And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
When the woman saw, ... Her imagination and feelings were completely won. The history of every temptation and of every sin is the same; the outward object of attraction, the inward commotion of the mind, the increase and triumph of passionate desire, ending in the degradation, misery, and ruin of the soul. In the brief account of this temptation there is the world or creature in all the forms in which it is possible that it can become an ensnaring object to mankind. Under the first head, "good for food," there is the gratification of the bodily sensual appetites; under the second, "pleasant to the eyes, there is the indulgence of the tastes and affections of the animal spirit; and under the third, "a tree to be desired to make one wise," there is the gratification of the nobler faculties of the intellect or rational soul (cf. 1 John 2:16). In that passage of the New Testament there is no direct allusion to the original temptation in Eden; yet no one who reads the words can help thinking that the mental eye of the apostle was directed toward it when he wrote this exhortation. If, indeed, this were not the case, then it is an undesigned coincidence, and proves, in no unequivocal manner, that the same Divine Spirit guided the pen of the historian (Genesis) and the apostle (John).
She gave unto her husband, and he did eat. Much is evidently left to the reader's imagination in this brief statement. We are left to picture the tumult of conflicting emotions that filled and distracted the breast of Adam when he heard the woeful intelligence; surprise at the recital of his wife's strange conversation with the serpent, astonishment at her fatal act, and the powerful motives that led him coolly and dispassionately to take the fruit-branch from her hand. Milton represents it as dictated by the generous resolution of self-martyrdom with his beautiful partner, whom his penetrating mind now saw had become the victim of momentary rashness. But while we allow him the poetical license to which he is entitled, we, following the plain and truthful intimations of Scripture, must admit the strong operation of a different cause-that of Adam's loving the creature more than the Creator.
"Adam was not deceived" (1 Timothy 2:14), but he ate without seeing the serpent; and after the scene of deception was past, he yielded to the arguments and solicitations of his wife, whose insinuating influence prevailed over his better judgment. Love in his soul had lost its pure and elevating character; its excess overbalanced the principle of supreme devotedness to God, and led him to adopt the fatal resolve of sharing the penalty of his wife's rash act, rather than hear the painful prospect of spending his life without her. In considering the scene of temptation here described, several circumstances call for notice:
(1) The record is characterized by a peculiarity in the way of mentioning the Creator, which is the more remarkable, as it stands in striking contrast to the designation given to the Divine Being throughout the preceding as well as subsequent context. Moses, in his character of historian, uses the term "Lord God" uniformly throughout his narrative of the transactions detailed from Genesis 2:4 to the end of this third chapter; and it appears (Genesis 4:1) that Eve was also acquainted with the name "Lord" х Yahweh (H3068)]. But in the reported conversation which the tempter carried on with the woman, a different name occurs; and since the minutest details of that fatal conversation would in all probability be preserved by frequent repetition, we are warranted to conclude that the opening verses contain the pure unaltered form of the primitive tradition. On this hypothesis, which appears well founded, the designation given to the Creator, as it stands in the record, was precisely that which was used on the occasion. It expresses (see the note at Genesis 1:1) the general abstract idea of Deity; and a little reflection will show that the use of that name was more accordant with the character idea of Deity; and a little reflection will show that the use of that name was more accordant with the character of the wicked seducer than any other known title of the Creator.
(2) As to the temptation itself, the eating of a little fruit was not an act essentially sinful; but it became so when that act was done in the face of a stern, positive prohibition; and a just view of its real character can be obtained only when we consider the circumstances in which it was committed. Adam and his wife were not, as has been said, the victims of inevitable fate. They were free agents, capable of being influenced by motives, but still at perfect liberty to follow whatever course they pleased; and as, notwithstanding their avowed knowledge both of the divine will respecting the interdicted tree, and of the awful penalty annexed to its violation, they, deluded by artful sophistry, allowed themselves to receive a different notion of its properties from what God had given them, they betrayed a willingness to be deceived, a proneness to transgress. It was not by any stern necessity, but by a determinate choice of their own will, a voluntary surrender of their hearts to temptation, that they committed the first sin; and that sin, considering their special advantages, was marked by many aggravations.
It was a willful and presumptuous offence-that is, a transgression of a known duty, a departure from the declared will of God-an offence the more criminal that they possessed sufficient power to enable them to remain steadfast in duty, and that it was committed in Paradise-a place consecrated by the presence of God. It implied not only disobedience to the Lawgiver, but a contempt of His solemn declarations as unworthy of credit-horrid ingratitude and discontent amid the most profuse liberality-a dark suspicion, which virtually charged the Creator with designedly debarring them from attaining the inherent perfectibility of their nature-pride, in presuming to apply their own notions of fitness or expediency to judge of the equity and wisdom of the divine arrangements-infidelity and Atheism, in resolving to throw off the submission of creatures, and aiming at the independent government of their own actions. It contained, in fact, the germ of which all other sins have been merely the unfolding. The view which has just been exhibited of the sin of man should be borne in mind, since it is necessary for vindicating the divine goodness from the charge of exposing them to irresistible temptations, as well as for placing in a just light the guilt and folly of Adam and his wife in yielding to temptation. It began in infidelity, and amounted to nothing less than an apostasy from God, to join with a being evidently at variance with Him, whose insinuating language raised in their minds a mistrust of the divine goodness, and taught them to disregard the divine threatenings.
