Genesis 3:1 (WEB)
Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”
As quoted in the map (KJV)
Genesis 3:1 (KJV)
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Key words
- נָחָשׁnachash · Hebrew
- 'serpent.' Revelation 12:9 later unmasks him as 'that ancient serpent, called the Devil and Satan.'
- עָרוּםarum · Hebrew
- 'subtil,' crafty — a deliberate pun on arummim (עֲרוּמִּים), 'naked,' in the previous verse (2:25). The naked couple meet the cunning serpent.
Why it matters
This opens the temptation scene in which Eve, with Adam 'with her' (3:6), stands at the tree and falls. Pitre's four-point parallel places Eve beside Adam at the tree of the fall and Mary beside Jesus at the tree of the cross (John 19:25). The serpent introduced here is the one whose head the Woman's seed will crush.