Genesis 3:5

3:5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open ¹  and you will be like divine beings who know ²  good and evil.” ³ 

Isaiah 14:13

14:13 You said to yourself, ⁴ 

“I will climb up to the sky.

Above the stars of El ⁵ 

I will set up my throne.

I will rule on the mountain of assembly

on the remote slopes of Zaphon. ⁶ 

Isaiah 14:2

14:2 Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. ⁷  They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them.

Isaiah 2:4

2:4 He will judge disputes between nations;

he will settle cases for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares, ⁸ 

and their spears into pruning hooks. ⁹ 

Nations will not take up the sword against other nations,

and they will no longer train for war.

[3:5]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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.)

[14:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “you, you said in your heart.”

[14:13]  ⁵ sn In Canaanite mythology the stars of El were astral deities under the authority of the high god El.

[14:13]  ⁶ sn Zaphon, the Canaanite version of Olympus, was the “mountain of assembly” where the gods met.

[14:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the house of Jacob will take possession of them [i.e., the nations], on the land of the Lord, as male servants and female servants.”

[2:4]  ⁸ sn Instead of referring to the large plow as a whole, the plowshare is simply the metal tip which actually breaks the earth and cuts the furrow.

[2:4]  ⁹ sn This implement was used to prune the vines, i.e., to cut off extra leaves and young shoots (H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:93; M. Klingbeil, NIDOTTE 1:1117-18). It was a short knife with a curved hook at the end sharpened on the inside like a sickle. Breaking weapons and fashioning agricultural implements indicates a transition from fear and stress to peace and security.