But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
17. of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ] See above, on Gen 2:9. Here only one tree is mentioned, as in Gen 3:3; and it seems not unlikely that the mention of “the tree of life” did not belong to the main original version of the story, but was derived from a separate source.
thou shalt not eat of it ] In this prohibition man is apprised of another element in the discipline to which he is subjected in the garden of the Lord God. In Gen 2:15 it is his physical and intellectual powers which are to be exercised: in this verse he receives warning of a moral discipline. His moral being is to be tested by a simple injunction for which no reason is assigned. No hardship is imposed: but a limitation to self-gratification is required. He who makes the requisition has given freely the enjoyment of everything beside. Man’s character is to be tested in the simplest manner. Will he shew obedience to the Divine will and trust in the Divine goodness?
in the day that die ] Literally, in the day that Adam ate of the fruit, he did not die. This is one of the minor inconsistencies in the story which are not explained for us. Either we are to assume that, in some fuller version of it, the Lord God was described as “repenting” of the sentence of immediate death, as changing His mind and sparing man in His mercy: or the words “in the day, &c.” are to be regarded as metaphorical, and the doom, “thou shalt surely die,” merely means “thou shalt become mortal.”
We must not infer from this verse that the Lord God was considered, to have made man other than mortal. It is clear from Gen 3:22, that man was created a mortal being. Perhaps, in one version of the story, he was intended to eat of the tree of life “and live for ever.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 17. Of the tree of the knowledge – thou shalt not eat] This is the first positive precept God gave to man; and it was given as a test of obedience, and a proof of his being in a dependent, probationary state. It was necessary that, while constituted lord of this lower world, he should know that he was only God’s vicegerent, and must be accountable to him for the use of his mental and corporeal powers, and for the use he made of the different creatures put under his care. The man from whose mind the strong impression of this dependence and responsibility is erased, necessarily loses sight of his origin and end, and is capable of any species of wickedness. As God is sovereign, he has a right to give to his creatures what commands he thinks proper. An intelligent creature, without a law to regulate his conduct, is an absurdity; this would destroy at once the idea of his dependency and accountableness. Man must ever feel God as his sovereign, and act under his authority, which he cannot do unless he have a rule of conduct. This rule God gives: and it is no matter of what kind it is, as long as obedience to it is not beyond the powers of the creature who is to obey. God says: There is a certain fruit-bearing tree; thou shalt not eat of its fruit; but of all the other fruits, and they are all that are necessary, for thee, thou mayest freely, liberally eat. Had he not an absolute right to say so? And was not man bound to obey?
Thou shalt surely die.] moth tamuth; Literally, a death thou shalt die; or, dying thou shalt die. Thou shalt not only die spiritually, by losing the life of God, but from that moment thou shalt become mortal, and shalt continue in a dying state till thou die. This we find literally accomplished; every moment of man’s life may be considered as an act of dying, till soul and body are separated. Other meanings have been given of this passage, but they are in general either fanciful or incorrect.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
With a threefold death.
1. Spiritual, by the guilt and power of sin: at that instant thou shalt be dead in trespasses and sins, Eph 2:1.
2. Temporal, or the death of the body, which shall then begin in thee, by decays, infirmities, terrors, dangers, and other harbingers of death.
3. Eternal, which shall immediately succeed the other.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. thou shalt not eat of it . . .thou shalt surely dieno reason assigned for the prohibition,but death was to be the punishment of disobedience. A positivecommand like this was not only the simplest and easiest, but the onlytrial to which their fidelity could be exposed.
