Genesis 3:1

1. The serpent is here represented as a beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and, therefore, must have been good, as all the rest of the creation . Genesis 1:25. Hence we should not understand the word ערום , subtile, in a bad sense, implying malignant craftiness, as some expositors have done. This term is frequently employed in the Old Testament in a good sense, as meaning prudent, or sagacious. Such is the import of the Septuagint, φρονιμος . Our Lord enjoined upon his disciples to be “wise as serpents . ” Matthew 10:16. The serpent’s sagacity is seen in its keen eye, its power to charm birds and men, its prudence in avoiding danger, its skill in shielding the head, its most vulnerable part, from the attack of man . The words more subtile do not imply that all other beasts of the field were also subtile, but rather that this feature separated or distinguished the serpent from them . As to the prominence which the serpent holds in the religious symbolism of ancient peoples, Lenormant observes: “These creatures are there used with the most opposite meanings, and it would be contrary to all the rules of criticism to group together and in confusion, as has been done by scholars of former times, the very contradictory notions attached in this way to the different serpents in the ancient myths, in such wise as to create a vast ophiolatric system, derived from a single source, and made to harmonize with the narration of Genesis. But side by side with divine serpents of an essentially favourable and protective character, oracular, or allied with the gods of health, of life, or of healing, we find in all mythologies a gigantic serpent, personifying the nocturnal, hostile power, the evil principle, material darkness, and moral wickedness.” Beginnings of History, pp. 107, 108.

He said unto the woman The serpent spoke in an intelligible way. Le Clerc (after some of the rabbies) supposes that the serpent tempted Eve, not by language audibly spoken, but by significant signs, and by repeatedly eating the fruit in her sight. Others imagine she was charmed into a visionary or ecstatic condition in which the movements of the serpent seemed to her like words. Some, as we have seen, deny that any real serpent was connected with the event, and hold that the temptation was purely spiritual; while others have denied the agency of Satan in this temptation, and affirmed that the tempter of Eve was nothing but a serpent, which, by repeatedly using the forbidden fruit before her eyes, at length induced her to follow its example. Less strained, and far more compatible with the general doctrine of the Scriptures, is that ancient interpretation which has been commonly received by Christian scholars, namely, that Satan made use of a serpent in his work of falsehood and ruin. There is no sufficient ground for denying the possibility of Satan speaking through the organs of a serpent. Mind and spirit are superior to matter, and control it. A fallen spirit is, in intellect, untold degrees above a brute. The mystery of demoniacal possession is too great for us to allow any a priori assumptions to govern our interpretation. According to the New Testament records, evil spirits usurped the powers of human speech, and entered also into swine. Mark 5:1-17. Why the Almighty should have permitted Satan to make such an approach to the first woman is as idle as to ask why he permits any sin or sinners to exist in his universe. We regard this first temptation and transgression as a great mystery, and a momentous event, but not a myth nor a fable. The mystery of God in Christ, by which God himself becomes flesh and redeems sinful man, implies other mysteries that may well surpass our knowledge. The incarnation, temptation, righteousness, death, and resurrection of the One who accomplishes the work of redemption, furnish to our thought a series of stupendous events; if we believe them, why do we stagger over that which appears startling and wonderful in the offence of the one by whom “judgment came upon all men to condemnation?” Romans 5:18.

Yea, hath God said Or, as the Hebrew strictly implies: Really, is it true that God has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The language seems like the continuation of a conversation, the previous part of which is not given. The question was adapted to awaken doubt in the woman’s mind, and the tempter shrewdly addressed himself to the woman first, as the one more easily to be deceived than the man. Chrysostom thus expands the thought in the serpent’s words: “What good is life in Paradise if we may not enjoy the things which are found therein, but must feel the pain of seeing before our eyes what we are forbidden to take and eat?” Critics have raised a needless and profitless question over the serpent’s use of the name Elohim, rather than Jehovah. Keil thinks, that the tempter felt it necessary to ignore the personality of God by this omission of his covenant name in order to work distrust in the woman’s mind. Lange says, that the demon could not utter the name of the covenant-God Jehovah, not knowing him in that relationship. According to Knobel, the writer omitted the name of Jehovah from fear of profaning it in such a connexion. All which seems far-fetched and worthless. See Introd., pp. 51-54.