经文研读
Genesis 3:5 — The Serpent's Promise of Divinity
The serpent asserts that God is withholding knowledge of good and evil from the first humans and promises that eating will make them divine.
经文
- 5.因 為 神 知 道 ， 你 們 吃 的 日 子 眼 睛 就 明 亮 了 ， 你 們 便 如 神 能 知 道 善 惡 。for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
这段经文的意思
Genesis 3:5 is the serpent's counter to God's warning in 2:17. Whereas God had said that eating would bring death, the serpent reinterprets the divine motive: 'God knows' — that is, God is aware — that the fruit will produce a different outcome. The verse therefore reframes the divine command as a jealous concealment rather than a protective boundary.
The promised result has two halves. First, 'your eyes shall be opened,' which in Hebrew uses the verb pāqaḥ (H6491), pointing to a new capacity of perception. Second, 'you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.' The phrase 'knowing good and evil' echoes the tree's own name in 2:9, 2:17, framing the fruit as the gateway to a wisdom reserved for the divine council.
Taken as a whole, the serpent offers a counterfeit doctrine of revelation: secret knowledge is available, God is hiding it, and partaking will elevate the eater to God's level. The narrative in 3:6–7 then shows what kind of 'opening' actually occurs — not divinity, but shame and the recognition of nakedness — and 3:22 confirms the irony by putting 'as one of us' on God's own lips.
背景
The verse sits inside a dialogue between the serpent and the woman. The woman has restated the divine command (3:2–3), adding 'neither shall ye touch it,' a tightening beyond 2:17. The serpent answers in two stages: 3:4 contradicts the death penalty ('Ye shall not surely die'), and 3:5 supplies the motivation — God is withholding a knowledge that would make humans like Himself.
The chapter's wider arc sets the serpent's promise against the outcome: the eyes are indeed opened (3:7), but to nakedness rather than to deity; the humans hide from God's voice (3:8); and in 3:22 God acknowledges the result in ironic terms, then expels the pair from Eden to block access to the tree of life (3:23–24).
原文关键词
- H3045 yādaʿ (יָדַע), 'know': the serpent's 'God knows' is not a statement of ignorance but of divine withholding — God is aware of what the fruit will do and is keeping that knowledge back from the humans.
- H6491 pāqaḥ (פָּקַח), 'opened': the promised opening of the eyes. The chapter deliberately echoes this verb in 3:7 — the eyes are opened, but to shame, not to divine status.
- H0430 ʾĕlōhîm (אֱלֹהִים), 'God': the plural form is used here for the one God who forbade the tree. In 3:22 ('as one of us') the same plural surfaces again in God's own speech, framing the 'becoming like God' claim as something God himself ironically acknowledges.
相关经文
- Genesis 2:17 The serpent's 'your eyes shall be opened' directly inverts God's earlier warning that 'in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,' recasting the divine command as concealment rather than protection.
- Ezekiel 28:2 The 'as God' motif appears again in Ezekiel's oracle against the prince of Tyre, whose self-deification ('I am a god') is condemned — showing that the serpent's offer echoes a wider biblical pattern of creatures claiming divine status.
- 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul recalls the same episode, warning the Corinthians that the serpent 'beguiled Eve in his craftiness.' Genesis 3:5 is the content of that craftiness — a half-true promise that masks a deception about what kind of knowledge will actually be gained.
常见问题
Did the serpent tell the truth in Genesis 3:5?
The serpent's statement is half-true in form but deceptive in substance. The eyes do open (3:7), but the result is awareness of nakedness and shame, not divinity. God himself frames the outcome ironically in 3:22, 'the man is become as one of us,' and then blocks access to the tree of life rather than granting immortality.
What does 'knowing good and evil' mean in this verse?
The phrase echoes the tree's own name in 2:9 and 2:17, framing it as a knowledge reserved for the divine realm. In context, what the humans actually gain is moral self-awareness — they now see themselves as naked and culpable — rather than the autonomous wisdom the serpent advertised.
Why does the serpent say 'God knows' rather than speaking directly about God's motive?
The phrasing casts God as a being who conceals what He knows. By attributing the hidden motive to God, the serpent invites the woman to read the divine command as self-interested suppression, which sets up the contrast in 3:22 where God himself speaks of the humans 'as one of us.'