ESV Global Study Bible :: Footnotes for Gen 3

Gen. 3:1–24 The sudden arrival of a speaking serpent presents a challenge to the human couple. Their choice to disregard God’s instructions is an act of willful rebellion that has terrible consequences for all of creation. Nothing is said about where the serpent came from. The text does not indicate when or how the serpent became evil. It is clear, however, that evil entered the created world at some time after God’s “very good” work of creation was completed (1:31). Unlike the teachings of some other religions, the Bible never teaches that evil has always existed. See notes on Isa. 14:12–15; Ezek. 28:11–19.

Gen. 3:2–3 The woman’s response echoes the divine instruction given in 2:16–17 (see note on 2:17), although she fails to identify the tree clearly, and she adds, “neither shall you touch it.”

Gen. 3:4–5 The serpent directly contradicts what God has said. He pre­sents the fruit of the tree as something worth having. By eating it, he says, Adam and Eve will be like God, knowing good and evil. The irony of the serpent’s remarks is that Adam and Eve, unlike the serpent, were already made in the image of God (1:26–27). They are already “like God.” This means they are expected to exercise authority over all the beasts of the field—including the serpent! By obeying the serpent, however, they betray the trust that God has placed in them. You will not surely die. It is sometimes claimed that the serpent is correct when he says this, for they do not immediately “die.” Further, their eyes are in fact opened (3:7), and God acknowledges that “the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil” (v. 22). Yet the serpent speaks only half-truths. What Adam and Eve will experience outside of Eden is not life as God intended. It is spiritual death.

Gen. 3:6 when the woman saw that the tree was good. Somehow the serpent has made the woman discontented with the permitted trees (2:16), and she desires instead the forbidden one. Apparently she is attracted to the tree’s ability to make one wise (see note on 2:17). she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. As Adam ate what God had forbidden, he was deliberately rebelling against God. The fact that he was “with” Eve at the time meant that he had failed to carry out his God-given responsibility to guard and “keep” both the garden and his wife (see 2:15). The disastrous consequences of Adam’s sin include the fall of mankind, the beginning of every kind of sin, suffering, and pain, along with spiritual and physical death for the entire human race.

Gen. 3:9 the Lord God called to the man . . . , “Where are you?” Both “man” and “you” are singular in Hebrew. God thus confronts Adam first, holding him primarily responsible for the sin committed by both Adam and Eve. Adam is thus treated as the representative or “head” of the husband-and-wife relationship, established before the fall (see note on Eph. 5:23–24).

Gen. 3:14–15 The serpent is punished for tempting the woman. It will live in ongoing hostility with the woman, which will be carried on by their respective offspring.

Gen. 3:15 This verse is usually understood as pointing forward to the defeat of the serpent by the offspring (that is, a descendant) of the woman. For this reason, it has been labeled the “Protoevangelium,” that is, the first announcement of the gospel. While Genesis does not explicitly identify the serpent with Satan, that is clearly what the apostle John understood (see Rev. 12:9; 20:2). The idea of the woman’s “offspring” is seen again in Gen. 4:25 in the birth of Seth. The rest of Genesis traces a single line of Seth’s descendants (see diagram), which will eventually produce a king through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. The use of the singular “he” and “his” suggests that one particular person (“offspring”) is in view. The promise of this person comes to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is clearly presented in the NT as overcoming Satan (Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:8; compare John 12:31). At the same time, he is “bruised” by Satan at the cross.

Gen. 3:16 Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. God originally intended that there would be a complementary relationship between husband and wife, with the husband in a leadership role (see note on 2:15–16). But that plan has now been distorted and damaged by sin. This takes the form of “desire” on the part of the wife and heavy-handed “rule” on the part of the husband. The Hebrew term here for “desire” appears again in 4:7, where the Lord says to Cain that sin’s “desire is contrary to you.” Eve will have the sinful “desire” to oppose Adam and to assert leadership over him. But Adam will also abandon his God-given role of leading, guarding, and caring for Eve. Instead, he will have a sinful, distorted desire to “rule” over her. Thus one of the most tragic results of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God is ongoing conflict between husbands and wives, as they both rebel against their God-given roles and responsibilities in marriage. (See notes on Eph. 5:21–32 for the NT ideal for marriage.)

Gen. 3:17–19 Because he has eaten what was prohibited (v. 6), Adam will have to struggle to eat in the future. He will no longer enjoy the garden’s abundance but will have to work the ground from which he was taken (v. 23; see note on 2:8–9). The punishment is not the work itself (see note on 2:15–16) but rather the hardship and frustration that it will involve. To say that the ground is cursed and will produce thorns and thistles means that it will no longer be as productive as it was in Eden.

Gen. 3:19 Because of his sin, the man’s body will return to the ground, that is, he will die. Death was not a part of the original creation (see Rom. 5:12). The Bible looks forward to a time when nature will be set free from death and the other consequences of human sin (Rom. 8:19–22).

Gen. 3:20–21 God’s words of judgment are immediately followed by two actions that offer hope. First, the man names his wife Eve, which means “life-giver” (see esv footnote). Second, God makes clothing for Adam and Eve, which suggests that he still cares for them. Because the clothing requires the death of an animal, this can be seen as an anticipation of (1) the system of animal sacrifices that God would later institute to atone for sin, and (2) the death of Christ as the final atonement for sin.

Gen. 3:22–24 God begins a sentence in v. 22 and breaks off without finishing it. For the man to eat of the tree of life and thus live forever in his sinful condition is an unbearable thought, and God must waste no time in preventing it. therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden. (On the “tree of life,” see Rev. 2:7; 22:2; 14; 19.) Outside the garden the man will have to work the ground, but the task of keeping or guarding the garden is now given to the cherubim (Gen. 3:24).