Genesis 18:19

18:19 I have chosen him ¹  so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep ²  the way of the Lord by doing ³  what is right and just. Then the Lord will give ⁴  to Abraham what he promised ⁵  him.”

Genesis 18:1

Three Special Visitors

18:1 The Lord appeared to Abraham ⁶  by the oaks ⁷  of Mamre while ⁸  he was sitting at the entrance ⁹  to his tent during the hottest time of the day.

Genesis 2:11

2:11 The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through ¹⁰  the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

Genesis 2:22

2:22 Then the Lord God made ¹¹  a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Genesis 2:1

2:1 The heavens and the earth ¹²  were completed with everything that was in them. ¹³ 

Genesis 2:1

2:1 The heavens and the earth ¹⁴  were completed with everything that was in them. ¹⁵ 

Genesis 3:12-13

3:12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave ¹⁶  me some fruit ¹⁷  from the tree and I ate it.” 3:13 So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this ¹⁸  you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent ¹⁹  tricked ²⁰  me, and I ate.”

Genesis 3:1

The Temptation and the Fall

3:1 Now ²¹  the serpent ²²  was more shrewd ²³ 

than any of the wild animals ²⁴  that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Is it really true that ²⁵  God ²⁶  said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?” ²⁷ 

Genesis 3:4-5

3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, ²⁸  3:5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open ²⁹  and you will be like divine beings who know ³⁰  good and evil.” ³¹ 

[18:19]  ¹ tn Heb “For I have known him.” The verb יָדַע (yada’) here means “to recognize and treat in a special manner, to choose” (see Amos 3:2). It indicates that Abraham stood in a special covenantal relationship with the Lord.

[18:19]  ² tn Heb “and they will keep.” The perfect verbal form with vav consecutive carries on the subjective nuance of the preceding imperfect verbal form (translated “so that he may command”).

[18:19]  ³ tn The infinitive construct here indicates manner, explaining how Abraham’s children and his household will keep the way of the Lord.

[18:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “bring on.” The infinitive after לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) indicates result here.

[18:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “spoke to.”

[18:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:1]  ⁷ tn Or “terebinths.”

[18:1]  ⁸ tn The disjunctive clause here is circumstantial to the main clause.

[18:1]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew noun translated “entrance” is an adverbial accusative of place.

[2:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “it is that which goes around.”

[2:22]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew verb is בָּנָה (banah, “to make, to build, to construct”). The text states that the Lord God built the rib into a woman. Again, the passage gives no indication of precisely how this was done.

[2:1]  ¹² tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1.

[2:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all the host of them.” Here the “host” refers to all the entities and creatures that God created to populate the world.

[2:1]  ¹⁴ tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1.

[2:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and all the host of them.” Here the “host” refers to all the entities and creatures that God created to populate the world.

[3:12]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew construction in this sentence uses an independent nominative absolute (formerly known as a casus pendens). “The woman” is the independent nominative absolute; it is picked up by the formal subject, the pronoun “she” written with the verb (“she gave”). The point of the construction is to throw the emphasis on “the woman.” But what makes this so striking is that a relative clause has been inserted to explain what is meant by the reference to the woman: “whom you gave me.” Ultimately, the man is blaming God for giving him the woman who (from the man’s viewpoint) caused him to sin.

[3:12]  ¹⁷ tn The words “some fruit” here and the pronoun “it” at the end of the sentence are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons.

[3:13]  ¹⁸ tn The use of the demonstrative pronoun is enclitic, serving as an undeclined particle for emphasis. It gives the sense of “What in the world have you done?” (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 24, §118).

[3:13]  ¹⁹ sn The Hebrew word order puts the subject (“the serpent”) before the verb here, giving prominence to it.

[3:13]  ²⁰ tn This verb (the Hiphil of נָשָׁא, nasha) is used elsewhere of a king or god misleading his people into false confidence (2 Kgs 18:29 = 2 Chr 32:15 = Isa 36:14; 2 Kgs 19:10 = Isa 37:10), of an ally deceiving a partner (Obad 7), of God deceiving his sinful people as a form of judgment (Jer 4:10), of false prophets instilling their audience with false hope (Jer 29:8), and of pride and false confidence producing self-deception (Jer 37:9; 49:16; Obad 3).

[3:1]  ²¹ tn The chapter begins with a disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + predicate) that introduces a new character and a new scene in the story.

