For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
5. for God doth know, &c.] Having denied the fact of the penalty, the serpent proceeds to suggest that there is an unjust motive for the threat. It is not, he says, for the good of the man and the woman, but in order to exclude them from their privilege and right. No reason had been assigned: the serpent suggests one, that of jealous fear, lest men should be as God. According to the story, there is a half-truth in each utterance of the tempter; (1) “ye shall not surely die”: and it is true that the penalty of Gen 2:17 was not literally carried out. The man did not die in the day that he ate of the fruit: (2) “in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened”; the prediction is verified in Gen 3:7: (3) “Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil”: the prediction is confirmed by the words of Jehovah Himself, Gen 3:22, “Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” These three assertions, the denial of penalty, the promise of knowledge, and the prospect of independence, therefore, are not lies capable of direct refutation, but half-truths requiring explanation.
your eyes shall be opened ] An expression denoting the sudden acquisition of discernment to apprehend that which before had been hidden from ordinary sight. Cf. Gen 21:19; 1Sa 14:29 ; 2Ki 6:17.
as God ] or as gods. Both translations are possible, as in the Hebrew the word for God, Elohim, is plural; and consequently it is sometimes impossible to say whether “a god,” or “gods,” is the right translation: e.g. 1Sa 28:13, “and the woman said unto Saul, I see a god (or ‘gods’) coming up out of the earth.” In favour of the plural “gods” is the expression in Gen 3:22, “the man is become as one of us.” The word “Elohim” may be used of the Heavenly Beings, “Sons of God,” who living in the presence of God are spoken of as sharers in His Divinity; see note on Gen 1:26. But as the purpose of the serpent is to implant distrust of, and disaffection towards, the Lord who had made the man and woman, the singular, “as God,” is to be preferred.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 5. Your eyes shall be opened] Your understanding shall be greatly enlightened and improved; and ye shall be as gods, kelohim, like God, so the word should be translated; for what idea could our first parents have of gods before idolatry could have had any being, because sin had not yet entered into the world? The Syriac has the word in the singular number, and is the only one of all the versions which has hit on the true meaning. As the original word is the same which is used to point out the Supreme Being, Ge 1:1, so it has here the same signification, and the object of the tempter appears to have been this: to persuade our first parents that they should, by eating of this fruit, become wise and powerful as God, (for knowledge is power,) and be able to exist for ever, independently of him.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
If you would have the whole truth of the matter, and God’s design in that prohibition, it is only this, He knoweth that you shall be so far from dying, that ye shall certainly be entered into a new and more noble kind of life; and the eyes of your minds, which are now shut as to the knowledge of a world of things, shall then be opened, and see things more fully and distinctly.
Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, or, as God, like unto God himself in the largeness of your knowledge; the very name that God hath put upon the tree may teach you. But this is a privilege, of which, for divers causes best known to himself, some of which your own reason will easily guess at, he would not have you partake of.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. your eyes shall be openedHiswords meant more than met the ear. In one sense her eyes were opened;for she acquired a direful experience of “good and evil”ofthe happiness of a holy, and the misery of a sinful, condition. Buthe studiously concealed this result from Eve, who, fired with agenerous desire for knowledge, thought only of rising to the rank andprivileges of her angelic visitants.
