2:25 both naked…not ashamed. With no knowledge of evil before the Fall, even nakedness was shameless and innocent. They found their complete gratification in the joy of their one union and their service to God. With no inward principle of evil to work on, the solicitation to sin had to come from without, and it did.
Genesis 3
3:1 the serpent. The word means “snake.” The apostle John identified this creature as Satan (cf. Rev. 12:9; 20:2) as did Paul (2 Cor. 11:3). The serpent, a manifestation of Satan, appears for the first time before the Fall of man. The rebellion of Satan, therefore, had occurred sometime after 1:31 (when everything in creation was good), but before 3:1. Cf. Ezek. 28:11–15 for a possible description of Satan’s dazzling beauty and Is. 14:13, 14 for Satan’s motivation to challenge God’s authority (cf. 1 John 3:8). Satan, being a fallen archangel and, thus, a supernatural spirit, had possessed the body of a snake in its pre-Fall form (cf. 3:14 for post-Fall form). more cunning. Deceitful; cf. Matt. 10:16. to the woman. She was the object of his attack, being the weaker one and needing the protection of her husband. He found her alone and unfortified by Adam’s experience and counsel. Cf. 2 Tim. 3:6. Though sinless, she was temptable and seducible. Has God… said…? In effect Satan said, “Is it true that He has restricted you from the delights of this place? This is not like one who is truly good and kind. There must be some mistake.” He insinuated doubt as to her understanding of God’s will, appearing as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) to lead her to the supposed true interpretation. She received him without fear or surprise, but as some credible messenger from heaven with the true understanding, because of his cunning.
3:2, 3 In her answer, Eve extolled the great liberty that they had; with only one exception, they could eat all the fruit.
3:3 nor shall you touch it. An addition to the original prohibition as recorded (cf. Gen. 2:17). Adam may have so instructed her for her protection.
3:4, 5 not…die. Satan, emboldened by her openness to him, spoke this direct lie. This lie actually led her and Adam to spiritual death (separation from God). So, Satan is called a liar and murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). His lies always promise great benefits (as in v. 5). Eve experienced this result—she and Adam did know good and evil; but by personal corruption, they did not know as God knows in perfect holiness.
3:6 good…pleasant…desirable. She decided that Satan was telling the truth and she had misunderstood God, but she didn’t know what she was doing. It was not overt rebellion against God, but seduction and deception to make her believe her act was the right thing to do (cf. v. 13). The NT confirms that Eve was deceived (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14; Rev. 12:9). he ate. A direct transgression without deception (see note on 1 Tim. 2:13, 14).
3:7 opened…knew…sewed. The innocence noted in 2:25 had been replaced by guilt and shame (vv. 8–10), and from then on they had to rely on their conscience to distinguish between good and their newly acquired capacity to see and know evil.
3:8 God appeared, as before, in tones of goodness and kindness, walking in some visible form (perhaps Shekinah light as He later appeared in Ex. 33:18–23; 34:5–8, 29; 40:34–38). He came not in fury, but in the same condescending way He had walked with Adam and Eve before.
3:9 “Where are you?” The question was God’s way of bringing man to explain why he was hiding, rather than expressing ignorance about man’s location. Shame, remorse, confusion, guilt, and fear all led to their clandestine behavior. There was no place to hide; there never is. See Ps. 139:1–12.
3:10 Your voice. The sound of 3:8, which probably was God calling for Adam and Eve. Adam responded with the language of fear and sorrow, but not confession.
3:11 Adam’s sin was evidenced by his new knowledge of the evil of nakedness, but God still waited for Adam to confess to what God knew they had done. The basic reluctance of sinful people to admit their iniquity is here established. Repentance is still the issue. When sinners refuse to repent, they suffer judgment; when they do repent, they receive forgiveness.
3:12 The woman whom You gave. Adam pitifully put the responsibility on God for giving him Eve. That only magnified the tragedy in that Adam had knowingly transgressed God’s prohibition, but still would not be open and confess his sin, taking full responsibility for his action, which was not made under deception (1 Tim. 2:14).
3:13 The serpent deceived me. The woman’s desperate effort to pass the blame to the serpent, which was partially true (1 Tim. 2:14), did not absolve her of the responsibility for her distrust and disobedience toward God.
