Genesis 3

          The serpent was one of the beasts of the field created by God. It was used by Satan to tempt Eve. We know from Ezekiel 28:13-15 that Lucifer was in the garden of Eden. He was “…the anointed cherub…” and was “…upon the holy mountain of God…”. He was beautiful to behold, covered in all manner of precious stones. We also know from Isaiah 14:12-15 that Lucifer was called “…son of the morning…”. Lucifer was among the highest of all the angels of heaven, always in the presence of God Himself at His throne.
      Lucifer’s sin of pride and his fall from heaven occurred sometime after the creation of the heaven, the earth, Adam and Eve, in the gap between chapters 2 and 3. It is impossible to know with any certainty how much time passed between the completion of creation and the temptation of Eve. It could have been only days or weeks, or possibly months, or maybe even a few years. The logical assumption is that it wasn’t very long, though, because it seems reasonable that Adam and Eve would have begot children after even a brief period of time because that’s what God had commanded of them (Genesis 1:28).
          In verse 1 of chapter 3, Satan is described as “subtil”, which has two meanings. It can refer to prudence or wisdom (Proverbs 1:4 & elsewhere in that same book) or craftiness, as in the intent to deceive in order to do wrong. Why did he choose the serpent? And, for that matter, in the verses that follow, why does Eve not seemed shocked or afraid of a talking animal? Is it possible that when Lucifer was in the garden of Eden before the Fall that he, too, interacted with Adam and Eve just as God did? That would seem to be the reasonable conclusion since neither Adam nor Eve seem the slightest bit disturbed  - nor even wary - of the serpent and his words.
          But there’s an even deeper theological question here. If Lucifer – and, presumably, the other angels and hosts of heaven – came down to earth and Eden to interact with mankind, why did God not lock up Satan and all the other fallen angels after the rebellion. Why did God not prevent Satan from spoiling the newly created world and further tempting Adam and Eve to sin? After all, God’s command to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would have been enough of a test of obedience for Adam and Eve. It wasn’t until Satan came along and further tempted Eve that she and Adam finally gave in. So it stands to reason that if Satan had not been there at all, then Adam and Eve would have very likely enjoyed paradise and lived forever in the garden, walking and talking with God.
         In the world after the Fall, God has left Satan free to roam about (Job 1:6, 1 Peter 5:8), battling God and the hosts of heaven for the souls of mankind. This is, again, due to the fact that the only worship of – and fellowship with – God worthy to Him is that of our own free will. We must actively choose to follow and worship and obey Him, or it’s all meaningless to God. We are not just biological robots. (This is, incidentally, also related to why God will bind Satan for a thousand years following the defeat of the antichrist at the end of the Tribulation. Sin and death will still be around during the millennial reign of Christ on earth, but Satan and his angels will not be present to tempt mankind as he is today. This will be the final, convicting truth for mankind that his own depraved and fallen nature is the cause of sin in this world and not because, as the old adage goes, “the devil made me do it”.) But way back at the beginning, after Lucifer was cast out of heaven for his sin of pride, wouldn’t it have been a wiser choice to give Satan his final comeuppance then and there? If Adam and Eve would have sinned eventually, at least then they would have no one else to blame but themselves, and God’s whole plan of salvation – the birth of Christ, His death on the cross, and his resurrection from the grave – would still have happened just the way it did.
           There is no definitive answer to this question, obviously. The best that I can say is that there seems to be some greater significance to the connection between Satan, Christ the Messiah, and us as fallen mankind than God has allowed us to see. (Look at verse 15 of this chapter.) This is one of those mysteries that will very likely be fully known to us only after the rapture or possibly not even until after the old heaven and earth are passed away, and we are all together with the triune God in New Jerusalem for all eternity.
 
            The serpent (1 Chronicles 21:1, Revelation 12:9, 20:2, 10) came to Adam and Eve, but instead of talking directly to them both, he shrewdly focused on just Eve. Demonstrating the clever subtlety of his newly fallen, wicked, deceiving nature, he asked, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (v.1) Notice the careful wording of this one sentence.
