Bible In A Year: Genesis (Chapter 3)

Genesis 3 reveals the entrance of sin and the conflict that drives the entire Bible. Humanity’s desire to define good and evil leads to the fall, yet God immediately offers hope—the promise of a coming Messiah who will crush the serpent. This episode explores the first gospel promise and God’s plan to restore what was lost.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Mission
• 0:36 Why Genesis 3 Matters
• 3:04 The Serpent’s Challenge To God’s Word
• 6:10 Seeing Good In Our Own Eyes
• 8:40 The Fall And Its Immediate Effects
• 10:32 God Confronts And Questions
• 12:17 Judgment On The Serpent And The Seed Promise
• 15:23 Rethinking 3:16 Sorrow And Sons
• 19:12 Adam’s Judgment And Exile
• 22:20 Tracking The Promise Through Genealogies
• 24:42 Takeaways And Next Steps

Transcript

Phil Porter: 0:00

You're listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast. Our mission is to help the people of God understand the Word of God. Join us each Monday and Thursday for new episode releases. Listen to our full library of content at teachmethebible.com or by downloading the Teach Me the Bible app from any app store. You're listening to Teach Me the Bible Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to Teach Me the Bible Podcast. My name is Phil Porter, and I'm here with Dr. David Klingler, and we are walking through the story of the Bible. And today we're going to jump into the third chapter of Genesis, which is a very uh key passage that I've heard you mention other times, and not even walking through the story, but just other times that we've talked about God's word. And so it's going to be very uh helpful and beneficial today. Again, you're just tracking with us through it. So uh it's simplified. I'm gonna I'm a student as well, so I'm just learning along with everybody else. And uh, if you ever get confused or you're in a place where um you want to ask a question, we have that ability for you. All you have to do is go to teachme the Bible Podcast.com and you can ask a question, scroll the bottom, and you can uh fill out that so that you can keep going. And and uh remember this no question is a dumb question. Um questions feel like, oh man, I shouldn't ask this because it's probably obvious to somebody. But um, but what we want to encourage though is that while you're along in your journey to understand the Bible, we know that there's gonna be things that are gonna come up. And so this uh resources are made available to you so that David can respond to you. So just remember, you can always ask those questions. But today we're drive diving into Genesis chapter three. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. David Klingler: 1:54