(3) The temptation was from without. It did not originate with man himself, from the ascendancy of any bad passion, or the motions of inborn concupiscence; because there being in the pure bosoms of the first pair no principle of evil to work upon and stimulate, the solicitation to sin must necessarily have been extraneous, as in the analogous case of Jesus Christ (Matthew 4:3). The senses are the natural and most direct channels of communication between the mind and the external world; but since these were as yet unperverted, and could not be engaged as instruments of evil, the temptation was addressed to the intellect. The appeal was made to its desire for greater knowledge, to be obtained, however, not in a natural and legitimate way, but foolishly and absurdly, through means of a tree which they were assured would not only yield far nobler and more excellent enjoyments than those which the Creator had bestowed on them, but raise them to a level with God Himself. Thus, the tempter gave decisive proof, as he has done in every subsequent instance, of his subtilty in working upon that power and propensity of the human mind which was most favourable to his designs.
(4) The tempter was a real living personal agent. Some writers, indeed, have maintained that this narrative, being cast in the form of Eastern allegory the tempter must be considered a mere personification of moral evil. But every unprejudiced reader must be convinced that the language of the sacred historian intimates something far beyond an internal struggle with temptation, and trace the sin of our first parents directly to the guile and malice of a tempter, not within but without them. The objective personality of the tempter is taught throughout the whole Bible. In the fuller revelations of the later Scriptures it is distinctly intimated that the author of the plot upon our first parents was an evil spirit, who is called "the wicked one," "the enemy," and the tempter of mankind (Matthew 13:19; Matthew 13:39; 1 Thessalonians 3:5) and who, in reference to this primitive transaction in Eden, is styled "a liar" and "a murderer" (John 8:44; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). Whatever was the cause of his hostility to man: whether, as some think, he had been viceroy of the pre-Adamite world, and having been degraded and expelled from it, in consequence of rebellion at the period when "the earth was without form and void," was superseded by the new race of mankind; or whether it proceeded from an innate love of disorder, cruelty, and sin, he had cherished, and by his consummate subtilty succeeded, in the secret purpose of establishing himself as the ruler and "god of this world."
That he was the originator and prime agent in the scheme of temptation, Scripture leaves no room to doubt. But Moses makes mention of a serpent as the prominent actor in that affair; and there are two ways of explaining this difficulty. The one is, that a literal serpent, one of the common reptile tribe, was made use of as the tool or instrument of the unseen spirit; and that, since it was a stranger in paradise, Eve, whose observation and experience were very limited, was struck with its luminous appearance, its peculiar form, and the elastic rapidity of its movements, so far that, her attention being concentrated upon it, paved the way for the scene that ensued.
The serpent is described as addressing the woman; and in answer to the objection, that serpents have not received from nature organs adapted by any training, like parrots, to the formation of articulate sounds, it is said that Balaam's donkey was miraculously empowered to speak, and that the possibility of doing so is as great in the case of the serpent. But the serpent is represented as doing many more wonderful things than even speaking; because, from the tenor of the narrative, it not only possessed an intelligent knowledge of the state and arrangements of the garden, but indicated a capacity of reasoning-of founding subtle arguments on the benignity of the divine character-of removing the objections and scruples of simple innocence by bold assertions, and holding out an alluring prospect of the dignity and the benefits of knowledge; and the explanation commonly given of these difficulties is (for the assertion of Josephus, that all living creatures had at first one common language, is rejected as wholly untenable) that even though the serpent did not utter a word in the ears, all this train of argument might have been represented to the eyes of the woman, by the reptile, which had been playing its varying gambols at her feet, suddenly springing up to coil itself in spiral folds among the branches of the forbidden tree, and luxuriating with ostentatious zest on its fruit.
One may easily imagine, it is alleged, how this spectacle would arrest the attention and engage the interest of a simple, unsuspecting beholder, who saw it all done with perfect impunity, and the highest satisfaction to the creature. That no mention is made of any other than the reptile, is accounted for by the circumstance, either that Moses was relating only the history of the visible world, or that it was not expedient, considering the idolatrous propensities of the Israelites, to notice the existence of a wicked spirit, in case they should be induced to render a blind, superstitious homage to his malignant power. Many, however, have called in question the soundness of this traditional explanation, and support their objections by the following reasons:
(1) There is mention made in the Mosaic narrative of only one serpent, and to interpret it by saying that a material serpent was instigated by the evil spirit is an unwarrantable addition to the statement of the inspired history.
