Exploring Genesis 3:20-24

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So now deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. has begun. For in that day they surely died. The curses have also been administered so let’s pick it up at verse 20 and read to 24

Genesis 3:20-24

Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Ge 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Ge 3:22 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:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

So, back to verse 20. And before we go into it I want to point out that sound exegesis of scripture and what scholars call a proper hermeneutic includes looking at who is saying what, the time they are speaking, the audience and the place in which they are saying them.

Unpacking Misinterpretations

For instance, the scriptures contain lies – did you know that? And to read everything as literally applicable truth can be a mistake. For example, we read the words of Satan here telling the woman that she would NOT surely die. That was a lie. So just because the line is a “true report in scripture” do not make the words true and applicable to us.

We have a number of things said in scripture that ought not be considered applicable to us like the friends and wife of Job and their advice to him, or the act of the builders in Babel trying to get themselves into heaven. So, we have to use our skills of interpreting content so as to derive whether what is being said or done has application to us today.

And today we are going to read one that I am pretty sure most skim over without a thought – and it’s found right here in verse 20 where we read

Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Who said and did this? Adam.
What condition was Adam in? Fallen.
He had just tried to sneak one past God, for goodness sakes. And he has been cursed now by God.

Re-evaluating Perceived Truths

So, we get to choose to see if what he says is reliable, reasonable, and applicable to God’s perspective. I suggest that like what Adam says here is akin to what Satan said to Eve in the Garden – that it is only partially true and therefore the product of His wisdom, and not necessarily God’s.

We also see the first example of true wisdom of the world, and its focus which is NOT the wisdom and knowledge of God; that in this singular expression we find a fleshly perspective of things absent the heavenly perspective. Remember, Adam and Eve have eaten what was forbidden, have or were dying, and were about to be kicked out of paradise, which is a word synonymous with the paradise Jesus promised the thief on the cross.

This indicates the death of their direct relationship with God and points to the birth of fleshly wisdom and perspective of life, absent a heavenly one. Let’s re-read what Adam says:

Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Right out the gate we have yet another fiction in the creative story – there have been a few so far. One was the term “Day” which most interpret to be a twenty-four hour period of the earth rotating on its axis around the sun but God doesn’t create the sun until the fourth day so that interpretation is at least questionable. Another was the type of fruit that Adam was forbidden to eat. Another is in the tradition of the serpents identity.

And another was in the curse of the participants as it appears that Adam was most severely reprimanded and the woman the least. And now we come to yet another actual disaster in my estimation in the formation of scriptural tradition and in

Understanding the Name Eve

This case in the actual translations we accept. And that is what we read here in the first line of verse 20:

And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Why is this so bad?

It’s bad because the name Eve is meaningless to that time and age and people and does not have any real basis in the original language. First of all, it’s Latin, which initially developed around 700 BC so the name didn’t even exist in Moses' day. If we were serious about what Adam really named her in Hebrew (which is supported by the Greek Septuagint) her name should have been . . . life. Why? Because that is what the Hebrew word used means (along with living, birth and sometime breath).

Perspective of Adam's Naming

And Adam called his wife’s name, Life because she was the mother of all living. That is the first issue – but it’s really not so bad of one because the bigger issue comes next relative to Adam and the name he gives the woman. Why? Perspective. Of who? The namer, Adam. He was now fallen and cursed and about to be driven out of paradise and direct relationship with God. He was told in the day that he ate the forbidden fruit he would surely die. And yet he calls the woman, Life, the mother of all living!

Listen – from an earthly perspective, of the flesh, this name was true. All human beings ever born into the world would (and have) come through the woman called Life. But as with any good deception, the name only represents the Good of the woman (that through her she is the mother of all living) but not the evil (that she is also the mother of all death).

She ate the forbidden fruit first, she gave it to her husband with her and he did eat, and in the day that they did so God promised them that they would certainly or surely die. And not only would they surely die, but every human being would enter into the world spiritually dead (or separated from the tree of life, the garden paradise and direct unencumbered relationship with God) and would only progress toward more death!

Through her, all human beings would be born in bodies with a mind, will and emotion – this is true – but over time these items of the human soul and body would become more and more corrupt (without God working in them) and not more and more alive. And while it is certain that she is the mother of all flesh, and all born into the world through her will have physical bodies, all of those bodies will end up decaying, breaking down and dying too.