Uh Genesis three picks up where Genesis two left off. And that funny, yeah, how that goes right. But the last the last verse in chapter two, uh uh Adam and his wife, uh, they were naked and they were not ashamed. And the word there uh that uh that we uh translate as naked, um there's a uh the next verse. Now the serpent was more crafty, that's how they translate, more crafty than any of the beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. Uh the word for crafty, erum, and the word for naked, erumim, um, there's a discussion, a debate about on is this the same word? Is it a different word? It sounds the same, it's spelled the same. Um, but does it come from the same meaning? Are these just homonyms? They sound the same, two different, you know, they're spelled the same, they sound the same, but they have they're from two different root words, or are they connected? Whatever it is, there's a word play going on or something. Um the that uh Adam and Eve were in the garden and they were they were naked and they were not ashamed. Uh in chapter 3, verse 1. Now the serpent was more uh more crafty, um intelligent, cra crafty, uh not in a maybe in a negative sense, it just it depends, but uh they but they were uh the serpent was smarter, crafty than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made, uh and he said to the woman, now remember that God has given the instruction to the man in chapter uh two, before Eve was even created. Um uh and so now the serpent comes to the woman and starts questioning the the woman. Uh, has God said um that you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? And the woman said, From the tree of the garden, we may freely eat, but from the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, You shall not eat from it, nor touch it lest you die. Now, uh many make a big deal about the the addition, you shall not eat from it or touch it. That's probably not bad instruction to stay away from it. Right? Um and they will say, Well, see, there's she's adding things to it, that's a problem. Uh she's adding things to it, but the problem's gonna get a whole lot worse than that if that's the problem. The serpent said, You will surely not die. Now, um, this construction, you will surely not die, actually is in direct opposition uh to what the Lord has said back in chapter two, verse 17, you will surely die. The grammatical construction is identical in both of these verses. So the serpent is directly opposing what the Lord has said. So now we know that the serpent is opposed to the Lord, right? Uh in chapter two, you shall surely die. Uh, in chapter three, you shall surely not die. The exact same wording, the only difference is the addition of the word not, lo, in Hebrew, you shall surely not die. And then uh the serpent gives the reason. For God is knowing, or God knows, that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened. Now, what do you do with open eyes? Well, you see, right? In chapter one, it's not that they were blind, right? In the days of you eat of the fruit, your eyes will be open. They weren't fumbling around in the garden blind. Uh, but they were to operate according to what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, from chapters one and chapter two, not what was good and right in their own eyes. But for God knows in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God. It's how they translate the New American Standard. Or more likely, you will be like gods. It's uh it's plural, uh plural participle that follows, knowers of good and evil. Um, you can be your own God. Um, you know, and and uh we we hear this today, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The the word for beauty um in Hebrew Bible would be Tove, right? Uh God saw, you know, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. That word is Tove. Uh it's the word for good, to be good, to be to be beautiful. Um turns out that uh in creation, uh beauty's not in the eye of the beholder. Uh man doesn't get to determine what's good and evil, what's beauty and ugly. God does. Why? Because he made it. He's the he's the sole determiner of it, he's the maker of it, he gets to determine. But the serpent says, you know, God knows in the days of even your eyes will be open, and you will be like God's knowers of good and evil. You get to determine good and evil for yourself. Um and so, you know, that's really the this is where postmodernity, relativism, it's true because it's true for me. Do what's good in your own eyes. That this all of it begins here, right? Um and so verse uh chapter three, verse six, and the woman saw that it was good. The exact same wording that you've seen in chapter two repeatedly. God saw that it was good, God saw that it was good, God saw it was good. Now the woman saw that it was good. The the the tree, the very thing that God said wasn't good for food. She sees that it is good for food, that it's a delight for the eyes, and it's good to make one wise. The word there for wise is the word that we uh Sakhil, it's it shows up all the way through uh the Bible. Um it sounds Sakhiel, it's like Shechil, right? Sheel O'Neil, right? Sorry, remember it's it's actually a S sound rather than SH sound. But uh um uh but this is this one, there's only one's gonna come onto the scene that has the wisdom of the Lord. Um, and uh and it's not uh these, and eating from the tree uh certainly doesn't give you the wisdom of the gods, but but she thinks that it does. It she sees that it's good for the eyes and uh desirable to make one wise, and she she took from its fruit and she ate and she gave it to her Ish Ema, to her man with her. Uh last week we made the point that every time in chapter one and two, up until chapter two, verse twenty-three and twenty-four, when it says Ish, or when it says man, when the uh the English Bible translates man, it's translating Adam. Only twice is the man, word man, translate Esh. Um she will be called Esha because she was taken from Esh, woman because she was taken from man in 223. For this cause the Esh, the man will leave his mother and father, be joined to his Isha wife, and the two will be one flesh. This is the third time. Uh, she takes the the fruit, uh she gave it to her Ish Ema, her man with her, and he ate with her. Why is it with her? Well, because uh there's gonna be a contrast that's coming in the story here in just a little minute. Her hope is no longer going to be in the man with her, but in the man that will come forth from her. And so this is already introducing the storyteller's already setting up what's coming. Uh so then the eyes of uh he ate, and the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked, uh, and uh they sowed uh leaves of a fig tree and made for themselves a loin covering. This uh this loin covering word uh is