Ge3:6-9. THE FALL.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For God doth know,…. Or “but k God doth know”, who knows all things, and has foreknowledge of all future events; he foreknows what will be the consequence of this event, eating the fruit of this tree, that it would be so far from issuing in death, which he has threatened, that the effect of it would be a clearer understanding, and a greater degree of knowledge of things, which he is unwilling should be enjoyed, and therefore has endeavoured to prevent it by this prohibition; suggesting hereby, even in God, hatred of the creatures he had made, and unwilling they should be as happy as they might:
that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened; not the eyes of their bodies, as if they were now blind, but the eyes of their understanding; meaning, that their knowledge should be enlarged, and they should see things more clearly than they now did, and judge of them in a better manner; yea, even together with the light of their mind, the sight of their bodily eyes would receive some advantage; and particularly, that though they saw the nakedness of their bodies, yet it was as if they saw it not, and were unconcerned about it, and heedless of it; did not see it as unseemly and indecent, and so were not ashamed; but now they should see it as it was, and be filled with shame and confusion:
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil: as “Elohim”, which word is sometimes used of civil magistrates, sometimes of angels, and sometimes of God himself, and of the divine Persons in the Godhead: the Targum of Onkelos seems to respect the former, rendering it “as great personages”, princes, judges, civil magistrates, who ought to know the difference between good and evil, or otherwise would be unfit for their office; but this cannot be the sense here, since there were no such persons in being, to whom the reference could be made; nor could it convey any proper idea to the mind of Eve, unless by them are meant principalities and powers, or “the mighty angels”, as the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the word; and so it intimates, that upon eating this fruit they should be as wise and as knowing as those intelligent creatures: though perhaps Satan might mean, such angels as himself and his were, and that they should by sad experience know the difference between good and evil, as they did: but rather it is to be understood of that Elohim that made the heavens and the earth, for as yet the word had never been used, but of the true God, and of the divine Persons in the Trinity: and this agrees with what is ironically said, Ge 3:22 “behold the man is become as one of us”, as the devil told him he should, and as he believed he would: this was the bait laid for than, suited to his intellectual mind, and to the ambitious desires of it, not being content with finite knowledge, but aiming at omniscience, or something like it: now the temptation began to take place and operate.
k “sed”, Piscator; “quin”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
5. For God doth know. There are those who think that God is here craftily praised by Satan, as if He never would prohibit men from the use of wholesome fruit. But they manifestly contradict themselves, for they at the some time confess that in the preceding member of the sentence he had already declared God to be unworthy of confidence, as one who had lied. Others suppose that he charges God with malignity and envy, as wishing to deprive man of his highest perfection; and this opinion is more probable than the other. Nevertheless, (according to my judgments) Satan attempts to prove what he had recently asserted, reasoning, however, from contraries: (167) God, he says, has interdicted to you the tree, that he may not be compelled to admit you to the participation of his glory; therefore, the fear of punishment is quite needless. In short, he denies that a fruit which is useful and salutary can be injurious. When he says, God does know, he censures God as being moved by jealousy: and as having given the command concerning the tree, for the purpose of keeping man in an inferior rank.
Ye shall be as gods. Some translate it, ‘Ye shall be like angels.’ It might even be rendered in the singular number, ‘Ye shall be as God.’ I have no doubt that Satan promises them divinity; as if he had said, For no other reason does God defraud you of the tree of knowledge, than because he fears to have you as companions. Moreover, it is not without some show of reason that he makes the Divine glory, or equality with God, to consist in the perfect knowledge of good and evil; but it is a mere pretense, for the purpose of ensnaring the miserable woman. Because the desire of knowledge is naturally inherent in and happiness is supposed to be placed in it; but Eve erred in not regulating the measure of her knowledge by the will of God. And we all daily suffer under the same disease, because we desire to know more than is right, and more than God allows; whereas the principal point of wisdom is a well-regulated sobriety in obedience to God.
(167) “ Sumpta a contraria ratione.”
The meaning of the passage seems to be this: Satan had first said in plain terms, “Ye shall not surely die;” and then, to confirm his position, had argued that, supposing God had forbidden the tree, he must have done it out of envy, lest he should be compelled to raise them to an equality with himself, and therefore on no possible supposition had they any ground to fear; for they had only to eat in order to be beyond the reach of his vengeance. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) Ye shall be as gods.Rather, as God, as Elohim himself, in the particular quality of knowing good and evil. It was a high bait which the tempter offered; and Eve, who at first had answered rightly, and who as yet knew nothing of falsehood, dallied with the temptation, and was lost. But we must not comment too severely upon her conduct. It was no mean desire which led her astray: she longed for more know ledge and greater perfection; she wished even to rise above the level of her nature; but the means she used were in violation of Gods command, and so she fell. And, as usual, the tempter kept the promise to the ear. Eve knew good and evil, but only by feeling evil within herself. It was by moral degradation, and not by intellectual insight, that her ambitious wish was fulfilled.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. For God doth know The Satanic utterance here recorded is a specimen of blasphemously changing God’s truth into a lie . The deceiver would make the woman believe that God was keeping her in ignorance of some great good .