The Ultimate Truth in Naming

So, it is only in a very limited (humanistic) sense was the Woman named Life was the mother of all living but in a far more ubiquitous, literal and actual sense was she the mother of all Death. But Adam focused on the “material, earthly, immediate function” she would bring, the Good, so to speak and not the Good and the Evil. That is the mindset of fallen Man, of the fleshly perspective. To emphasize the here and now materially and to de-emphasize the long term and the spiritual. To live in the eat, drink and be merry mode for tomorrow we die.

However, that being said, and as with many things in scripture, God will often take the actions and expressions of Man, and bring things about in and through them that are wonderful, redeeming and truly Good even though Man is unaware of his handiwork. And we have that here in the case of Adam naming his wife.

How?

Because (and I doubt very much Adam in his fallen state understood this) but in a very literal and spiritual sense, the woman named Life was the Mother of all Living. But NOT through the flesh, but instead through the distant offspring God promised would come through her seed, even Jesus the Christ, who would crush Satan’s head and bring real genuine living to all – first through forgiveness of all sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace., second, through resurrection of all, and last of all, eternal life for those who look to Him in faith. In this sense, she was truly named right! From this, we can see that where the minds and perspectives of Adam were going to be altered through the fall, God was working in and through the results to bring about an amazing end.

The Consequences of Disobedience

So, while they merited immediate death in every sense, and God could have struck them down on the spot for their disobedience, He mercifully allowed the human race to continue through the mother of all living and promised at the start that Satan’s reign that she would produce seed to bring His reign to an end. The scripture is a living record of God working in and through the failures of Man to bring about His expected and good end for all of His creations. That is what we are really reading about as we dance through some amazing narrative and sludge through what seems like endless genealogies. All of them are pointing like massive neon signs to the wrap up of all things through His Son.

21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

So caring was God, even for the first human beings' well-being, after they fell and were about to be escorted from the protective confines of paradise, we read in verse 21. Again, like most relevant scripture in the Old Testament there are several things occurring here – one applicable to the immediate with another pointing to the long-term plan (or prophetic plan) of God. So, what we read is God making coats of skins to cloth the fallen couple. There is the immediate purpose. What we don’t read, but might be inferred, is it was in this act that God illustrated for the couple the offering of the blood of animals as a type for the One to come some 4000 years or so later.

The First Sacrifice

I say this because when we come to the next story here in Genesis post fall, we will observe Cain and Abel offering sacrifices up to God. I maintain that God illustrated blood sacrifice here for Adam and Eve when He slew the first animals to make coats of skins for them, and the practice carried forward to future generations – all in similitude of the sacrifice of the seed of the woman that would come through the promise Messiah. Can’t really prove it – but since there had to be the death of an animal to get the coats of skins to cloth them with, it seems reasonable that this served as the first death of a mammal on earth, with its blood being shed.

Understanding Genesis 3:22

22 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:

Now, verse 22 is brutal due to some translational issues. It seems easy enough because when Satan tempted the woman, He told her that if she ate of the fruit, she “would not die but would become as the Gods knowing Good and Evil.” So what is written here appears to be God repeating what Satan says to her, right? So let’s read what God apparently now says at verse 22. Part of the problem with the verse is our English translations are in many ways counter to the most authentic versions of the Hebrew. To cite linguists who are way beyond my pay grade, the Hebrew conveys what they call, “the third person preterite tense,” and what this means is it should read “was,” not “is.”

That is a major change right? To say: “Behold, the man was as one of us,” instead of “Behold, the man is become as one of us.” To add support for this non-English view, the Samaritan text, the Samaritan version, the Syriac, and the Septuagint, all present the same tense. So it is believed that there are words “missing” here (in the English) which would make this passage comprehensible if they were present. A few Hebrew linguists have supplied these missing words and at the risk of adding to scripture, we might better understand the verse if we included them. One writes that the verse should say the following:

"And the Lord God said, The man who WAS like one of us in purity and wisdom, is now fallen and been robbed of his excellence; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever in this miserable state, I will remove him, and guard the place lest he should re-enter.”

I may be way off in presenting this,

The Banishment from Eden

But the issue is not simple and the English reading is not really sound. So, we all have to do with it what we can by the Spirit and move on.

Some think that God removed them from the tree of life to prevent a second temptation which might have been to eat of it in their fallen state which apparently would have led to a disaster. Others think that God was being ironic and that He was actually taunting Adam, because he believed that He would be as the God’s knowing Good from Evil but actually he became nothing of the sort! That’s a fascinating take.