(2) No serpent has ever been known in any age to speak: and to suppose that the serpent in Eden was capable of uttering articulate sounds, it could only be through miraculous agency, which no one can believe that God would delegate to Satan.
(3) Serpents do not subsist on fruit. They are carnivorous animals; and there is no evidence that wild, rapacious creatures had a place in Eden.
(4) The grammatical structure of the first verse clearly shows that it was not an ordinary reptile, one of the serpentine race: for the Hebrew words are х wªhanaachaash (H5175) haayaah (H1961)]: "and the serpent was more subtil than all the beasts of the field." The prefix of the article determines the reference to be to one particular serpent, and by the insertion of the substantive verb, was, the idea of the serpentine race generally is, according to the rules of Hebrew grammar, also excluded.
(5) The only remaining mode of interpreting the passage, then, is to consider "the serpent" as the name of Satan; and he is actually so designated in various passages of the New Testament (2 Corinthians 11:3; 2 Corinthians 11:14; Revelation 12:3-4; Revelation 20:2). These passages, which all contain a manifest allusion to the primal temptation, reflect much light on that transaction, particularly Paul's comment, that Satan, though sadly fallen, had not (lest all his original brightness, and, being "transformed into an angel of light") appeared so like one of the ministering spirits who were accustomed to instruct the newly-created pair that Eve was deluded into the belief that he was one of those messengers of God, who kindly undertook to correct her errors, and to lead her into a right knowledge of the divine will. Such are the two different ways of considering "the serpent who beguiled Eve."
Difficulties attend both of them, which it is beyond the power of anyone entirely to remove; but we must adhere to the old traditional view, which considers that a literal serpent was employed as a tool of Satan in the execution of the plot; because that view is recommended by more numerous and cogent arguments than any other mode of interpretation. It cannot be objected to it that there is a natural impossibility for a superior being to act upon an irrational creature, which seems incapable of receiving spiritual influence, and possesses no organs by which that influence can operate. 'We too easily assume,' says Trench ('Notes on the Miracles'), 'that the lower animal world is wholly shut up in itself, and incapable of receiving impressions from that which is above it. The assumption is one unwarranted by deeper investigations, which lead rather to an opposite conclusion, not to a breaking down of the boundaries between the two worlds, but to the showing in what wonderful ways the lower is subject to the impressions of the higher both for good and for evil. And, indeed, in our common life, the horse and the dog are eminently receptive of the spiritual conditions of their appointed lord and master-Man. With what electric swiftness does the courage or fear of the rider pass into the horse; and so, too, the gladness or depression of its master is almost instananeously reflected and reproduced in his faithful dog.'
These analogies show the practicability of spiritual influences working upon bestial life; and although a serpent is of a grosser nature, and much lower in the scale of animal existence, than the noble race of creatures just mentioned, its viler characteristics might have established a mysterious affinity with the wily and malignant spirit of the tempter, rendering it the fittest of all the animal tribes to subserve his purpose by its susceptibility to his influences. This argument, derived from the analogy of nature, is strengthened by several remarkable circumstances recorded in the Scriptures. Not to dwell on the sovereign control which God exercises over the lower animals, to make them the instruments of His will, as shown on particular occasions (cf. Numbers 22:1-41; 1 Kings 17:4; 2 Chronicles 7:13; Jonah 1:17; Jonah 2:1-10), we find devils entering into the herd of swine, and wielding a violent irresistible power over the unconscious brutes.
Exactly similar, though manifested in a milder manner, was the influence which the prince of devils exercised over the serpent, which he acted upon to such a degree that the reptile was entirely possessed, and therefore became, as it were, so identified with the other that they are spoken of as one. This ideal unity between the tempter and the reptile alone brings out the real force of the words, "THE serpent was more subtil;" for the Hebrew article is found elsewhere prefixed to the term, when it is used to denote, not some particular reptile, but the generic order of serpents (cf. Numbers 21:9; Ecclesiastes 10:11; Amos 5:19). It is an additional confirmation of the correctness of this interpretation, that the belief in the malignant influence of the serpent over the early destinies of mankind has been prevalent in all ages and in all parts of the world; and since the Devil seems, in memory of his signal triumph over our race, to have taken a pride in being worshipped in the world under that form ever since, it must be regarded as an a posteriori argument of his having assumed that guise. 'I appeal,' says Hardwick, 'to universal heathendom in favour of the ancient exposition of the sacred record. There is found to be a singular consent,-as seen in the rites, symbols, and legends of the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, in east and west, in north and south, in civilized and semi-barbarous countries, in the Old world and the New world,-not only to the fact that serpents were somehow associated with the ruin of the human family, but that serpents so employed were vehicles of a malignant, personal spirit, by whatever name he was described.'