Genesis 3:4,5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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.