          Satan posed a question: “Hath God said?” It was not, “God has said.” – a declarative with a period at the end. That’s a very subtle but very key difference. And this is a question that Satan has posed again and again and again to every generation of mankind ever since the Fall. “Did God really say in the Bible _______?” (“Does the Bible really condemn homosexuality?” “Was Jesus really God?” “How could a loving and merciful God send anyone to hell?”) This has been the oldest and most effective weapon of deception for Satan. The best way to make sure the lost never come to a saving knowledge of Christ is to twist scripture and doctrine by deceiving the hearts of men and thus creating hundreds of false religions.
         Satan directly lied about what God really said. “Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?” That’s not at all what God told Adam in chapter 2, verse 16: “…Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat.” Again, note the subtle difference here. Satan purposely misquoted God to Eve, shifting her focus from what God had expressly said they could do to what He had also expressly stated was off limits. After planting the seed of doubt with the first part of the sentence, he then built on that deception by changing only one key word from God’s first command of permission to Adam to thus make that same command say something else entirely. So many of Satan’s false teachers do the same today. They either omit single words or, more often, whole verses from various Bible translations or completely twist the meaning of verses by taking them completely out of context in order to justify outright heresy. (This is the primary reason I do not read – or trust – any other translation except the authorized 1611 King James Version of the Bible.)
       Eve’s response to Satan was exactly what he predicted. She repeated God’s command, but she, too, didn’t get it exactly right. Her focus was already diverted by Satan, so she misquoted God by saying, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden…” She left out the key word, every. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat…” (2:16) She then further misquoted God by adding, “God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” God hadn’t said anything about touching the fruit or, for that matter, even looking at it! This demonstrated the extent of the rapid growth of the seed of doubt that Satan had planted in his question to her in verse 1. Satan’s clever questioning of God’s words led Eve to then twist and add to God’s command, thus sharpening her focus on the one tree of the garden that God had forbidden. And that was exactly what Satan wanted. Adam and Eve were free to eat of all the other trees in the garden except that one! They had no reason to even think about that one, single tree in the midst of all the others. The garden of Eden was huge! There was so much else to see, and taste, and explore, so much that was not forbidden, yet Satan cleverly turned Adam’s and Eve’s whole attention to that one tree from which God had expressly and clearly told them they could not eat.
        Is this not what the devil does to mankind today? Going back to the institution of marriage from chapter 2, God has told us that husband and wife may freely enjoy all forms of physical pleasure with one another in the bounds of marriage. That’s a lot of freedom, especially for a couple that is married when young and, as they grow in life and in their relationship together, their physical and emotional intimacy also deepens and strengthens over time, becoming even more rewarding and fulfilling as they mature. This is exactly what God intended for marriage to be. So what’s the best way to subvert and destroy the sacred institution that God created? Satan convinces the husband that he’s no longer in love with his wife. He’s still young and virile and he wants a more exciting relationship. Why should he be restricted to just one woman for the rest of his life? That doesn’t seem fair, after all. True freedom is being able to do whatever he wants, whatever makes him feel good. Satan convinces the man that he’s being trapped by the wedding vows, and so the husband divorces his wife so that he’s “free” to pursue his own selfish pleasures with no consequences.
       In the end, of course, we all discover that a life of doing whatever we want is not actually freedom at all. Sin has many and varied consequences, most of which we never discover until it’s too late. That is the great deception. In my example mentioned above, that husband discovers twenty years later – after a lifetime of multiple sexual partners, failed relationships, and most likely one or two STDs – that he is middle aged, living alone, suffering both physical and emotional scars that never seem to fully heal. He realizes only too late just how good he had it when he was married to his high school sweetheart, and he longs to go back in time and change his original choices.
         Eve’s third misquote of God’s words was in the last clause of verse 3. “…lest ye die.” The conjunction, lest, is such a small word with such a huge significance! God didn’t say, “You might die.” He said, “…thou shalt surely die.” (2:17) There was no question about the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit. God was clear about that from the beginning. Disobedience = death! But now that Satan had successfully prompted Eve to start questioning God’s command, Eve was starting to wonder if God had really said what He said. Would they really die if they ate of the fruit? And that’s exactly what Satan was waiting for. His next words pushed even further, grooming the doubt in Eve’s mind to finally bear deadly, disastrous fruit. Verses 4 and 5: “…Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Satan claimed that God was holding back from Adam and Eve. Once again, he kept their focus on what God had said not to do, which was one small thing, instead of showing them all that God had said they could do: eat of every other tree in the vast and luscious garden.