3:14 to the serpent. The cattle and all the rest of creation were cursed (see Rom. 8:20–23; cf. Jer. 12:4) as a result of Adam and Eve’s eating, but the serpent was uniquely cursed by being made to slither on its belly. It probably had legs before this curse. Now snakes represent all that is odious, disgusting, and low. They are branded with infamy and avoided with fear. Cf. Is. 65:25; Mic. 7:17.
3:15 After cursing the physical serpent, God turned to the spiritual serpent, the lying seducer, Satan, and cursed him. bruise your head…bruise His heel. This “first gospel” is prophetic of the struggle and its outcome between “your seed” (Satan and unbelievers, who are called the Devil’s children in John 8:44) and her seed (Christ, a descendant of Eve, and those in Him), which began in the garden. In the midst of the curse passage, a message of hope shone forth—the woman’s offspring called “He” is Christ, who will one day defeat the Serpent. Satan could only “bruise” Christ’s heel (cause Him to suffer), while Christ will bruise Satan’s head (destroy him with a fatal blow). Paul, in a passage strongly reminiscent of Gen. 3, encouraged the believers in Rome, “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20). Believers should recognize that they participate in the crushing of Satan because, along with their Savior and because of His finished work on the cross, they also are of the woman’s seed. For more on the destruction of Satan, see Heb. 2:14, 15; Rev. 20:10.
3:16 conception…pain. This is a constant reminder that a woman gave birth to sin in the human race and passes it on to all her children. She can be delivered from this curse by raising godly children, as indicated in 1 Tim. 2:15 (see note there). Your desire…he shall rule. Just as the woman and her seed will engage in a war with the serpent, i.e., Satan and his seed (v. 15), because of sin and the curse, the man and the woman will face struggles in their own relationship. Sin has turned the harmonious system of God-ordained roles into distasteful struggles of self-will. Lifelong companions, husbands and wives, will need God’s help in getting along as a result. The woman’s desire will be to lord it over her husband, but the husband will rule by divine design (Eph. 5:22–25). This interpretation of the curse is based upon the identical Heb. words and grammar being used in 4:7 (see note there) to show the conflict man will have with sin as it seeks to rule him.
3:17 Because you have heeded. The reason given for the curse on the ground and human death is that man turned his back on the voice of God, to follow his wife in eating that from which God had ordered him to abstain. The woman sinned because she acted independently of her husband, disdaining his leadership, counsel, and protection. The man sinned because he abandoned his leadership and followed the wishes of his wife. In both cases, God’s intended roles were reversed.
3:17, 18 Cursed is the ground for your sake. God cursed the object of man’s labor and made it reluctantly, yet richly, yield his food through hard work.
3:19 return to the ground. I.e., to die (cf. 2:7). Man, by sin, became mortal. Although he did not die the moment he ate (by God’s mercy), he was changed immediately and became liable to all the sufferings and miseries of life, to death, and to the pains of hell forever. Adam lived 930 years (5:5).
3:21 tunics of skin. The first physical deaths should have been the man and his wife, but it was an animal—a shadow of the reality that God would someday kill a substitute to redeem sinners.
3:22 like one of Us. See note on 1:26. This was spoken out of compassion for the man and wom
an, who only in limited ways were like the Trinity, knowing good and evil—not by holy omniscience, but by personal experience (cf. Is. 6:3; Hab. 1:13; Rev. 4:8).
3:22, 23 and live forever. See note on 2:9. God told man that he would surely die if he ate of the forbidden tree. But God’s concern may also have been that man not live forever in his pitifully cursed condition. Taken in the broader context of Scripture, driving the man and his wife out of the garden was an act of merciful grace to prevent them from being sustained forever by the tree of life.
3:24 cherubim. Later in Israel’s history, two cherubim or angelic figures guarded the ark of the covenant and the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle (Ex. 25:18–22), where God communed with His people. flaming sword. An unexplainable phenomenon, perhaps associated directly with the cherubim or the flaming, fiery Shekinah presence of God Himself.
Genesis 4
4:1 Adam knew Eve his wife. The act of sexual intercourse was considered the only means by which God Himself gave children. He was acknowledged as the sovereign giver of all life.