All we can really say is that in Genesis 1:26-27 man was perfect of his nature, full dignity and God called it Good. And here we see the same creation, but stripped of his privilege to a direct access to God with animals killed for their skin (and probable blood) and then removed from the garden given him. As so we read

23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

This passage suggests the working of the soil that God cursed for his sake became part of life for Adam from this point forward. In the garden, Adam was commanded to care for it; here he was sent forth to till it. To me it suggests and increase in labor making it less pleasurable and more capable of producing sweat. I cannot help but see great imagery in this passage with Adam tilling the very ground from which he was taken or made as emblematic of what we do in life with ourselves – we till ourselves and our souls, weed around our hearts and minds, and try and cultivate the flesh we have been housed in – or not.

The Roles of the Cherubim

Verse 24 is interesting as it says:

24 So he (God) drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Three things to note here: First, God was apparently displeased with Man evidenced by his expelling him from this place of paradise; second, we read nothing of Adam or his wife asking for forgiveness or mercy from the Lord God for their acts, and third, it seem that Adam was reluctant to leave and this caused God to have “to drive the man out,” a line created from a Hebrew word that means to expel or toss.

And then God placed at the east of Eden; “Cherubims,” (in English this translation is a mistake as the Hebrew Cherubim is plural so it should really read, The Cherubim,) and a flaming sword which turned every way. What were these? Let’s just do ourselves a favor and not try to guess. They are something formidable, powerful, they may have certain properties like multiple faces (two and four) and wings and animal features – I just suggest we consider them heavenly creations used by God to accomplish His will and leave it at that.

Like the Nephilem, cherubim are a relative mystery and I don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to concoct meaning where nobody is truly sure. We do know that two-faced cherubs were represented on the curtains and veil of the tabernacle, and on the wall, doors, and veil of the temple; and that the four faced cherubim appeared only in the holy of holies. It is very likely that the cherubs, to whatever order of beings they belonged, were emblems of the ALL-MIGHTY, and were those creatures by whom he produced the great effects of his power.

The Garden's Conclusion

These angelic beings were for a time employed in guarding the entrance to Paradise and keeping the way of or road to the tree of life. This, I say, for a time; for it is very probable that God soon removed the tree of life, and abolished the garden, so that its situation could never after be positively ascertained. And then about the flaming sword turning every way, or another more literal definition is “a flame folding back upon itself,” we may understand the formidable appearances which these cherubim assumed, in order to render the passage to the tree of life inaccessible. And here we end the creation and garden scene.

Let’s wrap our time up together discussing the death brought into the world through our

Spiritual Death and Separation

First parents, Adam and Life, and the various homes God makes throughout biblical history.

We remember that the LORD God told Adam that in the day he ate the fruit he would surely die. I suggest that this death was them dying spiritually. In other words, it was the end of their direct unencumbered unfiltered relationship with the living God who created them. Because God said, in the DAY I see this death as immediate – or at least within the timeframe of the day that they ate. Perhaps it was complete when they were booted out of the Garden, and removed from access to the Tree of Life. Whatever took place, the direct relationship appears to have been interrupted and they died – again, spiritually because we know that they retained their souls (mind will and emotions and we know that they did not die physically. I would suggest that Adam and Life died immediately spiritually. Then taken out of the garden and therefore direct access to the Tree of Life and the Living God, Adam and Eve also began to die in their souls. In other words, now that they possess the knowledge of Good and Evil, and lacking spiritual sustenance because they died spiritually, their minds, and will and emotions became increasingly corrupt. Finally, we know that Adam died physically or his body died 930 or so years later. And I would also suggest that God moved out from his direct relationship with them while they abided in their bodies.

The Pattern of Death and Restoration

Who/What
ADAM
1 Primary
House COI
2 Patterned
House MESSIAH
3 Perfect
House BELIEVERS
4 Permanent
House Description
Body. (Jesus)
Spirit. (Pneuma)
Soul. (God)

Three expressions made in God’s image God moved out of them but did not leave them alone.

• Immediate death of spirit
• Progressive death of soul (MWE)
• Ultimate death of body

Outer court – Jesus
Inner court – Spirit
Holy of Holies – God

Three rooms one temple

All enter
Some enter
One enters

God moved out when it was defiled with money changers

Flesh – Man
Soul – God
Spirit – Holy Spirit

Three parts one Lord and Savior

God moved out because of our sin. Returned. Reconciled world to Himself. DIED ALL DEATHS Entrance made possible by faith.

The Reversal of Death

Three parts of each of us – body, soul and then His Spirit.

REVERSE OF ADAMS DEATHS . . .

Immediately – regenerated in the Spirit (small or big)

Progressively – Repurposed in their souls

Ultimately resurrected with a new body