Shall not eat

3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Hey!  We made it to the third chapter.  And there's a talking snake here.

I'm sure everyone immediately recognizes "subtil" as the archaic spelling of "subtle".  It's not clear if that means "tricky" or "manipulative" here or just "smart".

I should mention that there's a sense of lost time here.    I would think that there was some period where Adam and his woman were living happily and more or less uneventfully in the garden before this, although that's never mentioned.

It's interesting that the serpent doesn't use the title "LORD" when referring to God.  There's also a possible subtle (heh!) hint that God did not create the serpent;  it does not say "than any other beast".


There are many ways of interpreting this question.  The serpent could just be making conversation.  He could be curious about contrasting the rules he has with the ones the woman has.  He could want clarification on what he's supposed to eat.  He could be trying to learn more about the woman.  He could be trying to learn more about God.

Note that the story jumps from having random excessive detail about the rivers to being so sparse that: there are four characters (God, Adam, the woman, the serpent); that God has given one commandment (don't eat the knowledge fruit) to Adam; and the serpent is asking the woman about that one commandment.  It's like there used to be more to the story, but it was stripped out.

Was the one commandment mentioned early only because it matters later; were there lots of commandments which didn't come up?  Don't bathe in the Pison; bathe in the Euphrates.  Don't ride the donkeys before noon.  Bring me a pie made from the tree of life every evening at 7.  If there was only one rule, how did the serpent know which one it was?

For that matter, it's not even explained how the woman knows the commandment.  It was given to Adam before she was created, even before the animals were created.  So, if God created the serpent, it was before the serpent was created.  But, maybe God didn't create the serpent.

Or maybe that rule was one of the mainstays of conversations between Adam and the woman, and the serpent had subtly overheard them talking once.