4:2 she bore again. Some think the boys may have been twins, since no time element intervenes between vv. 1, 2. keeper of sheep…tiller of the ground. Both occupations were respectable; in fact, most people subsisted through a combination of both. God’s focus was not on their vocation, but on the nature of their respective offerings.
4:3 fruit of the ground. Produce in general.
4:4 firstborn…fat. The best animals.
4:4, 5 Abel’s offering was acceptable (cf. Heb. 11:4), not just because it was an animal, nor just because it was the very best of what he had, nor even that it was the culmination of a zealous heart for God; but, because it was in every way obediently given according to what God must have revealed (though not recorded in Genesis). Cain, disdaining the divine instruction, just brought what he wanted to bring: some of his crop.
4:5, 6 angry. Rather than being repentant for his sinful disobedience, he was hostile toward God, whom he could not kill, and jealous of his brother, whom he could kill (cf. 1 John 3:12; Jude 11).
4:7 do well…be accepted. God reminded Cain that if he had obeyed God and offered the animal sacrifices God had required, his sacrifices would have been acceptable. It wasn’t personal preference on God’s part, or disdain for Cain’s vocation, or the quality of his produce that caused God to reject his sacrifice. sin lies at the door. God told Cain that if he chose not to obey His commands, ever-present sin, crouched and waiting to pounce like a lion, would fulfill its desire to overpower him (cf. 3:16).
4:8 The first murder in Scripture (cf. Matt. 23:35; Luke 11:51; Heb. 12:24). Cain rejected the wisdom spoken to him by God Himself, rejected doing well, refused to repent, and thus crouching sin pounced and turned him into a killer. Cf. 1 John 3:10–12.
4:9 Am I my brother’s keeper? Cain’s sarcasm was a play on words, based on the fact that Abel was the “keeper” of sheep. Lying was the third sin resulting from Cain’s attitude of indifference to God’s commands. Sin was ruling over him (v. 7).
4:10 voice…blood. A figure of speech to indicate that Abel’s death was well known to God.
4:11 cursed from the earth. A second curse came from God affecting just the productivity of the soil Cain would till. To a farmer like Cain, this curse was severe, and meant that Cain would all his life be a wanderer, “a fugitive and a vagabond” (vv. 12, 14).
4:14 anyone…kill me. This shows that the population of the earth was, by then, greatly increased. As a wanderer and scavenger in an agrarian world, Cain would be easy prey for those who wanted his life.
4:15 mark. While not described here, it involved some sort of identifiable sign that he was under divine protection which was mercifully given to Cain by God. At the same time, the mark that saved him was the lifelong sign of his shame.
4:16 Nod. An unknown location.
4:17 Cain knew his wife. Cain’s wife obviously was one of Adam’s later daughters (5:4). By Moses’ time, this kind of close marriage was forbidden (Lev. 18:7–17), because of genetic decay. Enoch. His name means “initiation,” and was symbolic of the new city where Cain would try to mitigate his curse.
4:19 two wives. No reason is given on Lamech’s part for the first recorded instance of bigamy. He led the Cainites in open rebellion against God (cf. 2:24) by his violation of marriage law.
4:20 Jabal. He invented tents and the nomadic life of herdsmen so common in the Middle East and elsewhere.
4:21 Jubal. He invented both stringed and wind instruments.
4:22 Tubal-Cain. He invented metallurgy.
4:23, 24 Lamech killed someone in self-defense. He told his wives that they need not fear any harm coming to them for the killing because if anyone tried to retaliate, he would retaliate and kill them. He thought that if God promised 7-fold vengeance on anyone killing Cain, He would give 77-fold vengeance on anyone attacking Lamech.
4:25 Seth. With Cain removed as the older brother and heir of the family blessing, and with Abel dead, God graciously gave Adam and Eve a godly son through whom the seed of redemption (3:15) would be passed all the way to Jesus Christ (Luke 3:38).
4:26 men began to call on the name of the LORD. As men realized their inherent sinfulness with no human means to appease God’s righteous indignation and wrath over their multiplied iniquities, they turned to God for mercy and grace in hopes of a restored personal relationship.
