Bible Commentaries

Verse 16. - Unto the woman he said. Passing judgment on her first who had sinned first, but cursing neither her nor her husband, as "being candidates for restoration" (Tertullian). The sentence pronounced on Eve was twofold. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. A hendiadys for "the sorrow of thy conception" (Gesenius, Bush), though this is not necessary. The womanly and wifely sorrow of Eve was to be intensified, and in particular the pains of parturition were to be multiplied (cf. Jeremiah 31:8). The second idea is more fully explained in the next clause. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Literally, sons, daughters being included. The pains of childbirth are in Scripture emblematic of the severest anguish both of body and mind (cf. Psalm 48:7; Micah 4:9, 10; 1 Thessalonians 5:3; John 16:21; Revelation 12:2). The gospel gives a special promise to mothers (1 Timothy 2:15). "By bringing forth is also meant bringing up after the birth, as in Genesis 50:23" (Ainsworth). And thy desire shall be to thy husband. תְּשׁוּקָה, from שׁוּק to run, to have a vehement longing for a thing, may have the same meaning here as in Song of Solomon 7:10 (Dathe, Rosenmüller, Delitzsch, Keil, Bohlen, Kalisch, Alford); but is better taken as expressive of deferential submissiveness, as in Genesis 4:7 (Luther, Calvin, Le Clerc, Lunge, Macdonald, Speaker's 'Commentary'.) Following the LXX. (ἀποστροφή), Murphy explains it as meaning, "The determination of thy will shall be yielded to thy husband." According to the analogy of the two previous clauses, the precise import of this is expressed in the next, though by many it is regarded as a distinct item in the curse (Kalisch, Alford, Clarke, Wordsworth). And he shall rule over thee. Not merely a prophecy of woman's subjection, but an investiture of man with supremacy over the woman; or rather a confirmation and perpetuation of that authority which had been assigned to the man at the creation. Woman had been given him as an helpmeet (Genesis 2:18), and her relation to the man from the first was constituted one of dependence. It was the reversal of this Divinely-established order that had led to the fall (Genesis 3:17). Henceforth, therefore, woman was to be relegated to, and fixed in, her proper sphere of subordination. On account of her subjection to man's authority a wife is described as the possessed or subjected one of a lord (Genesis 20:3; Deuteronomy 20:22), and a husband as the lord of a woman (Exodus 21:3). Among the Hebrews the condition of the female sex was one of distinct subordination, though not of oppression, and certainly not of slavery, as it too often has been in heathen and Mohammedan countries. Christianity, while placing woman on the same platform with man as regards the blessings of the gospel (Galatians 3:28), explicitly inculcates her subordination to the man in the relationship of marriage (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1)

Verse 17. - And unto Adam he said. The noun here used for the first time without the article is explained as a proper name (Keil, Lunge, Speaker's 'Commentary'), though perhaps it is rather designed to express the man s representative character (Macdonald). Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife. Preceding his sentence with a declaration of his guilt, which culminated in this, that instead of acting as his wife's protector prior to her disobedience, or as her mentor subsequent to that act, in the hope of brining her to repentance, he became her guilty coadjutor through yielding himself to her persuasions. And hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. For which a twofold judgment is likewise pronounced upon Adam. Cursed is the ground. Ha adamah, out of which man was taken (Genesis 2:7); i.e. the soil outside of the garden. The language does not necessarily imply that now, for the first time, in consequence of the fall, the physical globe underwent a change, "becoming from that point onward a realm of deformity and discord, as before it was not, and displaying in all its sceneries and combinations the tokens of a broken constitution" (vide Bushnell, 'Nature and the Supernatural,' Genesis 7.); simply it announces the fact that, because of the transgression of which he had been guilty, he would find the land beyond the confines of Eden lying under a doom of sterility (cf. Romans 8:20). For thy sake. בַּעֲבוּרֶך.

1. Because of thy sin it required to be such a world.

2. For thy good it was better that such a curse should lie upon the ground. Reading ד instead of ר, the LXX. translate ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις; and the Vulgate, In operetuo. In sorrow. Literally, painful labor (cf. ver. 16; Proverbs 5:10). Shalt thou eat of it. I.e. of its fruits (cf. Isaiah 1:7; Isaiah 36:16; Isaiah 37:30). "Bread of sorrow" (Psalm 127:2) is bread procured and eaten amidst hard labor. All the days of thy life.