Ge2:18-25. THE MAKINGOF WOMAN, ANDINSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,…. Of the name of this tree, and the reasons of it,
[See comments on Ge 2:9]
thou shalt not eat of it; not that this tree had any efficacy in it to increase knowledge, and improve in science and understanding, as Satan suggested God knew; and therefore forbid the eating of it out of envy to man, which the divine Being is capable of; or that there was anything hurtful in it to the bodies of men, if they had eaten of it; or that it was unlawful and evil of itself, if it had not been expressly prohibited: but it was, previous to this injunction, a quite indifferent thing whether man ate of it or not; and therefore was pitched upon as a trial of man’s obedience to God, under whose government he was, and whom it was fit he should obey in all things; and since he had a grant of all the trees of the garden but this, it was the greater aggravation of his offence that he should not abstain from it:
for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die; or “in dying, die” z; which denotes the certainty of it, as our version expresses it; and may have regard to more deaths than one; not only a corporeal one, which in some sense immediately took place, man became at once a mortal creature, who otherwise continuing in a state of innocence, and by eating of the tree of life, he was allowed to do, would have lived an immortal life; of the eating of which tree, by sinning he was debarred, his natural life not now to be continued long, at least not for ever; he was immediately arraigned, tried, and condemned to death, was found guilty of it, and became obnoxious to it, and death at once began to work in him; sin sowed the seeds of it in his body, and a train of miseries, afflictions, and diseases, began to appear, which at length issued in death. Moreover, a spiritual or moral death immediately ensued; he lost his original righteousness, in which he was created; the image of God in him was deformed; the powers and faculties of his soul were corrupted, and he became dead in sins and trespasses; the consequence of which, had it not been for the interposition of a surety and Saviour, who engaged to make satisfaction to law and justice, must have been eternal death, or an everlasting separation from God, to him and all his posterity; for the wages of sin is death, even death eternal, Ro 6:23. So the Jews a interpret this of death, both in this world and in the world to come.
z Pagninus, Montanus, &c. a Tikkune Zohar, correct. 24. fol. 68. 1. correct. 54. fol. 90. 2. correct. 66. fol. 100. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
17. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil It is idle to speculate on the physical nature of this mysterious tree; and the supposition that its fruit contained a natural poison, which must sooner or later have resulted in the death of the eater, is without warrant in the Scripture . Nordo we see sound reason in classing this account of the tree of knowledge with the myths and traditions of prophetic trees, or in seeking to identify it (or the tree of life) with the sacred plant or branch which appears so noticeably on Chaldean, Assyrian, and Persian monuments . All that clearly appears in this narrative is, that the fruit of a particular tree (or, perhaps, class of trees) was designated as not to be eaten, and the name seems to have been given in anticipation of what would result from eating the forbidden fruit . Its name, therefore, indicated the moral purpose which it served rather than any natural or physical character of the tree itself . The design of the prohibition of this particular fruit was to test man’s moral nature, to develop his love for his Maker by deliberate choice of the good and deliberate rejection of the evil . Thus would he come to distinguish clearly between good and evil by acquiring a godlike permanence in the good, and like steadfast opposition to all evil.
By disobedience he came to know good and evil in the Satanic way, becoming experimentally identified with the evil, and thus opposed to God.
The disposition which some have shown to ridicule the literal interpretation of this narrative, and to assume that it was unworthy of God and incompatible with the dignity of man’s original state to make his and his posterity’s happiness depend upon the non-eating of a certain tree, springs from notions of God and of man which are unscriptural. The simplicity, clearness, and positive character of the prohibition are conspicuous marks of its fitness as a moral test. The newly created Adam, with great possibilities, was yet undeveloped and undisciplined. His mental and religious nature, like that of a child, would be best trained by a positive commandment, which rested in the authority of the Creator rather than in the reason of the creature whose love and loyalty were to be tested. Moreover, as food was a natural want of man, the most convenient and suitable form of the first law given for his moral guidance was one in which a broad permission and a single prohibition related to the matter of eating.