         That was all the final prompting that Eve needed. Verse 6 shows Eve’s thought process as she considered Satan’s words. Here, too, is another lesson: Adam and Eve were listening to the serpent instead of turning away and calling for God. Eve experienced all three facets of sin’s deadly allurement as described in 1 John 2:16 – “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Verse 6 says Eve “…saw that the tree was good for food…” (lust of the flesh), “…it was pleasant to the eyes…” (lust of the eyes), “…and a tree to be desired to make one wise…” (the pride of life). This is the essence of sin. It appeals to our flesh, not the spirit. Sin causes us to focus on ourselves, on what we want, what we think we need, and all the means by which God denies us that which seems good because of all his rules and restrictions.
       Adam and Eve should have said ‘No’ and turned away. They should have remembered what God said, that they were free to eat of all the other trees and herbs of the beautiful and plentiful garden. They should have looked around and thought of all the things they were permitted to do, all the ways in which God had provided for their pleasure and happiness, especially His daily communion with them. Until Satan’s arrival, Adam and Eve had never given that one tree in the midst of the garden a second look, or even a second thought. They were too focused on all the other pleasurable tasks and activities that God had laid out for them. Life was simple, pleasant, and sweet.
       But, sadly, both of them quickly forgot God as they listened to the serpent.
        Something, also, to note in verse 5: “…as gods…” Satan does not say that Adam and Eve will be like God, but, rather, “as gods”, meaning that they will be their own gods! Satan is completely dismissing the one true God, implying that Adam and Eve will be even better than God because they will be their own gods. Once again, this is an appeal to the self. It is the sin of pride. Almost all the other sins that have plagued mankind since this day have their root in pride. For sin is all about the self. It turns our focus inward and away from God. Satan hates God and all His creation, including us, and he’s been doing his best to destroy us ever since he first convinced Eve to tase the forbidden fruit.
       What Satan told Adam and Eve was technically correct. Once they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil their eyes would indeed be opened, and they would know good and evil. But he didn’t tell them the whole truth! Once again, the serpent’s cunning and subtle nature is revealed here. The best and most convincing lie is the one that always cloaked in just a little bit of truth. God had told Adam and Eve nothing more about the fruit of this tree except that they would die as soon as they ate it. That’s all that mattered, and that’s all they needed to know. Satan used that against them by revealing just enough about the other side effect of eating that fruit: they would possess the knowledge of good and evil. They would be “…as gods…” And because he shifted their focus to that one alluring piece of information, they forgot about the other piece of information that they already knew about this forbidden fruit: “…thou shalt surely die.”
         Throughout all of this, Adam says not a word. That’s why Adam is just as guilty as Eve in the fall of mankind. Adam should have stepped in as soon as the serpent opened his mouth. He knew his role as Eve’s husband: that he was to guide her and protect her. He should have recognized immediately the harm of the serpent’s words, and he should have stepped between Satan and Eve. There is a natural tendency to blame Eve for listening to the serpent and for tasting the forbidden fruit first. But verse 6 makes it clear that Adam was right there with Eve the whole time! He, too, was beguiled by Satan’s lie and the appeal of sin. He could have refused his wife’s offer of the fruit, but he wanted the same thing she did: to be as a god. So it is not just Eve who is to blame for our fallen and wicked nature. Both Adam and Eve share equal responsibility for getting themselves cast out of paradise and bringing the curse of sin upon all their descendants.
          However, in 1 Timothy 2:14, the apostle Paul writes, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” This would appear to directly contradict Genesis 3:6. For why else would Adam have taken the fruit unless he, too, was deceived? I don’t have an immediate answer on this, but my reading of Genesis 3 thus far seems to indicate that Adam was indeed present with Eve the whole time she was talking with the serpent.
