Genesis · chapter 3 of 50
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Genesis 3 tells how the serpent deceives the woman, who eats the forbidden fruit and gives some to her husband, and both disobey God. When they see they are naked they hide, God confronts them and declares the consequences, yet he also promises that the woman's offspring will crush the serpent's head. God clothes them and sends them out of the garden of Eden.
Genesis 3 is the most serious turning point in the whole Bible. After the good creation of chapters 1 and 2, sin enters here, and with it shame, pain, hard work and death. Much of the rest of the Bible is God's answer to what happens in this chapter, all the way to Christ.
The serpent, the most cunning of the wild animals, approaches the woman and asks whether God really forbade eating from every tree in the garden. The woman answers with what God said, and the serpent denies that they will die and promises that they will be like God, knowing good and evil. The woman sees that the fruit is good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom; she eats it and gives some to her husband, who is with her, and he eats too.
Their eyes are opened, they realize they are naked and they cover themselves with fig leaves. When they hear God walking in the garden, they hide. God calls to the man, who blames the woman and, indirectly, God who gave her to him; the woman blames the serpent. God curses the serpent and announces enmity between it and the woman, between its offspring and hers, who will crush its head.
To the woman he announces pain in childbearing and strain in her relationship with her husband; to the man, hard labor on a ground cursed because of him and, in the end, a return to dust. The man names his wife Eve, mother of all the living. God makes garments of skin and clothes them, then sends them out of the garden so that they cannot eat from the tree of life, and posts cherubim and a flaming sword on the east.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The serpent begins with a question that sows doubt about what God said and about his goodness. Temptation often starts this way: not with an open denial of God but with suspicion about his word.
The woman sees that the fruit is good, pleasing and desirable, eats it and gives some to her husband, who also eats. Sin enters through desire and distrust of God, and both are responsible.
God calls to the man and asks where he is. He does not need information, since he knows where the man is hiding: it is God's first search for a sinner, showing that he takes the initiative to seek those who have drifted away.
God announces enmity between the serpent and the woman, and that her offspring will crush its head while it strikes his heel. Christians see here the first promise of a victor, finally fulfilled in Christ.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: By asking whether God had really said not to eat from any tree in the garden. — Genesis 3:1
Answer: That they would not die, and that their eyes would be opened and they would be like God, knowing good and evil. — Genesis 3:4-5
Answer: They sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves and then hid from God among the trees. — Genesis 3:7-8
Answer: The man blamed the woman and God who gave her to him; the woman blamed the serpent. — Genesis 3:12-13
Answer: That her offspring would crush its head, though it would strike his heel. — Genesis 3:15
Answer: He made garments of skin and clothed them. — Genesis 3:21
Genesis 3 shows how temptation works: it questions God's word, promises something better and makes us believe we can decide on our own. In a small group you can ask where that same question sounds today, and what we do when it suits us to doubt what God has said.
It also teaches what to do after we fail. Adam and Eve hide and blame each other; God seeks them out and clothes them. When we sin, the biblical response is to come out of hiding, own what we did without excuses and return to God, who seeks his own and already in this chapter announces a way of salvation.
Genesis 3 ends with humanity outside the garden, yet not without hope: God has promised an offspring who will defeat the serpent and has covered the couple with his mercy. Genesis 4 shows right away how sin grows in the next generation with Cain and Abel.
The text does not say what fruit it was; it speaks only of the fruit of the tree. The apple is a later tradition that does not come from the Bible. What matters is not the kind of fruit but that God had given a clear command and they were the ones who broke it.
The text presents the serpent as a creature that speaks and deceives. The New Testament later identifies the ancient serpent with the devil or Satan, in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, and many Christians understand that God's enemy is already at work here.
Because it announces an offspring of the woman who will crush the serpent's head, that is, defeat it. Christians see its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, born of a woman, who overcame sin and death through the cross and resurrection, though the original text does not mention his name.