Ver. 1. “ Subtle” may mean familiar. “Yea hath” is as the continuation of some conversation. This friendship is put an end to in ver. 15.
Ver. 3. Eve here added to God’s words. See Proverbs 30:6.
Ver. 4. In ver. 1 Satan had cast an imputation on God’s goodness, and Eve ought immediately to have left him. Here he gives God the lie, and attributes the same motives (envy) that moved him (Satan) to blight the happiness of the human race.
Ver. 5. “As gods”—lit. as one of us, i.e. the angels of God..
Ver. 6. Here we get what has always happened, disobedience and failure wherever God has set anything up in the hands of responsible man. The results, dishonor to God,, both as regards truth or love which are alike impugned, terror of God, self-justification, seeking to cast on another and even on God (“whom thou gavest to be with me,”) that of which we have been guilty. After this, we get, not the restoration of fallen., man, or any promises made to him, but judgment on the tempter coupled with promises to the second Man. Observe how complete the fall was. Man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. These three successively yielded to Satan’s artifice. The body-” good for food; “ the soul, or emotions”— pleasant to the eyes; “the spirit or intellect”— desired to make one wise.” In short the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. (1 John 2 is.)
“Saw,” the eyes; “ desired,” the heart; “ took,” the hands. This is the order for good or for evil. The object enters by the eyes or ears, it affects the heart, and this moves the hands or feet for its attainment, thus:—Lot beheld, chose, pitched, (Genesis 13:10-12); Job, mine eyes, my heart, my step (Job 31:7); Bartimaeus saw, glorified, loved, and followed (Luke 18); the prodigal son, “give me the portion,” his heart gone; “not many days after” his feet follow. The temptation of our Lord was of this three-fold character: the stones made into bread, the lust of the flesh; the sight of the world, the lust of the eyes; and the casting down from the temple, the pride of life.
Man here believed Satan rather than God, and cast off God who had blessed him, to gratify his own desires, using, as men do now, his own will to seek happiness by, instead of trusting God. In Philippians 2, the Lord Jesus glorified God in the very points where Adam failed. Adam sought to exalt himself, to be as God, while Christ emptied Himself to become as man. Adam was disobedient, Christ was obedient unto death. Observe Adam was not deceived, but ate out of love to Eve (1 Timothy 2). Man here got by the fall the evil heart, the flesh or carnal mind which is enmity against God, and which he has had ever since.
Ver. 8. “Hid themselves among the trees” an example of right things turned to a wrong use; trees were not made for hiding places from God. So now even religion itself may be turned into a hiding place. Observe man ran away from God before he was driven out of His presence.
Ver. 9. The first words uttered by man to God are still those of all unbelievers. “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid,” while the last words uttered are the language of every true believer, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.” The cross of Christ, which stands between, has made all the difference.
Ver. 10. All hiding of sin from self is gone when God comes in. Adam, who had covered his nakedness, speaks of it to God, as if he had done nothing to cover it. So it is with all our efforts to hide our sins by our own righteousness.
Ver. 21. After the sentence of the justice of God, we get His mercies to fallen man. God clothes Adam and Eve with garments which cover their nakedness, garments which though they had their origin in death, which had come in, hid the effects of the sin which had introduced it. Man was no longer naked. God Himself had clothed him. In ver. 20 we get a true though obscure glimpse of Adam’s faith in God in changing his wife’s name to Eve, the mother of all living.