Verse 18. - Thorns also and thistles. Terms occurring only here and in Hosed 10:8 = the similar expressions in Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 7:23 (Kalisch, Keil, Macdonald). Shall it bring forth to thee. I.e. these shall be its spontaneous productions; if thou desirest anything else thou must labor for it. And thou shalt eat the herb of the field. "Not the fruit of paradise" (Wordsworth), but "the lesser growths sown by his own toil" (Alford) - an intimation that henceforth man was "to be deprived of his former delicacies to such an extent as to be compelled to use, in addition, the herbs which had been designed only for brute animals;" and perhaps also "a consolation," as if promising that, notwithstanding the thorns and thistles, "it should still yield him sustenance" (Calvin).

Verse 19. - In the sweat of thy face (so called, as having there its source and being there visible) shalt thou eat bread. I.e. all food (vide Job 28:5; Psalm 104:14; Matthew 14:15; Mark 6:36). "To eat bread" is to possess the means of sustaining life (Ecclesiastes 5:16; Amos 7:12). Till thou return unto the ground (the mortality-of man is thus assumed as certain); for out of it thou wast taken. Not declaring the reason of man's dissolution, as if it were involved in his original material constitution, but reminding him that in consequence of his transgression he had forfeited the privilege of immunity from death, and must now return to the soil whence he sprung. Ἐξ η΅ς ἐλήφθης (LXX.); de qua sumptus es (Vulgate); "out of which thou wast taken" (Macdonald, Gesenius). On the use of כִּי as a relative pronoun - אַשֶׁר cf. Gesenius, ' Lex. sub nom.,' who quotes this and Genesis 4:25 as examples. Vide also Stanley Leathes, 'Hebrews Gram.,' p. 202; and 'Glassii Philologiae,' lib. 3. tr. 2, c. 15. p. 335. This use of כִּי, however, appears to be doubtful, and is not necessary in any of the examples quoted.

Verse 20. - Arraigned, convicted, judged, the guilty but pardoned pair prepare to leave their garden home - the woman to begin her experience of sorrow, dependence, and subjection; the man to enter upon his life career of hardship and toil, and both to meet their doom of certain, though it might be of long-delayed, death. The impression made upon their hearts by the Divine Clemency, though not directly stated by the historian, may be inferred from what is next recorded as having happened within the precincts of Eden ere they entered on their exile. And Adam called (not prior to the fall, reading the verb as a pluperfect (Calvin), nor after the birth of Cain, transferring the present verse to Genesis 4:2 (Knobel), but subsequent to the promise of the woman's seed, and preceding their ejection from the garden) his wife's name Eve. Chavvah, from chavvah = chayyah, to live (cf. with the arganic rent chvi the Sanscrit, giv; Gothic, quiv; Latin, rive, gigno, vigeo; Greek, ζάω, &c., the fundamental idea being to breathe, to respire - Furst), is correctly rendered life - Work) by the LXX., Josephus, Philo, Gesenins, Delitzsch, Macdonald, &c. Lange, regarding it as an abbreviated form of the participle mechavvah, understands it to signify "the sustenance, i.e. the propagation of life; while Knobel, viewing it as an adjective, hints at woman's peculiar function - חִיָּה וֶדַע - to quicken seed (Genesis 19:82) as supplying the explanation. Whether appended by the narrator (Delitzsch, Lange) or uttered by Adam (Kalisch, Macdonald), the words which follow give its true import and exegesis. Because she was the mother (am - Greek, μαμμα; Welsh, mani; Copt., man; German and English, mama; - Gesenius) of all living.

(1) Of Adam's children, though in this respect she might have been so styled from the beginning; and

(2) of all who should truly live in the sense of being the woman's seed, as distinguished from the seed of the serpent. In Adam's giving a second name to his wife has been discerned the first assertion of his sovereignty or lordship over woman to which he was promoted subsequent to the fall (Luther), though this seems to be negatived by the fact that Adam exercised the same prerogative immediately on her creation; an act of thoughtlessness on the part of Adam, in that, "being himself immersed in death, he should have called his wife by so proud a name" (Calvin); a proof of his incredulity (Rupertus). With a juster appreciation of the spirit of the narrative, modern expositors generally regard it as a striking testimony to his faith.

