Genesis 3:5 - Printer Friendly

ESV: For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

NIV: "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

NASB: For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.'

CSB: "In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

NLT: God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.'

KJV: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

NKJV: For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Here the serpent continues his deception of the first woman. His goal is to convince her to disobey God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the previous verse, he flatly called God a liar for His warning that Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit from that tree. Now Satan reveals what he wants Eve to believe: that God's true motive for His rule is selfishness. According to the Devil, God just wants to scare them away so they don't become like Him. God is competitive and jealous. He can't be trusted to give commands for their good.

In fact, the serpent says, eating that fruit will open their eyes. They'll finally see the world as it really is, knowing all things: "good and evil," just like God. As in the previous verse, this deception contains a partial truth. Looking ahead a few verses, we see that mankind's eyes are opened. They do come to know good and evil. But that knowledge brings them neither God's power, nor His wisdom, nor His ability to love. Knowledge without corresponding maturity brings perversion. Humanity is not equipped for this knowledge, and so it brings them shame, fear, and pain. They come to know good by abandoning it. They gain the knowledge of evil by committing it for the first time in human history.

The power in the serpent's temptation was his attack on God's character and motivations: Don't obey God because He is neither good nor loving nor trustworthy. The Devil says God wants to rob us of experiencing true power, from gaining full understanding. This assumes that mankind is in a position to judge the character of God. That lie continues to drive humans toward sin and away from the good God who loves us.

Genesis 3:1–7 tells the story of Satan's temptation of mankind, the first human sin and the immediate consequences which followed. Created sinless, ''very good,'' and placed into a perfect environment by a fair and loving Creator, Adam and Eve choose to sin anyway. They earn spiritual death and separation from God, as well as lives punctuated by pain, conflict, and frustration, ending in physical death. This is followed by God's response to human sin, tailored to each of the parties involved. The following chapter will tell the story of the beginning of human life apart from God and the garden.

Genesis 3 tells the story of paradise lost by the willfulness of human sin. Humanity was originally given every perfect thing they could need or want, and virtually no restrictions. Despite that, Adam and Eve needed only a bit of prompting from a talking serpent to disobey their good Creator. Immediately overcome by shame and quickly cursed by God, the painful story of human history begins with their exit from the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 2 ended with the last glimpse of a sinless world. Adam and Eve are perfect in themselves, in their purpose, and in their relationship as husband and wife. Chapter 3 tells the story of that paradise lost; the result of the first willful human sin. The consequences: immediate shame and lifelong separation from their home with God. Chapter 4 will describe the beginning of their lives together, the beginning of the painful story of human history.

The book of Genesis establishes fundamental truths about God. Among these are His role as the Creator, His holiness, His hatred of sin, His love for mankind, and His willingness to provide for our redemption. We learn not only where mankind has come from, but why the world is in its present form. The book also presents the establishment of Israel, God's chosen people. Many of the principles given in other parts of Scripture depend on the basic ideas presented here in the book of Genesis. Within the framework of the Bible, Genesis explains the bare-bones history of the universe leading up to the captivity of Israel in Egypt, setting the stage for the book of Exodus.