Most people are used to the term “The Fall.” They think of Genesis chapter 2 as being about “The Creation.” And they think of Genesis chapter 3 being about “The Fall.” Is that all? Is that even right?
These labels aren’t in the Bible. They are teaching terms that people use to sum up what they think happened. But is “The Fall” what happened in Genesis 3? Actually … it is not.
What did happen in Chapter 3 is found in verse 1 and the verses that follow it. What did happen in chapter 3 we can label not “The Fall” but rather “The Attack and the Aftermath.”
Did someone attack? Do we have a name or a description of the perpetrator? If we were police detectives investigating the facts afterwards and we were seeking who attacked, and how did they did it, could we find answers in the first verses of Genesis chapter 3? Oh yes! There are plenty of descriptors available to us. We don’t even need Sherlock Holmes.
In the Garden of Eden, the man and the woman were surrounded by fresh fruit trees and brand new animals of every shape and size. Everything in the Garden was very good. The man and the woman were very good. God the creator was very good too.
But someone, who Jesus later described as a liar and a murderer, disguised himself and strategically took up his place in order to attack the two at the tree in the middle of the Garden. As we read verse 1 of chapter 3, we learn that here was a creature in the Garden who was not like the others.
This one was different. He disguised himself as just an animal but he did that in order to deceive. That was his first lie. He masqueraded as just a serpent. Let’s see if we can count how many more lies come out in these first verses of chapter 3.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” Genesis 3:1-2, New International Version
Let’s ask some questions based on what we find in the text. “Now the serpent was more crafty.” Which serpent? The serpent. Just any old serpent? No. This one was different. How so? He spoke. Verse 1 says “He spoke to the woman.”
Let’s ask some more questions. What did he say? He called their perfect world, the world their perfect Lord had created, he called that world into question. He twisted things as he spoke his first words: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
In Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 we learn that God made the woman and the man rulers over all the earth. God said to the man and the woman “Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” The woman knew God’s will. Here was one of the living creatures and it was getting things very wrong. So, she acted accordingly and corrected it in verses 2 and 3. She taught it God’s will. So here we have the perfect woman in the Garden of Eden who is the perfect teacher correctly ruling over one of the creatures in the Garden.
But here we see the craftiness of the serpent tempter. He had hidden the fact that he was the most glorious of all the heavenly angels. And he was hiding the fact that he was there to murder them right there in the Beginning!
Can we linger on this attack here for a moment. Can we measure the outrage of the action and the first words of Satan-in-the-serpent? These acts and these words foreshadow the outrage of crucifying the sinless Savior on the cruel cross! Here in the perfection of the Garden of Eden filled with joy and shared love at every level of creation and the serpent tempter hisses out this innuendo that God is not perfect, is not trustworthy and perhaps God is a liar and is likely acting unjustly with regard to the first human beings!
The YUK Factor should be huge as we consider this! Like a server spitting into your bowl of soup as he sets it down before you in a restaurant this speaker in the serpent has acted outrageously!
From our point in history we can see this. We can understand. Yet, at first the situation in Eden seemed to be something needing only a simple correction and so the woman instructed it in verses 2 and 3.
Let’s ask a few more questions. What happens in verses 4 and 5? The serpent craftily builds on its own momentum. He flat out lies and presumes to know more than God who himself needs correction from the serpent.
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Preposterous words! Claims so very wrong and damnable! Yes, they would certainly die and they did, and so do all of us! And no God did not know they were incomplete and imperfect creatures because these claims were not true. To the contrary.
This liar and crafty murderer was in rebellion against God and all that was good. He was modeling his rebellion through his murderous lies. Would both of them there with him at the tree follow him in his rebellion? Would they too hatefully twist the facts afterwards and even accuse God?
The two of them did not follow him in rebellion. But one of them did, as we will see.
In the Attack, Satan succeeded in getting both the woman and the man to eat the forbidden fruit. Both received the punishment of death. So do we all.
