And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Behold, the man is become as one of us. This was not spoken in irony, as is commonly supposed-an expression of feeling that might have suited the mind of Satan, not the character of God; but it was said in deep compassion. The words should be rendered, 'Behold what has (by sin) become of the man who was as one of us!' formed at first in our image, a holy and happy being: How sad his condition now!
To know good and evil - (see the note at Genesis 3:5.) This knowledge, if absolute, is a divine attribute; but man, who was created with the knowledge of good only, acquired by his transgression the experimental knowledge of evil also, and thenceforth brought himself, by that attempt at self-exaltation, into a state of sin and misery.
And now, lest he ... take ... of the tree of life. This tree being a sacramental sign or pledge of that immortal life with which obedience should be rewarded, man lost, on his fall, all claim to this tree; and therefore, that he might not delude himself with the idea that eating of it would restore the inner life of the soul, the Lord sent him forth from the garden. Although incapable, through want of faith, of deriving any spiritual virtue from the eating of its fruit, he might, if permitted to remain, have attempted, by continuing the need of it, to profane the ordinance of God, and was therefore righteously debarred from the sight, when he had forfeited the thing signified. Some think that there was a further reason for the expulsion; because if "the tree of life" possessed the special property of healing wounds, bruises, and preserving in perpetual health and rigour the natural life of man, his continuance in the immediate vicinity of this sovereign remedy against pain, disease, and death must, in his fallen condition, have been not only an unhappy privilege for him, but inconsistent with the economy which God was about to commence in the world. An earthly immortality would, in the condition of the fallen pair, have been a curse instead of a blessing. With a corrupted nature, affections misplaced, passions broken loose, and ready to instigate to the commission of atrocious crimes, of which the first family ere long furnished an example-with the labours and cares, the sorrows and miseries that had become their doom-an endless continuance in this world would have been an intolerable existence. Hence, longer residence in the vicinity of the tree of life was now impossible; because sin and death entered the world together; and it was, therefore, an act of mercy, no less than of justice, on the part of God, to remove the man from all access to a tree, the sight of which must have occasioned only a constant renewal of disappointment and bitter memories.