uh is uh is an interesting one, and it's going to show up again. We're gonna talk about this a little bit more. So, chapter three, verse eight. They heard the the sound, the coal, the voice, or the sound of the Lord walking in the garden. Um, translated in the cool of the day, it's in the ruach, in the spirit of the day or the wind of the day. And the man and his wife Adam, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord among the trees of the garden. They hid themselves from the they translated presence of the Lord, it's from the from the face of the Lord. Um, this is about the last time you're gonna see anyone who sees the face of the Lord and lives, not till the end of the story, right? Um They hid themselves from the face of the Lord, and the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? Uh where? And he said, Uh, I heard the sound of you uh in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself and said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman that you gave me. I like that. Passed the book, right? The woman you gave it's your fault. She gave me from the tree, and I ate. Notice that the Lord comes first to the man. He was the one that was supposed to be, you know, ruling this, and uh and then the woman, second, and then to the serpent, third. And the the what uh he blames it on uh the wife and the wife that you gave me. Uh and uh the Lord said, What is this you've done? She said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. Now she's being truthful here. The the serpent deceived her and she ate. Um Paul's going to talk about this in 1 Timothy chapter 2. He's going to refer back to this. It was not the man who was deceived, but the woman being greatly deceived. And and uh, well, that's um it's quite a condemnation on the man if he wasn't deceived. He was there with her, he wasn't deceived, and he ate. It was his job to protect the garden, to serve it and to keep it, and and he doesn't. And so the Lord said to the serpent, you know, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. Verse 14, because you've done this, cursed are you more than the cattle, more than the uh the the beasts of the field, on your bell you shall eat, and dust uh bell you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. For I will put enity between you and the serpent, and between your seed and her seed, he will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the heel. Now, um there's a lot in this verse. Uh I will put enity. Uh from here on, uh there's a couple things that you know. Number one, the serpent is on opposite sides of God. That was clear from previous. Uh second thing, uh, I will put enity between you and the woman. The Lord's talking to the serpent, I will put enity between you and the woman. So now you know that the not only is the serpent on opposite sides of the god, but the serpent is on opposite sides of the woman. Does that make sense? Uh now, uh, and I will put enmity between your seed and her seed. So there's uh the serpent is on the opposite side of the woman, and the seed of the serpent, the descendants of the serpent, are on opposite sides of the descendants of the woman. He the so one is going to come who's going to strike or bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. Uh, one other point here, you know, that I will put enity. I will the the word there, the the the the verb uh is the is the the verb, the word that we get the name Seth from. Um uh I will appoint enity between you and the woman and your seed and her seed. Um jump forward a little bit in the story. Uh Cain and Abel. Uh Cain kills Abel, and Abel is going to be replaced by Seth. Um uh I will appoint enity between you and the woman and your seed and her seed. We're jumping a little bit ahead here, but it's I want to give you a heads up. That there's going to be two teams in this story. There's going to be those who align themselves with the serpent and those who align themselves with a woman. Uh the hope of this story is in the seed of the woman. Uh, the antagonist is the serpent, and those who align themselves with the serpent. Cain is going to align himself with the serpent and kill Abel. And Seth is a replacement for Abel, who uh Cain killed, so that we can keep the enity going and keep the promised line of the woman going. So it's all tying together, and it's all very intricately woven here together. Verse 16, and to the woman he said. So the Lord now turns to the woman. Uh this verse uh is a train wreck. We'll put we'll post uh, I've written something here. We'll put we'll put this up on uh on Teach Me the Bible uh uh as well and try to make this as understandable as possible. Um but this verse is quite a translation train wreck. Um it's uh this verse 4.1 and 4.7 uh are notoriously uh difficult to handle. Uh at least that's what uh the Old Testament uh folks tell us. Um The problem with this verse is uh what it says in if we were to translate this literally, it would read this way I will greatly multiply your sorrow in conception. That's very different than I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth. I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In sorrow you shall bring forth sons. They translate it uh uh I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Now so that's the literal that's that's how they translate it. Let's read that again. New American Standard. I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Now, this is why I was making the big point about Ish and Adam and all that. If we read it literally, translate it literally, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception, not childbirth, not the end of the childbearing process, but the beginning, your conception. In sorrow, not pain, in sorrow you shall bring forth sons. They translate this uh children, uh, but it's it's sons. Um why is it in sorrow you shall bring forth sons? Well, we're gonna learn in the next chapter and in the chapters that follow. Um, from Genesis 3.15, the hope of this story is in a son that comes forth from her. In sorrow you shall bring forth sons. And we don't know what that means yet. We got to keep watching the story, but it's gonna become very clear that uh that these sons are not the promised one. Cain and Abel are not the in fact, you're gonna she's gonna come to the realization that not only is she populating the good guy's side, the seed of the woman, but she's also the mother of those who bear the image of Satan, that those who align themselves with Satan, Cain, and they Cain kills Abel. Think if you had two kids, you're looking for the one who's gonna come, who's gonna restore all the hope, restore you to the garden, restore you to the uh to the the the the tree of life, and you have two kids, and you say the oldest, that's the one, right? And then