Genesis 3

The temptation of Eve

1

And the serpent was shrewd out of all living things of the field that Yahweh God had made, and he said unto the woman, “Even hath God said, ‘No eating ye from all the trees of the garden’?”

2

And the woman said unto the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat,

3

and from the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘No eating ye from it, and no touching it, lest ye die.’”

4

And the serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall not dying die,

5

in that God knoweth that in the day ye eat from it, and your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall become as gods, knowing good and bad.”¹

6

And the woman saw that good was the tree for eating,² and that a delight it was to the eyes, and a desirable tree to ‹make one wise›, and she took from its fruit, and ate; and ·she gave also to her man with her, and he ate.

7

And the eyes of the two of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they ‹sewed together› leaves of fig, and made for themselves girdles.

God’s inspection

8

And they heard the voice of Yahweh God going in the garden unto the spirit of the day,³ and hid themselves, the adam and his woman, from the face of Yahweh God in the middle of the trees of the garden.

9

And Yahweh God called unto the adam, and said to him, “Where art thou?”

10

And he said, “Thy voice I heard in the garden, and I was afraid, in that naked I am; and I hid myself.”

11

And he said, “Who told thee that naked thou art? From the tree that I commanded thee not to eat, from it hast thou eaten?”

12

And the adam said, “The woman that thou gavest with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”

13

And Yahweh God said to the woman, “What hast thou done?”⁴ And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

God curses the serpent

14

And Yahweh God said unto the serpent, “In that thou hast done this, cursed, thou, out of every beast and out of every living thing of the field; upon thy underside⁵ shalt thou go, and dirt shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,

15

and enmity I put between thee and between the woman, and between thy seed and between her seed: he shall strike thy head, and thou shalt strike his heel.”

God curses the woman

16

Unto the woman he said, “I multiplying multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pangs⁶ thou shalt beget sons; and unto thy man, thy longing,⁷ and he shall rule in thee.”

God curses Adam

17

And to Adam⁸ he said, “In that thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy woman, and eaten from the tree that I commanded thee, saying, ‘No eating thou from it,’ cursed, the ground, on account of thee; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life,

18

and thorns and thistles shall it sprout to thee, and thou shalt eat the grain of the field;

19

in the sweat of thy nose shalt thou eat bread, until thou ‹turn back› unto the ground; in that from it wast thou taken: in that dirt thou, and to dirt thou ‹turnest back›.”

The aftermath of the fall

20

And the adam called the name of his woman Hawah,⁹ in that she was¹⁰ the mother of all living.

21

And Yahweh God made for Adam and for his woman coats of skin, and clothed them.

22

And Yahweh God said, “Lo, the adam is become¹¹ as one from us, to know good and bad; and now lest he ‹put forth› his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live to the age…”¹²

23

And Yahweh God ‹sent him forth› from the garden of Eden, to serve the ground¹³ that he was taken from.

24

And he ‹drove out› the adam; and he ‹made to abide›¹⁴ from the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs,¹⁵ and a blazing¹⁶ sword turning, to guard the way of the tree of life.

bad (ra’). Not “evil,” which is specifically moral badness; the Hebrew term is general and refers to any kind of badness. ↩
eating. Trad. “food;” I have chosen to translate the noun ma’akal as “eating” or “eatings,” even though it is a strange gerund/nominalization, because its root is the verb akal, “to eat,” which is a connection of crucial import in scripture that should not be obscured. ↩
unto the spirit of the day (l-ruach ha-yom). Trad. “in the cool of the day.” I find this as imaginative as it is nonsensical. Firstly, l- does not mean “in;” that is a different preposition, b-. Like most prepositions, the exact meaning of l- must be figured out from context; it indicates a general “directionality” of subject to object, but not the precise nature of the relationship (see note on Judges 6#31). Secondly, ruach does not mean “cool,” and is never used this way in all the other hundreds of times it appears in scripture. Translators assume that the Hebrew means something like “at the windy time of the day,” and then try to explain this expression in their English rendering—but it does not mean the windy time of day, and their explanation is absurd. The meaning of ruach is established in Genesis 1#2; this is only the second time it is used. With rare exceptions like Genesis 8:21, it can always be translated “spirit,” and doing so is generally illuminating, in that it breaks down the artificial assumptions about a mechanical world ruled by “laws of nature,” which we inherited from the “Enlightenment.” In Genesis 8:1 for example, did God make a wind to pass over the floodwaters to drive them back? Why assume that? Why not a spirit? Is there really a difference in the biblical worldview? Understanding that the answer is no gives us some insight to the probable meaning of the usage here in Genesis 3:8, especially when we remember that “spirit” can also refer to the pattern of a thing, as in a “spirit of falsehood” (Micah 2:11). The “spirit of the day” is an intentionally complex nexus of ideas involving at least two things. Firstly, the pattern of “the day”—which is to say, the day of Yahweh, the sabbath, for that is, by implication, the day that chapter 3 begins on. Secondly, the whirlwind or tempest that announces God’s presence—itself a physical expression of the spirit-angels that comprised his throne and glory-cloud, as in Ezekiel 1:4: “I looked and, lo, a tempestuous ruach coming in from the north, a great cloud, with a fire…” What we have in Genesis 3:8 is a depiction of God visiting his temple for the first worship and inspection of his newly-created humans. (Although the word paqad is not here used, the same concept is in view; see note on Judges 15#1.) ↩
what hast thou done? More literally, “what is this that thou hast done,” but such a longwinded phrase does not capture the sharp economy of the Hebrew, mah zot ashit? ↩
underside (gachon). Not “belly,” beten, the common word for the abdomen of womb, but a rare word meaning the underside of a crawling thing, used only here and Leviticus 11:42. ↩
Or toil, but “pain” and “pangs” in this verse have the same root in the Hebrew, being very similar words. ↩
longing (teshuqah). A very rare word, used only here, Genesis 4:7, and Song 7:10. ↩
Adam. Here there is no definite article; it is no longer “the adam,” but “Adam.” ↩
Hawwah. I.e., Eve. ”Life.” ↩
was (hayah). Again the verb “to be” is existential; Eve’s existence is bound up in creating life. ↩
is become (hayah). His existence is now such. ↩
to the age (l-’olam). Or “for time immemorial.” ↩
the ground (ha-adama). Adam’s name is derived from this word. ↩
made to abide (shakhan). This is connected etymologically to the shekhinah cloud, and the mishkan, the “Abode” (trad. “tabernacle”). ↩
cherubs (cherevim). English translators insist on rendering this as a Hebrew plural (“cherubim”) instead of an English one (“cherubs”), leading most readers to think that this is a singular creature called a cherubim. This drives me crazy. A cherub is essentially a palace sentry or throne guardian, and is replicated at the human scale with the priests of the tabernacle; cf. Exodus 32:29; Numbers 3:10; 18:7. ↩
blazing (lahat). A relatively rare word, not the common term for fire or flame. ↩