          Verse 7 is damning. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…” I have often wondered exactly what kind of fruit was on this tree. The Bible gives no other details except what is in verse 6. The common belief among many scholars and Biblical historians is that it was an apple of some form or another. But I imagine it looked and tasted even sweeter and more luscious than an ordinary apple as we know it today. It must have tasted like no other fruit in the garden, and I imagine that Adam and Eve must have felt joy and ecstasy as never before in that first bite. And then, in the very next moment, as their eyes were indeed opened to the truth, that one second of pure bliss and joy turned to extreme sorrow and bitter regret. I imagine that that initial bite of the fruit that was still in their mouths, a trickle of sweet nectar still dribbling down their chins, suddenly turned into an extremely bitter, foul taste. I imagine them both spitting out the fruit, aghast and ashamed, horrified by the knowledge of the truth of their disobedience.
         “…they knew that they were naked…” Adam and Eve had, indeed, become like gods, but not in the way that Satan led them to believe. First of all, they became like God, singular, in that they did now know the difference between good and evil. And, secondly, they recognized that the method by which they obtained this knowledge was by disobeying their creator. From this moment on, mankind would know good and righteousness, but would be unable to do it. They would also know evil & wickedness, but would be unable to resist it. This is the essence of a sin nature.
      Because of this new, fallen state, Adam and Eve became ashamed of their nakedness. The innocence was gone. The shame and remorse they felt about their disobedience caused them to make every effort to cover their nakedness. This is why the last verse of chapter 2 is so important. In their previous, perfect state, before they had knowledge of sin, Adam and Eve had no need to cover their nakedness. Now, their new, corrupt nature made them aware of guilt and shame, and this led to their desire to sew together fig leaves to make themselves aprons.
          And then they heard the voice of God calling to them, and their guilt and shame made them hide. It wasn’t just the knowledge of right and wrong that tasting the forbidden fruit had brought to Adam and Eve; it also brought the knowledge of the consequences of their disobedience. They knew that God would punish them for violating his command to not eat of the fruit of that one tree. This is the first, clear evidence in the Bible of man’s conscience. (Romans 1:32, 1 Timothy 4:2) Even in our fallen state, mankind knows subconsciously what is right and wrong. He knows his deeds are sinful and wicked, and thus he craves the darkness rather than the light. (John 3:19) Adam’s and Eve’s consciences were awakened for the first time the moment they tasted of the forbidden fruit, and they knew that God would punish them for their disobedience. So they “…hid themselves  from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” (v.8) (Note again that term “Lord God” from the previous chapter.)
         God called out to Adam, asking “Where art thou?” (v.9) This question doesn’t mean that God didn’t know exactly where Adam and Eve were. He was omniscient and omnipresent, and He knew precisely where they had tried to hide themselves. Rather, this was the question of a loving parent to His children. He wanted them to come to Him, and He also wanted them to recognize and admit the reason that they had tried to hide in the first place.
          From my study Bible's commentary: “The cool of the day (v.8) may be understood as the ‘spirit of the day’, as the Hebrew word for cool is the same for spirit. The day is a judgment day in this context. No small wonder that Adam and Eve actively hid themselves from His presence, acknowledging that their intimate fellowship was broken.” (Psalm 139:7) God could have come making accusations. He had every right to be angry with His children, but that is not the picture here. God was calling out to His fallen creation who were now separated from Him by sin. Just as He still calls today, God who is love, who is longsuffering, who is “…not willing that any should perish…” (2 Peter 3:9), calls out and beckons to sinful, wicked man every day. (Romans 5:8). God felt a keen loss and heartbreak when Adam and Eve could no longer fellowship and commune with Him as they had before this day.
         Adam said to God, “…I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (v.10) Mankind has always been trying to hide from God. Our conscience always tells us when we do wrong, but, more often than not, we ignore it and pretend that God can’t see our sin. (Exodus 3:6, Deuteronomy 9:19, 1 John 3:20) God’s reply: “…Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” (v.11) Again, God is not asking because He doesn’t know. Rather, He is coaxing Adam to recognize his sin of disobedience and acknowledge it before God.
