Genesis 3 -- The Fall

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” 

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”

When God gave the command to Adam, he did not say Adam could not touch it. I wonder how that was added in? Perhaps, in order to keep from eating it, Adam told her not to touch it?

Genesis 3:4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Adam was there the whole time. He saw and heard everything the serpent said too, yet he did not stop Eve from taking the fruit. He let her take it and then he ate it too.

Genesis 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

Just think of how terrified they must have felt knowing that they had disobeyed God. They could hear him coming, and even though God knew exactly what they had done and where they were, he still asked where they were. I know if I had done something wrong, I would hid from my parents. They knew where I was, and I still hid, terrified of my punishment.

Genesis 3:10 And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
11 Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

God already knew what they had done. Doesn't this sound like a conversation parents have with their kids? "Did you draw on the wall?" The parent knows the child did it, but still asks. How does Adam answer?

Genesis 3:12 Then the man replied, “The woman You gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?”
And the woman said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate.”

Adam blamed both Eve and God. "The woman gave it to me!" "You gave me the woman!" Eve blamed the serpent. "The serpent lied to me!" God punishes all three. They each did wrong. The serpent for tempting. Adam and Eve for eating. Adam and Eve were both told not to eat, but they did. It does not matter who ate first or who gave who what. They both sinned so they are both punished.

Genesis 3:14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.

The serpent's punishment is to crawl on the ground and eat dust.  There is hostility between serpents and mankind.  Each will try to kill the other.  Though, we know in the end, man will win, through Jesus, and the head of the serpent will be crushed for good!

Genesis 3:16 He said to the woman:
I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children in anguish.
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.

Painful childbearing...  Thanks to modern medicine, I did not feel much of the labor pains when giving birth to my daughter, but I sure did feel it afterwards, thanks to all the tearing!

Genesis 3:17 And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:
The ground is cursed because of you.
You will eat from it by means of painful labor
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.”

Both man and woman get painful labor.  Women in childbirth and men with work.  

Genesis 3:20 Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, all of creation was punished when Adam sinned.  Verse 21 says that the Lord made clothing out of animal skins.  That means an animal had to die for cloths to be made.  The verse does not say the Lord used wool or fur, but skin.  The skin was used.  This was perhaps the first death of a living creature.

Genesis 3:22 The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

The biggest punishment of all was Adam and Eve's separation for God.  They were driven out of the garden and out of God's presence.  They did not die physically immediately after eating the fruit, but they dies spiritually, in that they were now separated from God.