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Welcome back and thank you for checking in with me this week! In addition to studying, I have been praying for those in the path of severe weather and wildfires here in the United States, that they may see God’s love even in the pain of suffering and loss.

I can’t help but think about how wonderful this world would be if Eve had found a way to ignore that serpent.  Yet I realize it happened to her so that we can learn from it and not perpetuate the same mistakes. So here are a few things I discovered from Genesis 3 in the past week.

Last Week’s Work

MY PERSONAL TREASURE
I had a lot of observations from my survey of Genesis 3 last week. As I read through them the last few days, I felt the Spirit directing me to the phrase “your eyes will be opened, and you will… [know] good and evil” in verse 5. As I thought about that knowledge, the Spirit nudged me that Adam and Eve already knew “good” because they knew life walking with God, taking care of the garden, and otherwise enjoying life. What they didn’t know was “evil.” So I’ll be focusing on that, especially in verses 7-8, 10, 12-13, 16-19, and 21-22. These, plus verse 5, will be my target verses for this study. That’s about half the passage! But I feel the Spirit with me on this, and I know He won’t ask me to do more than I’m able.

WHO (CHARACTERS)
These are the characters I noticed in Genesis 3:

• Serpent. Introduced and described, then interacted with woman, contradicting God’s warning (vv1-4); first to be punished by God: cursed over all livestock and beasts: no legs, eat dust (v14); enmity with woman and her offspring: “he shall bruise your head [mortal wound] and you shall bruise his heel [non-mortal wound]” (v15).
• God. Bad press from the serpent (surprise!) in v5; confronted man and woman with questions (vv9, 11, 13); punished the serpent first (v14), then Eve (v16), then Adam (v17-19); reasoned the man might override death with tree of life (v22), so drove him out of the garden (v23) [and Eve and the serpent, too based on their punishments (vv15-16)], and placed cherubim and flaming sword to guard the tree (v24).
• The woman. Told by the serpent eating the fruit will open her eyes, make her like God (v5), so she ate and gave it to her husband (v6); accused of providing the fruit by the man (v12); asked about it by God and admits deception by the serpent (v13); punished by multiplied pain in childbirth, contrary desire to man, subordinate to him (v16); named Eve by man (v20).
• The man. Not mentioned till v 6 when the woman [whom he “was with,” so it’s possible he witnessed the exchange with the serpent and her disobedience?] gave him fruit to eat; LORD God asked him “Where are you?” (v9); responds he was afraid because he was naked, and hid (v10); identified as Adam (v21); kicked out of the garden (vv23-24).
• Both [Adam and Eve]. Eyes opened and nakedness discovered, made loincloths from fig leaves (v7); heard God walking in the garden and hid themselves (v8); God made superior garments (of skins [dead animal(s)]) and clothed them (v21).

WHERE (LOCATIONS)

• The main location is the garden. It’s where all the action happens in this chapter.
• Adam’s punishment included eating from the field because the ground was cursed (vv17-18). I don’t know if these are two distinct places or maybe the field is a particular portion of the ground? In verses 19 and 23, Adam is sentenced to return to the ground from which he was taken.

WHEN (TIMEFRAMES)

• in the cool of the day (v8), when God was walking in the garden and the man and woman hid from him; and
• all the days of your life (vv14, 17), how long the serpent’s and Adam’s punishments last.

I also created a simple timeline diagram of significant events with verse references. Feel free to download and use it if you like.

Dig-In Challenges

Here’s what I plan to do this week:

1. PRAY before I study using my prayer from last week.
2. MINE: Look for repeated concepts in this passage, including synonyms and pronouns referring to those concepts.
3. MINE: Locate any special statements (blessings, commands, curses, prayers, promises, requests, and/or warnings) in the passage. This time, I’m also going to notice another category: questions.
4. MINE: Note any lists (3 or more similar items) mentioned in Ruth 4.

If you’d like more detail about these challenges, download this printable summary of the DISO process. Hope you’ll join me next week!