
    • God cursed the serpent apart from all livestock and every beast of the field; the phrase is ambiguous between 'more than' them and 'from among' them.
    • God said the serpent would go on its belly.
    • God said the serpent would eat dust.
    • God said this would last all the days of the serpent's life.
15. 3:15
    • God said he will put enmity between the serpent and the woman.
    • God said he will put enmity between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed.
    • God said her seed will strike the serpent's head.
    • God said the serpent will strike his heel.
16. 3:16
    • God spoke to the woman.
    • God said he will greatly increase her pain.
    • God said he will greatly increase her childbearing.
    • God said she will bear children in pain.
    • God said her desire will be toward her husband.
    • God said her husband will rule over her.
17. 3:17
    • God spoke to the man.
    • God said the man had listened to the voice of his wife.
    • God said the man had eaten from the tree.
    • God had commanded the man not to eat from that tree.
    • God cursed the ground because of the man.
    • God said the man will eat of the ground in painful toil.
    • God said this will last all the days of the man's life.
18. 3:18
    • God said the ground will bring forth thorns and thistles for the man.
    • God said the man will eat the plants of the field.
19. 3:19
    • God said the man will eat bread by the sweat of his face.
    • God said this will continue until the man returns to the ground.
    • God said the man was taken out of the ground.
    • God said the man is dust.
    • God said the man will return to dust.
20. 3:20
    • The man named his wife Eve.
    • The reason given is that she was the mother of all living.
21. 3:21
    • The LORD God made garments of skin for the man and his wife.
    • The LORD God clothed them.
22. 3:22
    • The LORD God spoke.
    • God said the man has become like one of us.
    • God said the man now knows good and evil.
    • God spoke of the danger that the man might stretch out his hand.
    • God spoke of the danger that the man might take also from the tree of life.
    • God spoke of the danger that the man might eat of it.
    • God spoke of the danger that the man might live forever.
    • God's sentence breaks off without stating a conclusion.
23. 3:23
    • The LORD God sent the man out of the garden of Eden.
    • The purpose was for the man to work the ground.
    • The man had been taken from that ground.
24. 3:24
    • God drove the man out.
    • God stationed the cherubim east of the garden of Eden.
    • God stationed the flame of a whirling sword there.
    • The purpose was to guard the way to the tree of life.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"Crafty" ('arum) sounds almost identical in Hebrew to "naked" ('arummim), the word used of the man and woman in the sentence just before this one (2:25). The storyteller is linking the two by sound; English cannot carry the pun.

3:3

The command as it was actually given in 2:16–17 forbade eating from the tree but said nothing about touching it. The extra words appear only here, in the woman's report of it.

3:5

"Like God" translates 'elohim, a Hebrew word that can mean the one God, or gods, or divine beings generally, the King James Version took it as "gods." Both readings are possible here. "Knowing good and evil" is a Hebrew way of naming the two ends of a range and meaning everything in between: the full ability to judge what is good and what is harmful, the kind of discernment adults have and children do not.

3:6

The text never says what kind of fruit it was. The apple comes from later European retellings, helped along by a pun in Latin, where malum means both "apple" and "evil."

3:7

The word for what they made (King James "aprons") means something tied around the waist, a belt or loincloth, not full clothing. Fig leaves are large and tough, among the biggest leaves available in that region.

3:8

The Hebrew word rendered "voice" also means simply "sound," so this may be the sound of God moving about in the garden rather than speech. "The cool part of the day" is literally "the wind of the day", the breeze that comes up in the late afternoon and evening in that climate.

3:9

The King James prints "Adam" as a personal name from here on, but the Hebrew word adam is also the ordinary noun for "human being" or "the man," and it is built on adamah, the word for ground or soil. English cannot carry both senses at once, so translators have to pick one, and different translations pick differently.

3:13

"Beguiled" is a stronger word than it sounds today. It means tricked or deceived, and the Hebrew verb suggests being led badly astray rather than merely persuaded.

3:14

"You will eat dust" was a stock expression for total defeat and humiliation, used elsewhere of enemies grovelling on the ground; it is not a claim about what snakes actually feed on.

3:15

"Offspring" is Hebrew zera', literally "seed." Like the English word "offspring," it is singular in form but can refer either to one descendant or to a whole line of them, and the passage does not settle which is meant. The same Hebrew verb is used for both actions, the one the King James renders "bruise" both times, and its exact force is uncertain: it may mean crush, or strike at, or lie in wait for.

3:16

"Your desire will be for your husband" uses a rare Hebrew word (teshuqah) that occurs only three times in the whole Bible, and its sense is disputed: it may mean longing or attraction, or an urge to control. Translators have long disagreed. The King James "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception" renders a Hebrew phrase that pairs two words, pain and childbearing, and is usually understood as one idea: greatly increased pain in bearing children.

3:17

"Adam" is not only a name; the Hebrew word 'adam means "human being" or "humankind." It also echoes 'adamah, the word for "ground" or "soil" that appears in this same sentence, roughly as if the earth-creature were being sent back to the earth.

3:18

"The plants of the field" means field crops that have to be sown, tended and harvested, as opposed to fruit that simply grows on a tree in a garden. The contrast with the garden is the point of the phrase.

3:19

"Bread" in Hebrew usage stands for food in general, not one item on the table. "By the sweat of your face" is literal: sweat running down the face while working.

3:20

The name Eve is Hebrew Chawwah, which sounds like chayah, "to live" or "living." The verse is explaining the name by its sound, a very common practice in Hebrew narrative.

3:21

"Coats" means tunics, a basic garment covering the body. For skins to be available an animal had to die, which is the first death anywhere in the story; the text records the fact without comment.

3:22

"One of us" is plural in the Hebrew, as in 1:26, and has been understood in several ways: God addressing a court of heavenly beings, or a plural of majesty, or a form of self-address. The text does not explain it. The sentence also breaks off unfinished in the Hebrew: the consequence is left unsaid, which the ellipsis in the reading represents.

3:23

"Till the ground" means to dig and break up the soil so crops will grow. Eden is a name that sounds like a Hebrew word for delight.

3:24

Cherubim (the King James "cherubims" doubles the plural, since the -im ending is already plural in Hebrew) are not the plump winged infants of later European art. In the ancient Near East they were powerful composite creatures, often winged and part animal, carved flanking the entrances of temples and the thrones of kings as guardians.