The Inscrutable Question: Satan’s Rhetorical Assault on Divine Essence, Veracity, & Integrity; Ishah’s Willing Consent from Ignorance & Arrogance, Gen 3:1-5
Genesis 3:1 -	Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.  And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
Genesis 3:2 -	And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;
v. 3 -		but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.’”
		15.	From the Lord’s original proclamation of the first couple’s “rules of engagement” in the garden, we are able to determine a few inaccuracies in Ishah’s synopsis in Genesis 3:1-3.  The Lord’s actual words are recorded in:
Genesis 2:16 -	And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
v. 17 -	but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”
		16.	Ishah attended daily Bible classes with Adam from the day she was created.  We have learned this from:
Genesis 3:8 -	And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day [ each evening ] and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
	The word for “walking” is the Hithpael participle of the verb:
			Elh / halak / -	“to habitually walk about”
 			Although the prohibition cited in Genesis 2:16-17 was given to Adam before Ishah was created, she is responsible for knowing its content from the Lord’s instruction and Adam’s reiteration of it to her as head of the household.
		17.	However there are four major points Ishah botches up in her conversation with the serpent that demonstrates her ignorance of the Word of God and her inattention to instruction by her superiors.
		18.	First of all, the One who issued the prohibition was not God the Father but Jesus Christ.  Genesis 2:16 informs us that it was Yahweh Elohim who issued the mandate.  However, in Genesis 3:1, Lucifer assigns the quote to God the Father: “Has Elohim said?”
		19.	Ishah picks up on this in Genesis 3:3 when she assigns the source of the prohibition to Elohim.  Lucifer plants the idea that there is a supreme being and it’s alright to subscribe to such an idea.  But the idea of a personal God, Yahweh Elohim, is an idea he must suppress.
		20.	Lucifer thus begins by diminishing the possibility that Ishah really has a personal relationship with God and that He is really not very interested in her.  His next ploy is to then challenge what God has said, “Has God really said that you shall not eat from every tree of the garden?” 
		21.	In her response, Ishah begins to misquote the Lord.  First of all she forgets that the provisions supplied in the garden by the Lord are placed there under logistical grace.  She and Adam are not required to do anything to receive their sustenance.
		22.	Therefore, the Lord God, Jesus Christ, said in Genesis 2:16, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely.”  Actually what we find in this sentence is a figure of speech called a polyptoton.  It comes from the Greek word polÚptwton / poluptoton / meaning, “many inflections.”  As a figure of speech it refers to the repetition of the same part of speech in different inflections.
		23.	In Genesis 2:16 we have the repetition of lka / akal /, the verb “to eat.”  It forms an idiom that is literally translated, “eating you may eat,” but means that Adam and Ishah “may freely eat.”
		24.	This is grace and indicates there are no restrictions on how much they may eat and the supply is inexhaustible.
		25.	Ishah then addresses the lone exception regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it.’”
		26.	The Lord gave no prohibition against touching the fruit, only against eating it.  This indicates Ishah has not been concentrating at Bible class.  Also her final comment further drives home this point, “’Lest you die.’”
		27.	The penalty clause for eating the forbidden fruit is attached to the Lord’s prohibition in Genesis 2:17, “… in the day you eat from it you shall surely die.”
		28.	What is actually found in the Hebrew is quite different from the English translation.  Here we find another polyptoton, this time the doubling of the verb “to die.”  The first use is the Qal infinitive absolute of:
				tWm / muth / -	“dying”
This is followed immediately by the Qal imperfect of the very same verb:
				 tWm / muth / -	“you shall die.”
		29.	The Qal infinitive absolute refers to spiritual death while the Qal imperfect refers to resultant physical death.  The former breaks fellowship with God while the latter terminates the sinner’s time on this earth.
		30.	The woman quotes the latter Qal imperfect in her reference to the Lord’s penalty clause.  She interprets it as referring only to physical death.  Satan picks up on this and uses it to deceive the woman:  
Genesis 3:4 -	And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely shall not die [ Qal imperfect: tWm / muth / ]!”
31.	Lucifer plays off Ishah’s apparent fear of physical death.  She doesn’t understand that the penalty of spiritual death occurs first and then becomes the cause of physical death.
32.	Having caught her attention with the notion that eating the fruit will not kill her, Satan’s next remark turns out to be his coup de grace:
Genesis 3:5 -	“God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
		33.	Lucifer’s lie is protected by surrounding it with the truth.  If she eats the fruit her eyes will indeed be opened and she will know good and evil.  However, these things will not enable her to “be like God.”
		34.	However, Lucifer knows that is exactly what Ishah desires.  He uses her lust for power and rebellion against authority to deceive her into thinking that God wants to keep her ignorant.