Genesis 3:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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 Gen 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?