Genesis 5
5:1—6:8 the genealogy of Adam. Ten specific families are mentioned. Most likely, in accord with other biblical genealogies, this listing is representative rather than complete (cf. Ruth 4:18–22).
5:1–32 Adam…Noah. The genealogy connects Adam to the Noahic family which not only survived the Flood, but also became first in God’s re-creation. Two recurring phrases carry redemption history forward: “…and he had sons and daughters,” “…and he died.” These lines, which get repeated for each successive descendant of Adam, echo two contrasting realities; God had said “you shall surely die,” (2:17) but He had also commanded them to “Be fruitful and multiply” (1:28).
5:1 the likeness of God. See notes on 1:26.
5:2 called them Mankind. In naming man, God declared His own dominion over all creation (Matt. 19:4; Mark 10:6).
5:3 in his own likeness, after his image. The human image and likeness in which God created mankind was procreatively passed to the second generation and to all generations which follow.
5:5 nine hundred and thirty years. These are literal years marking unusual length of life which are accounted for by the pre-Flood environment provided by the earth being under a canopy of water, filtering out the ultraviolet rays of the sun and producing a much more moderate and healthful condition. See notes on 1:7; 2:6. and he died. God told Adam that if he ate of the tree he would surely die (2:17). It included spiritual death immediately and then physical death later.
5:24 walked with God…was not, for God took him. Enoch is the only break in the chapter from the incessant comment, “and he died.” Cf. 4:17, 18; 1 Chr. 1:3; Luke 3:37; Heb. 11:5; Jude 14. Only one other man is said to have enjoyed this intimacy of relationship in walking with God, Noah (6:9). Enoch experienced being taken to heaven alive by God, as did Elijah later (2 Kin. 2:1–12).
5:25–27 Methuselah. The man who lived the longest life on record. He died the year of the flood judgment (cf. 7:6).
5:29 This one will comfort us. Comfort would come through the godly life of Noah, who is an “heir of the righteousness” which is according to faith (Heb. 11:7).
Genesis 6
6:1–4 The account that follows records an act of degradation that reveals the end-point of God’s patience.
6:1 Such long lifespans as indicated in the record of chap. 5 caused massive increase in earth’s population.
6:2 the sons of God saw the daughters of men. The sons of God, identified elsewhere almost exclusively as angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7), saw and took wives of the human race. This produced an unnatural union which violated the God-ordained
order of human marriage and procreation (Gen. 2:24). Some have argued that the sons of God were the sons of Seth who cohabited with the daughters of Cain; others suggest they were perhaps human kings wanting to build harems. But the passage puts strong emphasis on the angelic vs. human contrast. The NT places this account in sequence with other Genesis events and identifies it as involving fallen angels who indwelt men (see notes on 2 Pet. 2:4, 5; Jude 6). Matthew 22:30 does not necessarily negate the possibility that angels are capable of procreation, but just that they do not marry. To procreate physically, they had to possess human, male bodies.
6:3 My Spirit. Cf. Gen. 1:2. The Holy Spirit played a most active role in the OT. The Spirit had been striving to call men to repentance and righteousness, especially as Scripture notes, through the preaching of Enoch and Noah (1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5; Jude 14). one hundred and twenty. The span of time until the Flood (cf. 1 Pet. 3:20), in which man was given opportunity to respond to the warning that God’s Spirit would not always be patient.
6:4 giants. The word nephilim is from a root meaning “to fall,” indicating that they were strong men who “fell” on others in the sense of overpowering them (the only other use of this term is in Num. 13:33). They were already in the earth when the “mighty men” and “men of renown” were born. The fallen ones are not the offspring from the union in 6:1, 2.
6:5 his heart was only evil continually. This is one of the strongest and clearest statements about man’s sinful nature. Sin begins in the thought-life (see notes on James 1:13–15). The people of Noah’s day were exceedingly wicked, from the inside out. Cf. Jer. 17:9, 10; Matt. 12:34, 35; 15:18, 19; Mark 7:21; Luke 6:45.
6:6 sorry…grieved. Sin sorrowed God who is holy and without blemish (Eph. 4:30). Cf. Ex. 32:14; 1 Sam. 15:11; Jer. 26:3.
6:7 God promised total destruction when His patience ran out (cf. Eccl. 8:11).
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