What many people often miss is how each one at the tree responded differently to the attack. Each one ate but from different motives. And we will see from the way God reacts to each one differently that noticing these differences is VERY important to our getting a right understanding of what happened in the Garden in the Beginning.
The man and the woman were both eaters of that fruit but one was a second-degree eater and the other was a first-degree eater. The Bible takes seriously the difference between first- and second-degree offenders. Perhaps the most obvious example occurred when the people of Israel had finished their 40-year exile in the desert and were about to enter the Promised Land. God was explaining which of the 12 tribes were to be located where.
God said to the people to set apart six Cities of Refuge, three on one side of the Jordan River and three on the other side. These cities were located in such a way that anyone in Israel could easily get to one of them if needed. When would they be needed? They would be needed if someone killed another by accident.
The legal system said that if a murder was committed an Avenger was responsible to put the murderer to death. Taking a life on purpose, what we call today pre-meditated, or first-degree murder deserved the most severe punishment. But what if someone caused the death of another person but they didn’t do it on purpose? They were guilty not of first-degree murder but of second-degree manslaughter. Did they receive the death penalty? No. They could flee to a City of Refuge. After hearing their case the citizens there could harbor the killer and protect them from the hands of the Avenger. Eventually, they could even be restored to society. There was a clear distinction laid out for them by God on how to treat people who were guilty to differing degrees.
God, who is timeless, already thought that way back in the Beginning. Who would you label as a second-degree eater and who would you call a first-degree eater of the forbidden fruit? We gain understanding on this by the Bible’s use of the word “deceived.” Three times in the Bible we learn that Eve was deceived into eating. She didn’t disobey on purpose. She had to be tricked into doing so. Like the ones who didn’t commit premeditated murder, she was a second-degree eater. To the contrary Adam was a first-degree eater.
He had been one-on-one with God early on in the Garden. God had intimately spoken with him alone in those first moments in the Garden. Adam heard God tell him not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He also heard the voice of the serpent enemy at the tree. He was right there with the woman and received the fruit from her hand. He had been listening to the serpent. He had observed how it was contradicting and accusing God and lifting itself up to be supreme. When he ate of that fruit he did so as a first-degree rebel. And God noticed.
Some people assume that because Eve had to be deceived into eating, thinking it was good in three ways to eat that fruit, that she was more guilty. But if there had been a City of Refuge for her to run to in Eden she would have been let in because she was only a second-degree eater.
Some people even view the woman as the man’s temptress. If you go to Paris to the Cathedral of Notre Dame right over a main door you will find that the theology held by the sculptor was something like that. He sculpted the man and the woman on each side of the tree and there in the leaves above them there was a woman with the lower half of her body with the tail of a serpent! Time and time again theology has gotten it wrong, blaming Eve and all her daughters when the one guilty of a more serious offense was Adam.
In the rest of Genesis 3 we see God act in two different ways as he makes judgments for first- and second-degree offenders. In her research, Dr. Joy Fleming points out that God used a six-point pattern in judging the serpent enemy in Genesis 3:14-15. God says to the serpent “Because you” and “cursed is” and “all the days of your life” and God makes three additional points including the echoing Hebrew words shuph/shuph at the end. God acted on the woman’s words when he judged the serpent tempter for deceiving the woman. The angel Satan was a rebel against God, a premediated murderer and certainly deserving of first-degree judgement.
What is not clear from English translations is that God used exactly the same 6 points once more in his words to the man. God said to the man in verses 17-19, “Because you” and “cursed is” and “all the days of your life” plus the same three additional points including an echoing pair of Hebrew words “shub/shub” at the end. Twice God imposes a curse in Eden. No more than that. God placed a curse on the serpent and God placed a curse on the ground because of the man. Why? Because each was guilty of first-degree rebellion against God and his word.
Did you notice? In grace God diverted the curse on the man to strike the earth from which he had come. Whew! That was close!