[3:1]  ²² sn Many theologians identify or associate the serpent with Satan. In this view Satan comes in the disguise of a serpent or speaks through a serpent. This explains the serpent’s capacity to speak. While later passages in the Bible may indicate there was a satanic presence behind the serpent (see, for example, Rev 12:9), the immediate context pictures the serpent as simply one of the animals of the field created by God (see vv. 1, 14). An ancient Jewish interpretation explains the reference to the serpent in a literal manner, attributing the capacity to speak to all the animals in the orchard. This text (Jub. 3:28) states, “On that day [the day the man and woman were expelled from the orchard] the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak to one another with one speech and one language [presumed to be Hebrew, see 12:26].” Josephus, Ant. 1.1.4 (1.41) attributes the serpent’s actions to jealousy. He writes that “the serpent, living in the company of Adam and his wife, grew jealous of the blessings which he supposed were destined for them if they obeyed God’s behests, and, believing that disobedience would bring trouble on them, he maliciously persuaded the woman to taste of the tree of wisdom.”

[3:1]  ²³ tn The Hebrew word עָרוּם (’arum) basically means “clever.” This idea then polarizes into the nuances “cunning” (in a negative sense, see Job 5:12; 15:5), and “prudent” in a positive sense (Prov 12:16, 23; 13:16; 14:8, 15, 18; 22:3; 27:12). This same polarization of meaning can be detected in related words derived from the same root (see Exod 21:14; Josh 9:4; 1 Sam 23:22; Job 5:13; Ps 83:3). The negative nuance obviously applies in Gen 3, where the snake attempts to talk the woman into disobeying God by using half-truths and lies.

[3:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “animals of the field.”

[3:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Indeed that God said.” The beginning of the quotation is elliptical and therefore difficult to translate. One must supply a phrase like “is it true”: “Indeed, [is it true] that God said.”

[3:1]  ²⁶ sn God. The serpent does not use the expression “Yahweh God” [Lord God] because there is no covenant relationship involved between God and the serpent. He only speaks of “God.” In the process the serpent draws the woman into his manner of speech so that she too only speaks of “God.”

[3:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “you must not eat from all the tree[s] of the orchard.” After the negated prohibitive verb, מִכֹּל (mikkol, “from all”) has the meaning “from any.” Note the construction in Lev 18:26, where the statement “you must not do from all these abominable things” means “you must not do any of these abominable things.” See Lev 22:25 and Deut 28:14 as well.

[3:4]  ²⁸ tn The response of the serpent includes the infinitive absolute with a blatant negation equal to saying: “Not – you will surely die” (לֹא מוֹת תִּמֻתען, lo’ mot tÿmutun). The construction makes this emphatic because normally the negative particle precedes the finite verb. The serpent is a liar, denying that there is a penalty for sin (see John 8:44).

[3:5]  ²⁹ tn Or “you will have understanding.” This obviously refers to the acquisition of the “knowledge of good and evil,” as the next statement makes clear.

[3:5]  ³⁰ tn Or perhaps “like God, knowing.” It is unclear how the plural participle translated “knowing” is functioning. On the one hand, יֹדְעֵי (yodÿ’e) could be taken as a substantival participle functioning as a predicative adjective in the sentence. In this case one might translate: “You will be, like God himself, knowers of good and evil.” On the other hand, it could be taken as an attributive adjective modifying אֱלֹהִים (’elohim). In this case אֱלֹהִים has to be taken as a numerical plural referring to “gods,” “divine beings,” for if the one true God were the intended referent, a singular form of the participle would almost certainly appear as a modifier. Following this line of interpretation, one could translate, “You will be like divine beings who know good and evil.” The following context may favor this translation, for in 3:22 God says to an unidentified group, “Look, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” It is probable that God is addressing his heavenly court (see the note on the word “make” in 1:26), the members of which can be called “gods” or “divine beings” from the ancient Israelite perspective. (We know some of these beings as messengers or “angels.”) An examination of parallel constructions shows that a predicative understanding (“you will be, like God himself, knowers of good and evil,” cf. NIV, NRSV) is possible, but rare (see Gen 27:23, where “hairy” is predicative, complementing the verb “to be”). The statistical evidence strongly suggests that the participle is attributive, modifying “divine beings” (see Ps 31:12; Isa 1:30; 13:14; 16:2; 29:5; 58:11; Jer 14:9; 20:9; 23:9; 31:12; 48:41; 49:22; Hos 7:11; Amos 4:11). In all of these texts, where a comparative clause and accompanying adjective/participle follow a copulative (“to be”) verb, the adjective/participle is attributive after the noun in the comparative clause.

[3:5]  ³¹ sn You will be like divine beings who know good and evil. The serpent raises doubts about the integrity of God. He implies that the only reason for the prohibition was that God was protecting the divine domain. If the man and woman were to eat, they would enter into that domain. The temptation is to overstep divinely established boundaries. (See D. E. Gowan, When Man Becomes God [PTMS], 25.)