Bible Commentaries

Genesis 2:19. God brought all the beasts to Adam — Either by the ministry of angels, or by a special instinct, that he might name them, and so might give a proof of his knowledge, the names he gave them being perfectly descriptive of their inmost nature.

Genesis 2:21-22. God caused a deep sleep, &c. — That the opening of his side and the taking away of his rib might be no grievance to him. While he knows no sin, God will take care that he shall feel no pain. The woman was taken out of the man’s side, and not out of a higher or lower part of his body, to show that she is neither to govern nor usurp authority over him, 1 Timothy 2:12.; nor yet to be his slave or servant: but, as his companion, to be treated with kindness; respect, and affection. How significant are all God’s works and actions!

Genesis 2:23. This is now bone of my bone — Probably it was revealed to Adam in a vision, when he was asleep that this lovely creature, now presented to him, was a piece of himself, and was to be his companion, and the wife of his covenant. In token of his acceptance of her, he gave her a name, not peculiar to her, but common to her sex: she shall be called woman, isha, a she-man, differing from man in sex only, not in nature; made of man, and joined to man.

Genesis 2:24. The sabbath and marriage were two ordinances instituted in innocence, the former for the preservation of the church, the latter for the preservation of mankind. It appears by Matthew 19:4-5, that it was God himself who said here, a man must leave all his relations to cleave to his wife; but whether he spake this by Moses or by Adam, is uncertain. The virtue of a divine ordinance, and the bonds of it, are stronger even than those of nature. See how necessary it is that children should take their parents’ consent with them in their marriage; and how unjust those are to their parents, as well as undutiful, who marry without it; for they rob them of their right to them and interest in them, and alienate it to another fraudulently and unnaturally.

Genesis 2:25. They were both naked — They needed no clothes for defence against cold or heat, for neither could be injurious to them: they needed none for ornament. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Nay, they needed none for decency: they were naked, and had no reason to be ashamed. They knew not what shame was, so the Chaldee reads it. Blushing is now the colour of virtue, but it was not the colour of innocence.

Genesis 3:1. The serpent was more subtle, &c. — Some would render the word נחשׁ, nachash, here, monkey or baboon, and the word ערום, arum, intelligent: but it may be demonstrated from divers other passages of the Old Testament, where the same words are used, and from several parts of the New, where they are referred to, that our translators are perfectly right. The former word is used concerning the fiery serpents which bit the people in the wilderness, which certainly were neither monkeys nor baboons, and concerning the serpent of brass, by looking at which the Israelites were healed. See Hebrew, Numbers 21:6-9. It is also used Isaiah 65:25, where, in allusion to Genesis 3:14 of this chapter, it is said, Dust shall be the serpent’s meat; but surely dust is not the meat of monkeys. The word is also everywhere rendered Οφις, ophis, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, which means serpent, and nothing else. The latter word, ערום, also, is rightly translated, meaning primarily, subtle, or crafty, from ערם, caliditate usus est, and is so rendered Job 5:12, and so interpreted 2 Corinthians 11:3, where the word πανουργια is used, which certainly never means intelligence, but always craft or subtlety. Than any beast of the field — Serpents, in general, have a great deal of subtlety. But this one had an extraordinary measure of it, being either only a serpent in appearance, and in reality a fallen angel, or the prince of fallen angels, Satan; or a real serpent possessed and actuated by him. Hence the devil is termed the old serpent, Revelation 20:2-3. He said unto the woman — Whom it is probable he found alone. In what way he spake to her we are not informed: but it seems most likely that it was by signs of some kind. Some, indeed, have supposed that reason and speech were then the known properties of serpents, and that, therefore, Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which they think she otherwise must have been: but of this there is no proof. Yea, hath God said, &c. — As if he had said, Can it be that God, who has planted this garden with all these beautiful and fruitful trees, and hath placed you in it for your comfort, should deny you the fruit of it? Surely you must either be mistaken, or God must be envious and unkind. His first object was by his insinuations either to beget in them unbelief, as to the reality of the prohibition, and to persuade them that it would be no sin to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, or to produce in them hard thoughts of God, in order to alienate their affections from him. And such are generally his first temptations still. What! has God, who has given you various appetites and passions, forbidden you to gratify them? Surely he has not: but if he has, he must be an unkind being. And how then can you trust in or love him?

Genesis 3:2-3. The woman said — With a view to defend the conduct of her Maker toward them, against the insinuations of the tempter. We may eat of the trees of the garden — Of all the trees except one. It is only concerning one that God hath said, “Ye shall not eat of it.” But when she adds, Lest ye die, it is evident her faith begins to waver, and she inclines to doubt whether God would fulfil his threatening, which was not, “Lest ye die,”

but, “In dying ye shall die;” that is, “Ye shall surely die.” She seems also to have intended to intimate, that if they died, it would not be so much through any particular interference and severity of God in executing his threatening, as through the natural, pernicious effects of the fruit, against which God had only kindly warned them.

Genesis 3:4-5. The tempter, finding that the woman began to doubt whether eating this fruit was a crime, and if it were, whether punishment would follow, now became more bold in his attack, and, giving God the lie direct, asserted roundly, “Ye shall not surely die.” So far from it, you shall have much advantage from eating of this tree. He suits the temptation to the pure state they were now in, proposing to them, not any carnal pleasure, but intellectual delights. 1st, Your eyes shall be opened — You shall have much more of the power and pleasure of contemplation than now you have: your intellectual views shall be extended, and you shall see further into things than now you do. 2d, Ye shall be as gods — As Elohim, mighty gods, beings of a higher order. 3d, Ye shall know good and evil — That is, every thing that is desirable to be known. To support this part of the temptation, he abuseth the name given to this tree. It was intended to teach the practical knowledge of good and evil; that is, of duty and disobedience, and it would prove the experimental knowledge of good and evil; that is, of happiness and misery. But he perverts the sense of it, and wrests it to their destruction, as if the tree would give them a speculative knowledge of the natures, kinds, and originals of good and evil. And, 4th, All this presently; In the day ye eat thereof — You will find a sudden and immediate change for the better.