         But instead of acknowledging his own choice to sin and accept responsibility for it, Adam blames God and Eve. “…The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Our sin nature, so full of pride, doesn’t want to admit that we did wrong. Instead, we shift the blame to others. Eve blamed the serpent when God turned to her and asked, “…What is this that that thou hast done?” (v.13)
         God is a holy, righteous and just God. He cannot allow sin to go unpunished. All three of them – the serpent, Eve and Adam – as well as the whole of creation fell under the curse of the consequences of sin. For the animal kingdom, it was fear of man. God may have been speaking directly to the serpent, cursing it to forever crawl on its belly and eat dust for the rest of its life (a metaphor of perpetual subservience), but it was all the animals that were affected from this day forward for all generations until the new heaven and new earth are finally established after the millennial kingdom and the final battle with Satan and his armies. (Isaiah 65:25)
         Verse 15, however, is directed to Satan, the one who inhabited the serpent and who was the true deceiver. Satan is the enemy of all of God’s creation, especially the human race. (…“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed…”) (John 8:44, Acts 13:10, 1 John 3:8) But this verse is also the first messianic prophecy in the Bible. (Isaiah 7:14, Luke 1:31, 34-35, Galatians 4:4) God had planned from the very beginning a way of salvation for fallen man. The curse of sin for mankind was physical and spiritual death. Physical death would come first, and then the death of the soul by way of eternal separation from God. (Romans 3:23, 6:23) But the last sentence of verse 15 gives a ray of hope: “…it (the woman’s seed) shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” God is referencing the death of His only son, Jesus, on the cross. (…thou shalt bruise his heel.) Jesus, in turn, would conquer death. (…it shall bruise thy head…) (Romans 16:20, Revelation 12:7, 17)
          Verses 15-19 describe the new Adamic covenant set in place by God to replace the Edenic covenant that was broken by Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience. (See illustration at the end of this chapter for a breakdown of all 8 dispensations found in the Bible.) The Edenic covenant was the first dispensation, Innocence, and that covenant was laid out simply with just one command: don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now, the new Adamic covenant ushered in the dispensation of Conscience. God laid it out in verses 15-19: the serpent was cursed; redemption of mankind was promised through the seed of the woman; the woman would experience great sorrow and pain during childbirth; all of the earth – including the animal kingdom – was cursed; sorrow, pain, and physical death became a daily part of life experience, and the labor of mankind became burdensome. Eventually, all of mankind utterly failed under this covenant, degenerating to the point that God judged the whole human race with the Flood. (Genesis 6:5-7)
       Verse 16: In addition to the increased pain and sorrow in childbirth, the woman would also be placed under the submission and authority of her husband. (I Corinthians 11:3, Ephesians 5:22-23, 1 Timothy 2:12) “…thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Because of her sin nature, however, the woman will always naturally rebel against this command of God. She will desire, instead, to control her husband, or to bend him to her will instead. This is one reason that, even when obeying and God and complying with his holy design of marriage, husband and wife will not always find it easy to submit and fill their respective roles within the marriage relationship. Our sin nature is always getting the way!
          Verse 17-19: The word “sorrow” in verse 17 is the same one used for Eve’s curse in verse 16. Adam and Eve shared equally the punishment for their disobedience. God cursed the soil and the ground. Thorns and thistles and weeds would now grow alongside the good and necessary food, and man would forever be cursed to till and work the ground – as well as hunt and kill the animals – in order to supply food and shelter and clothing for him and his family. And, at the end of his life, he would return to the same dust of the earth from which he was created. “…for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
        The other part of the curse specific to Adam and his male descendants with regard to their role in the institution of marriage was that they must be in authority over their wife. The husband is tasked with being the leader in his home, as spelled out by the apostle Paul in his letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians. But the curse of sin causes men to abuse and take advantage of this role, ruling their wives and children in a violent,  unloving and/or selfish manner. That is why Paul specifically commands us men in Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Just as the woman’s sin nature will give her a desire to rebel against submission to her husband, so the man’s sin nature will cause him to desire to take advantage of his authority and position as head of the home.
        Up to this point in the book of Genesis, Eve has never been called by her proper name. She is referred to simply as “the woman”. It is unclear from the text whether Adam waited until now to actually give his wife a proper name, or if she had been named Eve all this time and the text only mentions it now because of what her name means in light of the new curse upon them and the world around them. The name “Eve” means “life” or “living” in the original Hebrew. If Adam did, in fact, wait until now to give his wife a proper name, then it’s likely he was acknowledging God’s new promise of hope that would come for them and their descendants from her seed.