Verse 21. - Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats (cathnoth, from cathan, to cover; cf. χιτών; Sanscrit, katam; English, cotton) of skin (or, the skin of a man, from ur, to be naked, hence a hide). Neither their bodies (Origen), nor garments of the bark of trees (Gregory Nazianzen), nor miraculously-fashioned apparel (Grotius), nor clothing made from the serpent's skin (R. Jonathan), but tunics prepared from the skins of animals, slaughtered possibly for food, as it is not certain that the Edenie man was a vegetarian (Genesis 1:29), though more probably slain in sacrifice. Though said to have been made by God, "it is not proper so to understand the words, as if God had been a furrier, or a servant to sew clothes" (Calvin). God being said to make or do what he gives orders or instructions to be made or done. Willet and Macdonald, however, prefer to think that the garments were actually fashioned by God. Bush finds in the mention of Adam and his wife an intimation that they were furnished with different kinds of apparel, and suggests that on this fact is based the prohibition in Deuteronomy 22:5 against the interchange of raiment between the sexes. And clothed them.

1. To show them how their mortal bodies might be defended from cold and other injuries.

2. To cover their nakedness for comeliness' sake; vestimenta honoris (Chaldee Paraphrase).

3. To teach them the lawfulness of using the beasts of the field, as for food, so for clothing.

4. To give a rule that modest and decent, not costly or sumptuous, apparel should be used.

5. That they might know the difference between God's works and man's invention - between coats of leather and aprons of leaves; and,

6. To put them in mind of their mortality by their raiment of dead beasts' skins - talibus indici oportebat peccatorem ut essent mortalitatis indi-cium: Origen" (Wilier).

7. "That they might feel their degradation - quia vestes ex ca materia confectae, belluinum quiddam magis saperent, quam lineae vel laneae - and be reminded of their sin" (Calvin). "As the prisoner, looking on his irons, thinketh on his theft, so we, looking on our garments, should think on our sins" (Trapp).

8. A foreshadowing of the robe of Christ's righteousness (Delitzsch, Macdonald, Murphy, Wordsworth, Candlish; cf. Psalm 132:9, 16; Isaiah 61:10; Romans 13:14; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). Bonar recognizes in Jehovah Elohim at the gate of Eden, clothing the first transgressors, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as the High Priest of our salvation, had a right to the skins of the burnt offerings (Leviticus 7:8), and who, to prefigure his own work, appropriated them for covering the pardoned pair.

Verse 22. - And the Lord God said. Verba insultantis (Augustine); ironica reprobatio (Calvin). But "irony at the expense of a wretched, tempted soul might well befit Satan, but not the Lord" (Delitzsch), and is altogether inconsistent with the footing of grace on which man was placed immediately upon his fall. Behold, the man is become as one of us. Not the angels (Kalisch), but the Divine Persons (cf. Genesis 1:26). It is scarcely likely that Jehovah alludes to the words of the tempter (Genesis 3:5). To know good and evil. Implying an acquaintance with good and evil which did not belong to him in the state of innocence. The language seems to hint that a one-sided acquaintance with good and evil, such as that possessed by the first pair in the garden and the unfallen angels in heaven, is not so complete a knowledge of the inherent beauty of the one and essential turpitude of the other as is acquired by beings who pass through the experience of a fall, and that the only way in which a finite being can approximate to such a comprehensive knowledge of evil as the Deity possesses without personal contact - can see it as it lies everlastingly spread out before his infinite mind - is by going down into it and learning what it is through personal experience (cf. Candlish, in loco). And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. On the meaning of the tree of life v/de Genesis 2:9. Neither

(1) lest by eating of the fruit he should recover that immortal life which he no longer "it possessed (Kalisch), as is certain that man would not have been able, had he even devoured the whole tree, to enjoy life against the will of God" (Calvin); nor

