Bible Commentaries

Here begins the second section of the Book of Genesis. As the first has answered questions concerning creation, the second replies to questions asked in the presence of sin and suffering and sorrow.

The story of this chapter is simple and yet sublime in its interpretation of human history as we are familiar with it. Man is seen in individual innocence and racial immaturity. To him an evil personality, radiant in appearance, makes an appeal. The appeal, in the last analysis, is a questioning of the goodness and moral integrity of God.

The fall of man consisted in consent to listen to any such appeal and in the consequent failure of faith, which issued in definite breaking of law. At once fear in the human soul is manifested. Faith and fear are mutually exclusive. So long as faith governs, fear is impossible. Man may attempt to hide from God, but he cannot escape Him, in that fact lies man's only hope.

God is revealed wondrously in His dealings with the situation. His first question thrills with pathos, 'Where art thou?" In all that followed there is evident the differentiation of the strictest justice. The serpent is cursed. The sentence on the woman is that in the distinctive exercise of her nature, that of motherhood, she shall be wrapped in sorrow. In that connection, however, the first prophetic word of hope was uttered. Of the seed of the woman shall come the Deliverer. The sentence on the man is that, in the highest activity of his life, that of toil, he shall know weariness. Behind all the movements of law there moves the heart of love, and this is finally seen in the exclusion of Adam and Eve from the tree of life in order that they might not perpetuate the conditions into which they had passed as the result of sin.