Genesis 3:22 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Genesis 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:
to know (properly · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
good
ט֣וֹבTov
H2896
good (as an adjective) in the widest sense · adjective, masculine singular absolute
evil
וָרָ֑עva.Ra'
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · conjunction + adjective, masculine singular absolute
forth
יִשְׁלַ֣חyish.Lach
H7971
to send away · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
hand
יָד֗וֹya.Do
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
take
וְלָקַח֙ve.la.Kach
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
tree
מֵעֵ֣ץme.'Etz
H6086
a tree (from its firmness) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
life
הַֽחַיִּ֔יםha.chai.Yim
H2416
alive · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
eat
וְאָכַ֖לve.'a.Khal
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
live
חָיַיchâyay
H2425
to live
ever
לְעֹלָֽםle.'o.Lam
H5769
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Revelation 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, wh…
Revelation 22:14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Proverbs 3:18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.
Genesis 11:6-7 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained…
Revelation 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yield…
Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the mi…
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of th…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 3:22–end
Sentence being passed upon the offenders, we have here execution, in part, done upon them immediately. Observe here,
I. How they were justly disgraced and shamed before God and the holy angels, by the ironical upbraiding of them with the issue of their enterprise: "Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil! A goodly god he makes! Does he not? See what he has got, what preferments, what advantages, by eating forbidden fruit!" This was said to awaken and humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sin and folly, and to repentance for it, that, seeing themselves thus wretchedly deceived by following the devil's counsel, they might henceforth pursue the happiness God…
And God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us--not spoken in irony as is generally supposed, but in deep compassion. The words should be rendered, "Behold, what has become [by sin] of the man who was as one of us"! Formed, at first, in our image to know good and evil--how sad his condition now.
and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life--This tree being a 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 eat of it or delude himself with the idea that eating of it would restore what he had forfeited, the Lord sent him forth from the garden.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 3:22
Behold, the man is become as one of us - On all hands this text is allowed to be difficult, and the difficulty is increased by our translation, which is opposed to the original Hebrew and the most authentic versions. The Hebrew has היה hayah, which is the third person preterite tense, and signifies was, not is. The Samaritan text, the Samaritan version, the Syriac, and the Septuagint, have the same tense. These lead us to a very different sense, and indicate that there is an ellipsis of some words which must be supplied in order to make the sense complete. A very learned man has ventured the following paraphrase, which should not be lightly regarded: "And the Lord God said, The man who was l…
Fourthly, because the expulsion of the man from the Garden, by God, and his warning him and saying: Lest he should stretch forth his hand and touch the tree of life and eat and live for ever; these are the words of one who imparts knowledge, and obscurely hints that some gift of life eternal is reserved for men after the life of conflict here.
For when God said: Lest he should put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever, he inspired man with a longing desire, and a love, and a good hope of immortality, and through him similarly inspired the invisible powers. For he did not exclude man from any of the promises given before the transgression, nor deprive him of them; nay, after having chastised him, he even gave him more, and through Noah augmented the dignity of his title as the image of God, for he said: Because in the image of God made I man.
If Adam had rashly eaten from the tree of knowledge he was commanded not to eat, how much faster would he hasten to the tree of life about which he had not been so commanded? But it was now decreed that they should live in toil, in sweat, in pains and in pangs. Therefore, lest Adam and Eve, after having eaten of this tree, live forever and remain in eternal lives of suffering, God forbade them to eat, after they were clothed with a curse, that which he had been prepared to give them before they incurred the curse and when they were still clothed with glory.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Adam — Red, a Babylonian word, the generic name for man, having the same meaning in the Hebrew and the Assyrian languages. It was the name given to the first man, whose creation, fall, and subsequent…
Devil — (Gr. diabolos), a slanderer, the arch-enemy of man’s spiritual interest (Job 1:6; Rev. 2:10; Zech. 3:1). He is called also “the accuser of the brethen” (Rev. 12:10). In Lev. 17:7 the word “devil” is…
Serpent — (Heb. nahash; Gr. ophis), frequently noticed in Scripture. More than forty species are found in Syria and Arabia. The poisonous character of the serpent is alluded to in Jacob’s blessing on Dan (Gen.…
Tree of life — Stood also in the midst of the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9; 3:22). Some writers have advanced the opinion that this tree had some secret virtue, which was fitted to preserve life. Probably the lesson…
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil — Stood in the midst of the garden of Eden, beside the tree of life (Gen. 2, 3). Adam and Eve were forbidden to take of the fruit which grew upon it. But they disobeyed the divine injunction, and so…
Adam · .Subsequent history of — .Subsequent history of
Banishment · Of Adam and Eve, from E — Of Adam and Eve, from E
And the Lord God said,.... The Word of the Lord God, as the Jerusalem Targum; not to the ministering angels, as the Targum of Jonathan but within himself, or to the other two divine Persons:
behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; which is generally understood as an irony or sarcasm at man's deception by Satan, who promised man, and he expected to be as gods, knowing good and evil; behold the man, see how much like a god he looks, with his coat of skin upon his back, filled with shame and confusion for his folly, and dejected under a sense of what he had lost, and in a view of what he was sentenced to; yet must be understood not as rejoicing in man's misery, and insul…
Behold , the man is become as one of us [214] An ironical reproof, by which God would not only prick the heart of man, but pierce it through and through. He does not, however, cruelly triumph over the miserable and afflicted; but, according to the necessity of the disease, applies a more violent remedy. For, though Adam was confounded and astonished at his calamity, he yet did not so deeply reflect on its cause as to become weary of his pride, that he might learn to embrace true humility. We may add, that God inveighed, by this irony, [215] not more against Adam himself then against his posterity, for the purpose of commending modesty to all ages. The particle, "Behold," denotes that the sen…
Clothed in this sign of mercy, the man was driven out of paradise, to bear the punishment of his sin. The words of Jehovah, "The man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil," contain no irony, as though man had exalted himself to a position of autonomy resembling that of God; for "irony at the expense of a wretched tempted soul might well befit Satan, but not the Lord." Likeness to God is predicated only with regard to the knowledge of good and evil, in which the man really had become like God. In order that, after the germ of death had penetrated into his nature along with sin, he might not "take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever (חי contracted from חיי = חיה, as in…
like us: The plural probably reflects God’s conversation with his angelic court (see study note on 1:26). • the tree of life . . . live forever! Mercifully, God prevented humankind from eating of the tree of life and having to live forever in a fallen state. Through Jesus Christ, however, eternal life is once again made available (see Rev 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19).
Rashi on Genesis 3:16
ואל אישך תשוקתך AND TO YOUR HUSBAND WILL BE YOUR DESIRE — for sexual relations. And, nonetheless, you will not have the temerity to proposition him with [your] mouth, but rather HE WILL RULE OVER YOU — everything will come from him and not from you.
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