In Genesis 3:11-12 when God interviewed the man, the man shockingly told God nothing about what the serpent said during the attack made by him at the tree. God had given the man the opportunity to bring up who had talked to him. The man, instead, accused God and the woman as somehow being at fault! The man was guilty of the sin of rebellion by being a first-degree eater. He additionally sinned by omission, not mentioning the serpent, and sinned by twisting the facts.
So, what about God’s words to the woman? If she were only a second-degree eater shouldn’t God have treated her more leniently? Yes she was, and yes God did!
Not a single one of the six points God addressed to the serpent and the man are made in God’s words to the woman! Let’s explore this difference and what God did say to her.
God’s words to the woman in Genesis 3:16. We all love the words of John 3:16, “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Have we noticed that there is good news also in Genesis 3:16? There is!
There is a poetic pattern in the Hebrew text of Genesis chapter 3 that reinforces the facts of what happened in the middle of the Garden. The man and the woman ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Up till then everything had been very good in their lives. After the attack and their disobedience their experience was mixed. This good news/bad news is woven into the pattern of God’s words to the woman and the man.
For example, in Line 1 of God’s words in Genesis 3:16 there is bad news and good news. According to the Hebrew text, God promises her to take action in two ways with bad results and good results. You can see this clearly in the New King James translation. God says, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow (bad news) and your conception (good news).
Then in Lines 2, 3 and 4 the good news/bad news pattern continues. In Line 2 she learns she will experience grief, or psychological sorrow (bad news) but that she will have multiple children (good news). In Line 3, God confirms that her desire is still for her husband (good news) but in Line 4 the man will desire to rule over her (bad news). And this good news/bad news pattern intensifies in God’s words to the man in verses 17-19.
There is more poetic patterning present in Genesis 3:16. It has to do with a linchpin construction. Genesis 2-3 is drawn up in a rainbow pattern, or a chiasm, with parallel elements on the way up in Genesis 2 and down in Genesis 3. In Genesis 2 there is a linchpin construction where two words in a middle verse are linked with the verses below and above it. And in a parallel section in Genesis 3, in Genesis 3:16, there are two actions that God promises to take that are linked to the verse that follows and to the verse that precedes it.
Let’s consider these more carefully. In his bad news God says that she will have sorrow. The Hebrew word is ‘itsabon and it means “sorrowful toil.” She doesn’t learn how much sorrowful toil she will have or why it will come about. She just learns that she will have sorrowful toil. This is what is called a proleptic prophecy where the result is given but the cause will be given later. And sure enough, in God’s words to the man she learns where her sorrowful toil will come from. She also learns that she won’t be the only one experiencing it.
In verses 17 to 19, God tells the man that because of him God will curse the soil and he will experience “sorrowful toil.” Aha! They each will have this “sorrowful toil” and it will be the result of working the cursed soil. Genesis 5:29 tells us that the parents of Noah lamented that they too were experiencing this “sorrowful toil” when they worked the cursed soil with their hands.
Have you ever worked in a garden with your hands in the soil until the dirt gets under your fingernails? It gets a bit awkward when sweat begins to drip down your face and on to the tip of your nose. This is how it is described in God’s words to the woman and the man in Eden. When would this happen? Outside the Garden of Eden where God knew they soon would have to go.
The second word in the linchpin pattern in Line 1 of 3:16 is all about good news! That word is “conception” or “pregnancy.” That word links back up to verse 15 where God tells the serpent that her “offspring,” or her “seed,” will crush its head. Do you see the two linked words in Line 1? One. She will experience sorrowful toil as will the man. That link in the linchpin goes down to the following verse. Two. She would have “conception.” This word links back up to the seed or the offspring, the Messiah promised in the preceding verse of 3:15.
This is the personal confirmation to her of the glorious protevangelium. Protevangelium? That’s a Latin word that you don’t have to go to seminary to learn. Protevangelium means the first announcement of the Gospel, of the Good News of the coming Messiah, the offspring of the woman. The woman had heard that her seed would crush the serpent’s head while God was speaking to Satan-in-the-serpent in 3:15. Then, God turns to the woman full of grace and promise. Yes, to you, God promises, I will certainly bring to pass your pregnancy, your conception of the One who will save you from the evil one.