the oldest turns out to be a little serpent follower, and he kills the other son, who's a believer, um what what might capture your emotion? In sorrow you shall bring forth sons. And chapter five, and then every son that she brings forth, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died, and this story is looking for this one who's going to come and to rule, right? And so it says that in sorrow you shall bring forth sons, yet your desire shall be for your husband, is how they translate it. It's the word Ish, your desire shall be for your Ish. Uh now, next time in chapter four, we're gonna pick this up. In 4.1, it says this now uh Adam uses the word Adam, now the man, Adam, knew his wife, Eve, and she conceived, same word that's used in 316. I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. There's the word. In sorrow you shall bring forth. That word bring forth is yelid to give birth. She brought forth, same word, Cain, and she said, I have acquired an Eish, the Lord. Why is she calling her child, the newborn son, an Ish, a man? Because her hope is no longer in the Esh Emah, the man with her, Adam, but in the man that will come forth from her. And so she thinks that Cain is the one. That's why she says this. Of course, you find out Cain's not the one. In fact, he's not only is he not the promised one, he's actually seed of the serpent, and he kills Abel. In sorrow you shall bring forth sons. So as this story unfolds, the meaning of Genesis 3.15 of Genesis 3.16 is become going to become more and more clear. Yet your desire shall be for your Ish, and he will mashal Bacha. He will mashal. Remember, we talked about that Mashal back uh in the setting. The Mashal, he he this is the one who's going to rule, but to rule and to bless. He's the he's the ruler of you. He's the he he will he's the blesser of you, and you will be blessed in him with him. He's the one who will restore you to the uh to the to the garden. In chapter 12, uh, as we jump forward into the story, we're gonna track this promise down through these genealogies, and we're gonna get to Abraham. His name has been Abraham, yet it's Abram. And uh and the Lord is gonna tell him uh I will bless those who bless you, those who Curse you, I will curse, and in you that that in you, it's the same language, uh Bakha Bak, uh, that uh in with with you all the nations of the earth, all the families of the earth will be blessed. And so the story is looking for the one who's going to restore this blessing. It's the one, the seed of the woman. So the the woman judgment is being pronounced on the serpent, and her hope is in this one who's going to come forth, and so that's her desire. And then the Lord turns to Adam in verse 17. And to Adam he said, Because you listened to the voice of your wife. We always jokingly say you shouldn't listen to the voice of your wife. No, no, no. The contrast here is that he was supposed to listen to the word of the Lord, uh, not listen to uh his wife who's with her and saying, Eat from the tree. She should have seen what was going on and fixed this mess. So he doesn't judge the serpent, he doesn't do his job, and instead he listens to the voice of his wife. He eats from the tree, which the Lord commanded him not to eat, saying, You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground on account of you in sorrow. The same word that they translate toil, Aaron 37, is the same word they translate as pain in 316. In 529, so when we get over to chapter 5, Lamek is going to have a son and name him Noah, rest. Remember, we talked about God rested Adam in the garden to serve him to keep it. He says, This is the son, this is the Ish, this is the man, this is the one who's going to give us Noah rest and remove the sorrow, remove the toil rising from the ground which the Lord God has cursed. And so the whole story is looking for this one. So in chapter chapter 3, verse 17, Adam, dirt man, is going back to the dirt. Dust you are, dust you will return. Because you were taken from the dust, and dust you return. And so the man turns to his wife and names her living. What? Because she would be mother of all the living. No, no, no. It seems to me she's gonna be mother of all the dying. Go ahead and read the next few chapters. No, no. The hope of the story is in Eve. The the hope of uh of the story is in the seed of the woman. Uh and so the Lord uh God, verse 21, made garments of skin. Um the next time we're gonna see this garments uh language is in uh the very colored tunic of Joseph. Remember, Jacob makes for Joseph a very colored tunic. Uh that that that tunic uh word there uh is uh is our word. Uh this is a tunic or a garment of skin for Adam and for his wife, and it covered them. Uh and then the Lord said, God uh the Lord God said, Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, now lest he send forth his hand and take and eat from the tree and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to serve the ground from which he was taken. And so the Lord drove the man out, drove Adam out. Uh, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he stationed angels, cherubim, and a flaming sword that turned in every direction to guard the way back to the tree of life. And so, as we talked about last time, the Lord took the man, Adam, put him in the garden to serve it and to keep it, but now he's being uh banished from the garden, back outside of the garden, to return to the ground from which he was taken. And uh he's going to serve the ground until he returns to the ground, and the way back to the garden is guarded by the angel. This is a mess, right? Uh he has been condemned to death. There's no hope for him except for in the seed of the woman who will come and strike the serpent and get us back to the tree of life. That's the story that's going to run down this trail from chapter four all the way on. We're going to watch this story, and it's not going to be solved. The tree of life, return to the tree of life, isn't going to happen until Revelation 21 and 22. Wow. So that's the that's the story. That's where we're that's we're headed. So we've got the the setting in one and two. We got the problem in Genesis chapter three. The rest of the Bible now is going to interact with that problem and fix it. And the way that you're going to track the promise to the woman, and this promise is going to go down through the genealogies of chapter uh four, chapter five. It's going to go into the flood with Noah. It's going to come out of the flood uh with uh Shem. It's going to uh track the genealogy to this guy, Abram, and then to Isaac and to Jacob and to a nation Israel, and in you all the families of earth will be blessed. And so you're looking for this promised Messiah that's coming out of the nation Israel. And so that's where we're headed.