(2) lest the first pair, through participation of the tree, should confer upon themselves the attribute of undyingness, which would not be the ζωὴ αἰώνιος of salvation, but its opposite, the ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον of the accursed (Keil, Lange, T. Lewis, Wordsworth); but either

(3) lest man should conceive the idea that immortality might still be secured by eating of the tree, instead of trusting in the promised seed, and under this false impression attempt to take its fruit, which, in his case, would have been equivalent to an attempt to justify himself by works instead of faith (Calvin, Macdonald); or

(4) lest he should endeavor to partake of the symbol of immortality, which he could not again do until his sin was expiated and himself purified (cf. Revelation 22:14; Candlish). The remaining portion of the sentence is omitted, anakoloutha or aposiopesis being not infrequent in impassioned speech (cf. Exodus 32:32; Job 32:13; Isaiah 38:18). The force of the ellipsis or expressive silence may be gathered from the succeeding words of the historian.

Verses 23, 24. - Therefore (literally, and) the Lord God sent (or cast, shalach in the Piel conveying the ideas of force and displeasure; cf. Deuteronomy 21:14; 1 Kings 9:7) him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground (i.e. the soil outside of paradise, which had been cursed for his sake) whence he was taken. Vide ver. 19. So (and) he drove out the man (along with his guilty partner); and he placed (literally, caused to dwell) at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim.

1. Griffins, like those of Persian and Egyptian mythology, which protected gold-producing countries like Eden; from carav, to tear in pieces; Sanscrit, grivh; Persian, giriften; Greek, γρυπ, γρυφ; German, grip, krip, greif (Eichhorn, Fürst).

2. Divine steeds; by metathesis for rechubim, from rachab, to ride (Psalm 18:11; Gesenius, Lange).

3. "Beings who approach to God and minister to him," taking cerub - karov, to come near, to serve (Hyde).

4. The engravings or carved figures; from carav (Syriac), to engrave (Taylor Lewis); from an Egyptian root (Cook, vide Speaker's Commentary). Biblical notices describe them as living creatures (Ezekiel 1:5; Revelation 4:6) in the form of a man (Ezekiel 1:5), with four (Ezekiel 1:8; 2:23; 10:7, 8-21) or with six wings (Revelation 4:8), and full of eyes (Ezekiel 1:18; Ezekiel 10:12; Revelation 4:8); having each four faces, viz., of a man, of a lion, of an ox, of an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10; Ezekiel 10:16); or with one face each - of a man, of a lion, of a calf, and of an eagle respectively trey. 4:7). Representations of these chay ath - LXX., ζωά ( were by Divine directions placed upon the Capporeth (Exodus 25:17) and curtains of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:1, 31; Exodus 36:8, 35), and afterwards engraved upon the walls and doors of the temple (1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35). In the Apocalypse they are depicted as standing in the immediate neighborhood of the throne trey. 4:6; 5:6; 7:11), and as taking part in the acts of adoration and praise m which the heavenly hosts engage (ibid. 5:11), and that on the express ground of their redemption (ibid. 5:8, 9). Whence the opinion that most exactly answers all the facts of the case is, that these mysterious creatures were symbolic not of the fullness of the Deity (Bahr), nor of the sum of earthly life (Hengstenberg), nor of the angelic nature (Calvin), nor of the Divine manhood of Jesus Christ (Wordsworth), but of redeemed and glorified humanity (Jamieson, Fairbairn, Macdonald, Candlish). Combining with the intelligence of human nature the highest qualities of the animal world, as exhibited in the lion, the ox, and the eagle, they were emblematic of creature life in its most absolutely perfect form. As such they were caused to dwell at the gate of Eden to intimate that only when perfected and purified could fallen human nature return to paradise. Meantime man was utterly unfit to dwell within its fair abode. And a flaming sword, which turned every way. Literally, the flame of a sword turning itself; not brandished by the cherubim, but existing separately, and flashing out from among them (cf. Ezekiel 1:4). An emblem of the Divine glory in its attitude towards sin (Macdonald). To keep (to watch over or guard; cf. Genesis 2:15) the way of the tree of life. "To keep the tree of life might imply that all access to it was to be precluded; but to keep the way signifies to keep the way open as well as to keep it shut" (Macdonald).