12 Genesis 2:21
f ound. 21 So the Lord God c aused the man
to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was
sleeping, he took one of the m
an’s ribs a and
then c losed up the p
lace with f lesh. 22 T hen
the Lord God made a woman from the rib b
he had taken out of the man, and he brought
her to the man.
23 T he man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out
of man.”
24 T hat
is why a man leaves his fat her and
mother and is united to his wife, and they
become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and
they felt no shame.
The Fall
Now the serpent was more c rafty than
any of the wild animals the Lord God
had made. He said to the woman, “Did God
really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree
in the garden’?”
2 T he woma n said to the serpent, “We may
eat f ruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but
God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from
the tree that is in the middle of the garden,
and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “ You will not certainly die,” the serpent
said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when
you eat from it your eyes will be o
pened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 W hen the woman saw that the f
ruit of the
tree was good for food and pleasing to the
3
a 21 Or
took part of the man’s side b 22 Or part
EVE
(CONTINUED)
Genesis 2:18–24
Despite Eve’s sin, however, God’s grace prevailed. Not only did she remain Adam’s wife,
bear children, and thus become “the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20), redemption
was provided through one of her descendants who finally defeated the serpent forever (see
Genesis 3:14–20)—a prophecy that pointed to the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. They suffered, and all their offspring
still suffer, from the painful consequences of their disobedience.
STORYLINE
The Old Testament does not mention Eve again after Genesis 4:1. In the New Testament
Eve is provided as an illustration of how easy it is to be led astray by Satan (2 Corinthians
11:3, see article, p. 1188). Furthermore, the apostle Paul (see article, p. 1399) cites Eve’s
disobedience as a warning against confusion and disorder in the church (1 Timothy 2:13–14).
However, through Adam and Eve, intimacy with God and deep unity in marriage are in-
troduced. Adam, Eve, and their children formed the first family, one of God’s institutional
building blocks for civilization and human flourishing. Finally, God promised that one of
Eve’s offspring would crush the serpent who had unleashed such evil upon the world (see
article “Protoevangelion,” p. 15). 1
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Paul D. Gardner, New International Encyclopedia of Bible Characters: The Complete Who’s
Who in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001); K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, vol. 1a,
New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996); Victor P. Hamilton,
The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990); Gordon J. Wenham,
Genesis 1–15, vol. 1, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1987); Tremper Longman III,
How to Read Genesis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005).
1. In fact, it is possible that Eve may have thought her first child was the promised Redeemer. The English trans-
lation of Genesis 4:1 supplies the words “with the help of.” Literally, the Hebrew simply reads, “I have gotten a
man, the L ord .” While Cain was decidedly not the Messiah, it makes sense that Eve may have initially thought
that God’s promise to her was coming true.