Your eyes shall be opened “’Your eyes,’” says the voice of the tempter, ‘instead of closing in death, will be for the first time truly opened . ’ Here it is to be remarked that the hour when unbelief is born is immediately the birth hour of superstition . And so, in like manner, is every sin a senseless and superstitious belief in the salutary effects of sin . ” Lange .
Ye shall be as gods Rather, as God . The tempter would pervert the image of God in man by inducing a false aspiration . Elohim has made you in his own image, and yet withholds from you the honour and glory of knowing good and evil. Break this bond, eat this forbidden fruit, and you will at once become like Elohim, your Maker .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 3:5. Shall be as gods, knowing good and evil keelohim, like God. See note on Gen 3:22.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Ver. 5. For God doth know, &c. ] It should take care of itself because nothing is hidden with God. Id quod cum Deum non lateat, sibi cavet. a It is remarkable that the devil here charges God with envy, which is his own proper disease; for ever since he himself fell from heaven, he cannot abide that any should come there; but of pure spite hindereth them all that may be. Here he envied that God should be served by man, and that man should be gifted and graced by God. So that he points out, and paints out himself, in saying that God envied man the gift of wisdom. There is nothing more usual with the wicked, than to muse as they use, and to suppose that evil to be in others that they find to be in themselves. Caligula, b that impure beast, would not believe there was any chaste person upon earth. And, I dare say, said Bonner to Hawks, the martyr, that Cranmer would recant, if he might have his living – so, judging others by himself, for Papists apply themselves, said our protomartyr, Mr Rogers, to the present state; yea, if the state should change ten times in the year, they would ever be ready at hand to change with it, and so follow the cry, and rather utterly forsake God, and be of no religion, than that they would forego lust, or living, for God or religion. c
Then your eyes shall be opened.
And ye shall be as gods.
a Picherellus in Colmopaea .
b Dio in Calig.
c Act. et Mon., fol. 1441.
d Croesus Halyn penetrans magnam disperdet opum vim. – Herod.
e Funccius in Chronol. Intelligit se a diabolo, amphibolia vocis, circumventum animadvertit sibi moriendum esse, pensumq. Satanae reddendum, &c. – Heylin’s Geog. , p. 493.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
ye shall be as gods = be as God, Hebrew. Elohim. This is the foundation of Satan’s second lie: “The immanence of God in man. “
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
God: Exo 20:7, 1Ki 22:6, Jer 14:13, Jer 14:14, Jer 28:2, Jer 28:3, Eze 13:2-6, Eze 13:22, 2Co 11:3, 2Co 11:13-15
your: Gen 3:7, Gen 3:10, Mat 6:23, Act 26:18
as gods: Exo 5:2, 2Ch 32:15, Psa 12:4, Eze 28:2, Eze 28:9, Eze 29:3, Dan 4:30, Dan 6:7, Act 12:22, Act 12:23, 2Co 4:4, 2Th 2:4, Rev 13:4, Rev 13:14
knowing: Gen 3:22, Gen 2:17
Reciprocal: Jdg 3:2 – might know 1Sa 28:10 – sware 2Sa 14:20 – to know 1Ki 13:18 – But 2Ch 18:21 – a lying spirit Ecc 7:23 – I said Isa 14:14 – I will be Dan 11:37 – regard Joh 8:44 – When Col 2:23 – a show Heb 5:14 – to discern
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, {e} knowing good and evil.
(e) As though he said, God forbids you to eat of the fruit, only because he knows that if you eat of it, you will be like him.