In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Solemn and startling words to be uttered in the bowers of paradise! What all this terrible penalty involved was doubtless a mystery to the man, and no subsequent revelation has fully cleared the awful mystery. The comments of Muller ( Christian Doctrine of Sin, vol. ii, page 291, Edinburgh, 1868) furnish an excellent statement of the doctrine of the ancient Scripture: “If we compare the penalty of death threatened Gen 2:17, with the fulfilment of the sentence after the first transgression, (Gen 3:16-22,) two things are manifest . On the one hand we find that the death which was to follow the commission of sin included not only physical death, but the various ills that flesh is heir to the manifold pains and miseries of our earthly lot; and these are represented as resulting from sin, which ends in death . Thus the well known difficulty involved in the word , in the day, is at once obviated. In the very day of disobedience a life begins which is at the same time a death. It thus appears, too, that when the serpent in his subtlety said to Eve, ‘Ye shall not surely die,’ this was not a bare lie, but a half truth, and therefore a double deception. But, on the other hand, we find by comparing the two passages that physical death is the real kernel and gist of the punishment. For the sentence pronounced concludes with the prophecy of death, making this the most important element, by emphatic repetition; (Gen 3:19😉 and the account of the execution of the sentence lays stress chiefly upon the fact of man’s exclusion from the means of imperishable life . ” See Gen 3:22; Gen 3:24.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Ver. 17. But of the tree, &c. ] An exploratory prohibition. God knew well where we are weakest, and worst able to withstand; viz., about moderating the pleasures of our touch and taste, because these befall us not as men, but as living creatures. a Here, therefore, he lays a law upon Adam for the trial of his love, which, left to his own free will, he soon transgressed.
Thou shalt surely die.
a Arist. Ethic ., l. i., c. 3.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
tree. Note the three trees: “Knowledge” (Gen 2:9), man’s Ruin; “the Cross” (Act 10:39; Act 5:30. 1Pe 2:24), man’s Redemption; “the Tree of Life” (Gen 2:9. Rev 2:7; Rev 22:2), man’s Regeneration.
good and evil. See on “knowledge”, Gen 2:9. Obedience proving what was “good” (Deu 6:24), disobedience revealing what was “evil” (Rom 3:20).
in the day = when. See App-18. Compare Gen 2:4. 1Ki 2:37. Eze 36:33, &c.
thou shalt surely die. Hebrew “dying thou shalt die”. Figure of speech Polyptoton, for emph. Compare Gen 20:7; Gen 26:11. Exo 19:12; Exo 21:12, Exo 21:15, Exo 21:16, Exo 21:17; Exo 31:14, Exo 31:15. Lev 20:2, Lev 9:10, Lev 9:11, Lev 9:12, Lev 9:13, Lev 9:15, Lev 9:16, Lev 9:27; Lev 24:16, Lev 24:17; Lev 27:29. Num 15:35; Num 26:65; Num 35:16, Num 35:17, Num 35:18, Num 35:21, Num 35:31. Jdg 13:22; Jdg 15:13; Jdg 21:5. 1Sa 14:39, 1Sa 14:44; 1Sa 22:16. 2Sa 12:14. 1Ki 2:37, 1Ki 2:42; 2Ki 1:4, 2Ki 1:6, 2Ki 1:16; 2Ki 8:10. Jer 26:8, Jer 26:19; Jer 38:15. Eze 3:18; Eze 18:13; Eze 33:8, Eze 33:14. See note on Gen 26:28 for the emphasis of this Figure exhibited in other ways; and compare esp. note on Num 26:65. Here marked by the word “surely”, as in Gen 2:16 by the word “freely”. This certainty changed by Eve in Gen 3:3 into a contingency.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
of the tree: Gen 2:9, Gen 3:1-3, Gen 3:11, Gen 3:17, Gen 3:19
surely: Gen 3:3, Gen 3:4, Gen 3:19, Gen 20:7, Num 26:65, Deu 27:26, 1Sa 14:39, 1Sa 14:44, 1Sa 20:31, 1Sa 22:16, 1Ki 2:37, 1Ki 2:42, Jer 26:8, Eze 3:18-20, Eze 18:4, Eze 18:13, Eze 18:32, Eze 33:8, Eze 33:14, Rom 1:32, Rom 5:12-21, Rom 6:16, Rom 6:23, Rom 7:10-13, Rom 8:2, 1Co 15:22, 1Co 15:56, Gal 3:10, Eph 2:1-6, Eph 5:14, Col 2:13, 1Ti 5:6, Jam 1:15, 1Jo 5:16, Rev 2:11, Rev 20:6, Rev 20:14, Rev 21:8
thou shalt surely die: Heb. dying thou shalt die
Reciprocal: Gen 3:5 – knowing Deu 29:19 – this curse Jdg 3:2 – might know 2Ki 1:4 – but shalt 2Ki 8:10 – he shall surely die Psa 115:12 – the house of Israel Hos 13:1 – died
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE ONE FORBIDDEN THING
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Gen 2:17
These words comprehend the whole of humanity in their application; every man and woman that ever has existed or shall exist on the face of the earth. This was not a positive law, but a negative one; the law of which Adam and Eve were transgressors was a prohibition, and to that prohibition was attached a penalty.