Phil Porter: 24:42

Man, I what I love is you I mean, you you said it simple in the beginning, but it is so important. These first three ch three chapters, uh, it it seems to be that are just packed full of the importance of well, now we finally got to the seed of the woman.

Dr. David Klingler: 25:01

Yep.

Phil Porter: 25:01

Yep. So now we just have to track that.

Dr. David Klingler: 25:03

Yep, that that's it. The story is about the setting and the conflict and the resolution.

Phil Porter: 25:10

Yeah, and some of the things I love that you did is just explaining, you know, man, Ish, and then the Adam, what what that is, and then even the simplicity of uh breaking down those verses that are, you know, um talking about childbirth, and which I that's what I automatically think of because it's what I've been taught. Right. Uh it's it's never been broken down in a sense of no, you don't understand. She's gonna experience this sorrow really soon. Yep. And when you see the story, that's what's gonna happen, is all you see is sorrow.

Dr. David Klingler: 25:43

Yeah. And her desire. So so next time when we pick it up in chapter four, uh, we're gonna pick up her desire. Her desire is for the promised one to come.

Phil Porter: 25:51

Wow.

Dr. David Klingler: 25:51

Yeah, the serpent's desire in 4-7 is to deceive the woman and kill the kid. Right? Deceive the those who come forth from the woman, like he does with Cain, and to kill believers, Abel. If you can't deceive them, kill them. Kill them, yeah. And so those two you know, genealogies, those two stories, those two kind of uh teams are gonna flow throughout the rest of the Bible.

Phil Porter: 26:17

Well, this is gonna be an exciting journey. Wow, this is great. Well, thank you, David, for today and uh for tracking along in this story. Next week we'll pick up uh Genesis chapter four and five. We'll start that seed um and uh kind of just start tracking with it. But uh, this has been very helpful, very beneficial, and so thank you, David. You're welcome. For more resources, visit teachmethebible.com or download our app from any app store. You can partner with Teach Me the Bible in helping the people of God understand the Word of God by subscribing and sharing with others. Thank you for listening to Teach Me the Bible Podcast.