And God did just that through Eve and her daughters right down to Mary through the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord!
Have you noticed? Neither of the two words in the linchpin, neither “sorrow” nor “conception” has to do with childbirth. Neither one is about the final moments of pregnancy when the woman delivers her baby. One is about bad news in fieldwork – the results of the curse on the ground because of the man. One is all about the good news of salvation – God’s promise to her of multiplied offspring, one of which would crush the head of her enemy.
This is what the Hebrew words say in Genesis 3 and for many years this is what readers of English Bibles read for themselves in their Bibles. They read that God would multiply two things. This and that. But in 1952 a new English translation came out and they had replaced “sorrow” and “conception” with something different, with a single thing. The linchpin with the bad news and the good news was replaced with a single thing and it was all bad news.
This mistranslation, and others that followed its example, has spread around the world into many languages. Each time a new people group receives the Bible in their language the sad news is that they receive this mistranslation that replaces the linchpin and the personal announcement to the woman of God’s great good news. Perhaps this is the wording you too are used to?
In Africa people have taken this wording to mean God cursed the woman herself and all her daughters. They say she must have been in league with the Devil to have received a curse like this. This is what they say when they read the one thing that was introduced in 1952: “I will multiply your pain in childbirth.”
Many women and men have been puzzled, repulsed and confused by this way of inserting pain in child delivery into the verse. Is this a further strike at the woman by the Evil One who is the author of confusion? You can judge.
We need to “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16 to better correspond to the linchpin in the Hebrew word patterns. For God didn’t curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.
In Lines 2, 3 and 4 of Genesis 3:16 the bad news/good news pattern continues. God takes no more action. But God tells the woman what her life will be like.
The bad news she learns at the start of Line 2 is that she will experience psychological “sorrow.” She will experience “grief.” That Hebrew word is ‘etseb. The good news at the end of Line 2 is that she will fulfill the creation mandate recorded in Genesis 1 to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. She will have not just one offspring. She will have multiple children.
The good news/bad news in Lines 3 and 4 is as follows. God looks into her heart. She is still on her honeymoon in the Garden of Eden Bed and Breakfast. She may have been deceived into eating but her heart was not rebellious and she had not turned against her husband. To the contrary, her desire, her affection, was still for her husband, much like the Bible describes King Solomon whose desire was for his lover. That reassurance in Line 3 was the good news.
The bad news in Line 4 was that the rebellious man who had accused God, and her, had a different desire. He desired to rule over her. This was bad news because it was not God’s plan. It was the result of the seed of the serpent being planted in the man’s heart and bearing fruit in a terrible way.
Some people take these last words in 3:16, about ruling over, as if God had given them to the man. This is not what the text says. These words of warning were given to the woman. Had she come to understand she had been deceived by the tempter? Now, God was bringing to her awareness that her husband had changed and was not the very good man she had known at the start.
So, what do we learn from Genesis 3? How should we respond when we learn about The Attack and The Aftermath in Genesis 3?
We learn the source of evil is not God. The cause of conflict between the man and the woman was not God. We also learn of God’s grace and promise. We learn that God didn’t curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.
With these realizations clearly in mind we can examine other passages in the Bible that teach about women and men in the family and society and in the church. We can realize that God seeks good for each one of us and God sent his Son, as we read in John 3:16, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life!
Go deeper? See The Book of Eden – Genesis 2-3 by Bruce C. E. Fleming and Man and Woman in Biblical Unity – Theology from Genesis 2-3 by Dr. Joy Fleming, both available on Amazon.
Joy and Bruce co-founded donor-supported Tru316 Foundation (Tru316.com) with the mission to “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16 and to spread the positive news of Eden worldwide. So far, The Eden Podcast has been downloaded a quarter of a million times from more than 150 countries!
You can subscribe to The Eden Podcast on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/@tru316/videos