I. Look first at the prohibition.Thou shalt not eat of it. It is perfectly obvious, from Gods character and conduct with man up to this time, that the intention of this prohibition was somehow to confer a great benefit on man himself; otherwise, why should God have given the prohibition? In the case of all perfect beings a test is necessary if they are to attain the highest possible state of perfection. This test was put before Adam and Eve, and the prohibition was enforced and was in order to that result.
II. Look next at the penalty.In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (1) We must determine death by the nature of the subject to which it is applicable. Death is not necessarily the mere cessation of existence. Mans life is physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual; death is the converse of life in regard to each of these particulars. Life implies the giving up of the whole man to God; death is exactly the reverse, it is the man losing all thisbecoming dead, as we read, in trespasses and sins. (2) It is said, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Adam and Eve died by becoming subject unto death. The elements of mortality were introduced, and they died spiritually by being estranged from God. In view of the redemption, in view of that Lamb who should come to die for mans sins, the curse was thrown into abeyance, the execution was necessarily deferred. It was deferred in order that an opportunity might be given to man to become acquainted with Christ, and that Christ might accomplish the work of redemption.
Rev. C. Molyneux.
Illustration
The savage condition is not the first state of man, but only a lapsed condition. It presupposes a previous civilization from which he has fallen. The Bible tells usand the evidences of geology corroborate its truththat man was not ushered into the world until it had been thoroughly prepared for his reception: stocked with materials for food, clothing, and fuel, and all beautiful things necessary for the fullest and highest life of a being with such capacities and wants. It was in the garden of Eden, the most select and fertile spot of nature, that he was placed, in the midst of all that was good for food and pleasant to the eye; and there the beauty of the world was an outward reflection of the beauty of his mind and characterthere he was capable of enjoying the uses and beauties of nature, of interpreting its spiritual analogies, and dressing and keeping it. It was God that did this for him. Left to himself and to nature, man could never have risen from the savage state to the condition of a civilised being; for his inherent powers are not self-acting or self-evolving; they require to be exercised and developed by a power beyond himself and outside of nature. There is no case on record of savages civilising themselves. Their life is as stereotyped as that of the brutes; they are to this day what they were a thousand years ago; and had the first man been created a savage, he could never of himself have taken the first step of the upward course.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Gen 2:17. Of the tree of knowledge thou shalt not eat Hitherto God has been manifested as mans powerful Creator and bountiful Benefactor: now he appears as his Ruler and Lawgiver, and, as such, enters into covenant with him. He gives him but one positive precept, to try his obedience, which, as his Sovereign Lord, he had a right to do, annexing death to the breach, and, of consequence, life and immortality to the observance of it. It is evident, however, that this was not all God required of man, but that a law was written on his heart, requiring him to love God to the utmost extent of his capacity, and to imitate him in all holiness and righteousness. Thou shalt surely die The death here threatened is evidently to be considered as opposed to the life (or lives rather, Gen 2:7) which God had bestowed on him. This was not only the natural life of his body, in its union with his soul, but the spiritual life of his soul, in its union with God, and the eternal life of both. The threatening then implies: Thou shalt not only lose all the happiness thou hast, either in possession or prospect, and become liable to the death of thy body, and all the miseries which precede and accompany it; but thou shalt lose thy spiritual life, and become dead to God and things divine, and shalt even forfeit thy title to immortality, and be liable to death eternal. And all this in the day thou eatest thereof.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely {m} die.
(m) By death he means the separation of man from God, who is our life and chief happiness: and also that our disobedience is the cause of it.