       Verse 21: God made coats of animal skins for Adam and Eve, indicating the death of animals, which means the introduction of blood sacrifice in the newly fallen world. From my Bible commentary: “It is His way of demonstrating that He acknowledges their act of faith in verse 20.” That act of faith in God was Adam naming his wife “Eve”.
       Verses 22-23: as stated above, Satan’s prediction in verse 5 was, technically speaking, true. Adam and Eve had become like God in that they now knew of good and evil, of right and wrong. Banishing them from the garden of Eden was both an act of judgment and grace on the part of God. “…and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever…” It can be assumed from the reading of this verse, paired with verse 9 of chapter 2 where the tree of life is first mentioned, that eating of this tree was unnecessary for Adam and Eve before the Fall. Yet Revelation 2:7 and 22:2 speak of the tree of life in the new Jerusalem, the fruit of which will be enjoyed by the saved and redeemed for all eternity. This naturally begs the question: is the fruit of the tree of life somehow necessary for those of us already sanctified and glorified in order to maintain our immortality? Or will it be merely for our pleasure and culinary enjoyment? After all, what need does a perfect, spiritual body have of sustenance? It’s implied that Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten this fruit before the Fall, but that, too, begs the question: why then was this particular tree put in the garden in the first place? Verse 22 makes it clear that this tree’s presence in the garden is the primary reason God banished Adam and Eve from the garden, placing Cherubims at the entrance to guard it. (v.24)
          Perhaps the tree of life in the garden of Eden was not the same tree that will be present in heaven at the end of all time. Or perhaps there is more to heaven and our eternal, spiritual existence than God has chosen to reveal to us right now in His word. In either case, could you imagine if Adam and Eve had partaken of the fruit of tree of life and lived forever in a fallen, sinful state, as verse 22 implies would have happened had God not mercifully and graciously intervened?
         It's also interesting – and important – to note that God did not simply kill Adam and Eve for their disobedience, wipe out the earth and the heaven, and just start over with a new heaven, new earth, and a new, perfect Adam and Eve. God would have been well within His right to punish Adam and Eve with a sentence of death for their act of rebellion. But the fact that He didn’t proves His love. He loved His creation – even though it was only just two of them – so much that He had already planned a way of salvation for them and their descendants. He wasn’t willing to just condemn their souls to eternal separation from Him for all eternity. God went out of His way to redeem fallen man! That is real love! (John 3:16, 15:13, Romans 5:8, 8:38-39, 1 John 4:19, 2 Timothy 2:13)
          Verse 24: Cherubims (Exodus 25:18, Psalm 104:4, Ezekiel 10:1, 15, Hebrews 1:7) are one of the many types of angelic beings which serve as messengers and servants of God throughout scripture. Two other types of angels mentioned in the Bible are the Seraphim (Isaiah 6:2, 6) and the beasts that circle the throne of God (Revelation 4:6-9). Despite the popular renderings in many religious art and stories throughout history, angels, in fact, do not look like human men or women with wings and halos. Though they often take the form and appearance of men, their actual, spiritual form and appearance are radically different from anything we are familiar with or can even imagine. Also, you will notice that whenever angels are mentioned in scripture, both when taking human form as well as in their spiritual state, they are always male, never female. For example, the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:19, 28-35) and the archangel Michael (Daniel 10:13, Jude 9, Revelation 12:7).
         One final note for this chapter: what do you suppose happened to the garden of Eden between this point and the Flood four chapters later? For all those hundreds of years, was the garden and its supernatural guardians present the whole time? Or did God, at some point after the death of Adam and Eve, remove the two trees at the center of the garden – as well as the Cherubims – and leave the thorns, weeds and thistles to swallow up the once luscious and beautiful paradise? It’s clear from chapter 6 that all of mankind was so desperately and continuously wicked that it’s reasonable to assume that no one cared to know God, much less visit the garden that was the birthplace of all humanity.
         In any case, the Great Flood wiped out Eden and all traces of the garden where Adam and Eve had once walked and talked with God in perfect, pure union. And, sadly, mankind has been trying his best to get back to that perfect, utopian state ever since.