(17) Man Not Deceived. Thus was the seal broken, the integrity of the heart was gone, the sin was generated, and the outward act was the consummation of the dire process. Eve, less in formed. less cautious, less endowed with strength of mind, became the more ready victim. The woman, being deceived, was in the transgression ;' but 'Adam was not deceived' (I Tim. ii :14). He rushed knowingly and deliberately to ruin. The offense had grievous aggravations. It was the preference of a trifling gratification to the appro bation of the Supreme Lord of the universe ; it implied a denial of the wisdom, holiness, goodness, veracity and power of God; it was marked with extreme ingratitude, and it involved a contemptu ous disregard of consequences, awfully impious as it referred to their immediate connection with the moral government of God, and cruelly selfish as it respected their posterity.
(18) The Serpent. The instrument of the temptation was a serpent, whether any one of the existing kinds it is evidently impossible for us to know. Of that numerous order many species are of brilliant colors and playful in their atti tudes, so that one may well conceive of such an object attracting and fascinating the first woman. Whether it spoke in an articulate voice, like the human, or expressed the sentiments attributed to it by a succession of remarkable and significant actions, may be a subject of reasonable question. The latter is possible, and it seems the preferable hypothesis, as, without a miraculous intervention the mouth and throat of no serpent could form a vocal utterance of words, and we cannot attribute to any wicked spirit the power of working mir acles.
This part of the narrative begins with the words 'And the serpent was crafty above every animal of the field' (Gen. iii:1). It is to be observed that this is not said of the order of serpents, as if it were a general property of them, but of that particular serpent. Had the noun been intended generically, as is often the case, it would have required to be without the substantive verb; for such is the usual Hebrew method of expressing universal propositions : of this the Hebrew scholar may see constant examples in the Book of Prov erbs.
Indeed, this 'cunning craftiness, lying in wait to deceive' (Eph. iv:14), is the very character of that malignant creature of whose wily stratagems i the reptile was a mere instrument. The existence of spirits, superior to man, and of whom sonic have become depraved, and are laboring to spread wickedness and misery to the utmost of their power, has been found to be the belief of all na tions, ancient and modern, of whom we possess information. It has also been the general doctrine
of both Jews and Christians that one of those fallen spirits was the real agent in this first and successful temptation. Of this doctrine, the dec larations of our Lord and his apostles contain strong confirmation. (See 2 Cor. ; xi:3,14) Rev. xii:9; xx :2; John viii:44). The summary of these passages presents almost a history of the Fall—the tempter, his manifold arts, his ser pentine disguises, his falsehood, his restless ac tivity, his bloodthirsty cruelty, and his early suc cess in that career of deception and destruction.
The younger Rosenmidler says upon this pas sage, 'That it was nut a natural serpent that se duced Eve, but a wicked spirit which had as sumed the form of a serpent, and although Moses does not expressly say so, yet it is probable that he designed to intimate as much, from the very fact of his introducing the serpent as a rational being, and speaking; also, that this opinion was universal among the nations of Central and Upper Asia, from the remotest antiquity, appears from this, that, in the system of Zoroaster, it is related that Ahriman, the chief of wicked spirits. seduced the first human beings to sin by putting on the form of a serpent' (Schal. in Gen. ; and he refers to Kleuker's German version of the Zen davesta, and his own Ancient and Modern Orien tal Country). (See Commentary by Adam Clarke regarding the serpent, whereby he endeavors to show that it was an animal of the monkey tribe.) (19) The Penalty. The condescending Deity, or his representative, who bad held gracious and in structive communion with the parents of mankind, assuming a human form and adapting all his pro ceedings to their capacity, visibly stood before them; by a searching interrogatory drew from them the confession of their guilt, which yet they aggravated by evasions and insinuations against 'God himself, and pronounced on them and their seducer the sentence due. On the woman he in flicted the pains of child-bearing, and a deeper and more humiliating dependence upon her hus band. 1 le doomed the man to hard and often fruitless toil, instead of easy and pleasant labor. On both, or rather on human nature universally, he pronounced the awful sentence of death. The denunciation of the serpent partakes more of a symbolical character, and so seems to carry a strong implication of the nature and the wicked ness of the concealed agent. The human suffer ings threatened are all, excepting the last, which will require a separate consideration of a remedial and corrective kind.