Genesis 3:4 Commentary and Bible Study

Eve has accepted the doubt, and Satan sees that she has moved sufficiently for him to now explicitly contradict what God has said. He cannot now proceed any further without declaring his hand more clearly and he now does so with great confidence. If he had done this at first, she might have been awakened to the danger, but his question has done what he intended, and he has detected in her answer enough to know that she is wavering in her determination to obey the Lord. She is now sufficiently disarmed to receive the outright denial that God can be relied upon, that his command is good, and that he will be faithful to his word and carry out his threatened sentence of death.God’s warning concerning the threat of death was intended to be the means of their protection; they had to take this seriously. We must hold onto the warnings that God gives us for they are given in kindness for our good. Now Satan quotes the words as originally given, but he does so in order to deny them. He shows by this that he was fully aware of what God had said to them and had only come with a question about the matter in order to deceive Eve. The serpent makes himself out to be more concerned for her welfare than God was, to be a better councillor and guide to her than God. This sin involved her transferring her trust from God to the serpent, that is, to Satan, which is why she is said to have been deceived in the transgression (1 Timothy 2:14). Eve was taken in by the serpent. She was tricked into believing its persuasion, but Adam was not.