Genesis 3

The Fall

The serpent questions God’s word, Eve and then Adam eat the forbidden fruit, and their eyes are opened. God seeks them out, promises that the woman’s seed will bruise the serpent’s head, clothes them, and sends them out of the garden, with cherubim keeping the way to the tree of life.

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In the Garden of Eden, after the Creation. Genesis gives no date. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Chapter 3 continues the story of the garden from chapter 2 and depends on two things set up there: the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, “for in the…

Chapter 3 continues the story of the garden from chapter 2 and depends on two things set up there: the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17), and a man and woman who “were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25).

Genesis tells the event; it does not explain it. The chapter “treats the Fall as an event but does not discuss the doctrine of the Fall,” and that doctrine “is taught most clearly in the Book of Mormon”: Lehi in 2 Ne. 2:15–27, Alma in Alma 12:21–37 and Alma 42:1–15. The Book of Moses, revealed to Joseph Smith in 1830, tells the same story in Moses 4:5–31, introduces it with how Satan became the devil (Moses 4:1–4), and in Moses 5:4–12 tells what Adam and Eve learned after they left the garden.

The story teaches through images: a serpent that talks, two trees, a flaming sword. The Fall narrative “teaches many things to readers of the Bible using symbolism and other literary devices.” It is also history. Latter-day revelation shows the Fall to be “a historical event that literally occurred in the history of man,” and an apostle has testified “that there was an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all the consequences that fall carried with it.”

The thread through the chapter

The Church describes the Fall as having “a twofold direction—downward yet forward,” and the chapter moves both ways at once.

Downward: the serpent promises open eyes, and when their eyes are opened the first thing Adam and Eve see is that they are naked (verses 5, 7). They hide “from the presence of the LORD God” (verse 8), and by the end of the chapter they are outside the garden. To be “cut off from the presence of the Lord” is what the Book of Mormon calls spiritual death (Alma 42:9).

Forward: God does not leave them hidden. He comes looking for them (“Where art thou?”), and when He passes sentence, the word cursed falls only on the serpent and on the ground, never on the man or the woman (verses 14, 17). Inside the sentence on the serpent is a promise: the woman’s seed will bruise its head (verse 15). Then come gifts. Adam names his wife “Life” (verse 20); God replaces their fig-leaf aprons with coats He makes Himself (verse 21); and the cherubim at the east of the garden keep “the way of the tree of life” (verse 24), a way back that is guarded, not erased. Lehi gives the outcome in one line: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:25).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–7

The serpent and the fruit

In plain words

The serpent was craftier than any wild animal the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say you may not eat from any tree in the garden?” The woman answered, “We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it, or even touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.”

The woman saw that the tree was good for food, lovely to look at, and desirable for gaining wisdom. She took some of its fruit and ate it, and she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

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?

Language #

Who is the serpent?

Genesis does not say who the serpent is; it says only that he was cleverer than the other creatures.

Genesis does not say who the serpent is; it says only that he was cleverer than the other creatures. The Hebrew ‘arum means “crafty, shrewd, sensible” (in Proverbs it describes the “prudent man”), and it plays on the word just before it: Adam and Eve were ‘arummim, “naked” (Gen. 2:25). They are naked and do not know it; the serpent is clever. “The narrative irony is that while Adam and Eve are physically naked and unaware, they will not remain in this state,” while the tempter “will never progress beyond his current state, unaware that he is, in fact, naked before God.”

Latter-day Saints, like other Christians, take the serpent to be Satan, but the reading “emerges from more than common Christian interpretation; it includes material concerning the Creation and the Garden of Eden from latter-day scripture.” The Book of Moses names him: “Satan put it into the heart of the serpent,” “for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world” (Moses 4:6), and “he spake by the mouth of the serpent” (Moses 4:7). Lehi calls him “that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies” (2 Ne. 2:18), and John “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan” (Rev. 12:9). Satan’s ignorance of God’s mind matters to the story: it suggests that his act “will not, in fact, have the devastating consequences Satan believes will result.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Daniel L. Belnap, “In the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 and Its Significance to the Latter-day Saints”, in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Religious Studies Center, BYU; Deseret Book, 2021), 1–42. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Related Scriptures #

The command, and the choice

Eve’s answer goes further than the command as Genesis records it: Gen. 2:17 forbids eating the fruit, not touching it.

Eve’s answer goes further than the command as Genesis records it: Gen. 2:17 forbids eating the fruit, not touching it. The text does not explain the addition. One Latter-day Saint reading takes it as Eve “adding her own rejection of his advances, something not spoken of by God in the text.”

The command she repeats came with more than Genesis records. In the Book of Moses the Lord adds, “nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee” (Moses 3:17). Lehi explains why a forbidden tree stood in the garden at all: “it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life,” for “the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself” (2 Ne. 2:15–16). The prohibition also stood beside God’s first command, to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), which could not be kept in the garden, where Adam and Eve “would have had no children” (2 Ne. 2:23). These are “seemingly conflicting commandments.” Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained that Adam and Eve “could not fulfill the Father’s first commandment without transgressing the barrier between the bliss of the Garden of Eden and the terrible trials and wonderful opportunities of mortal life,” and that “for reasons that have not been revealed, this transition, or ‘fall,’ could not happen without a transgression.”

Sources: Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: The Fall—Doctrinal Perspectives and Insights”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 175–92. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness”, general conference, Oct. 1993.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

Language #

Did they die?

The serpent’s reply is God’s own warning with a “not” put in front of it.

The serpent’s reply is God’s own warning with a “not” put in front of it. God’s warning in Gen. 2:17 was mot tamut, “dying you shall die”; the serpent answers lo mot temutun, “not—dying shall you die.” He wove “lies in with truth”: their eyes would be opened and they would know good and evil, “but he also stated that they would not die.” Lehi calls this the work of “the father of all lies” (2 Ne. 2:18).

Yet Adam did not die that day; he lived to 930 (Gen. 5:5). Restoration scripture answers in two ways. First, death came in two forms. Adam and Eve “were forced to leave the garden and the presence of the Lord, causing them to suffer spiritual death,” and “their bodies changed to a mortal state, and they ultimately experienced physical death.” Alma says they were “cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord” (Alma 42:7). Second, the “day” was not measured by ours. Abraham’s account of the command reads, “in the time that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” and adds, “it was after the Lord’s time… for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning” (Abr. 5:13).

In the Book of Moses the Lord answers the serpent in His sentence on Adam, “for thou shalt surely die” (Moses 4:25). Had Adam then eaten of the tree of life, Alma says, “the word would have been void, making God a liar” (Alma 12:23).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: The Fall—Doctrinal Perspectives and Insights”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 175–92. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

5 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.

Related Scriptures #

Knowing good and evil

This half of the serpent’s promise came true, and God Himself says so: “the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (verse 22).

This half of the serpent’s promise came true, and God Himself says so: “the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (verse 22). Restoration scripture says what that knowledge made possible. Without the Fall, Adam and Eve “would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin” (2 Ne. 2:23). Later, outside the garden, Adam blessed God for what he had come to know: “because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God” (Moses 5:10).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Latter-day Prophets #

Eve’s choice

Latter-day Saints honor Eve for this act rather than blame her. “Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it.

Latter-day Saints honor Eve for this act rather than blame her. “Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter-day Saints! Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.”

The verse says what she saw in the tree. Besides food and beauty, it was “to be desired to make one wise”; the Hebrew verb (lehaskil) is from one that means to “be prudent.” She “gave also unto her husband with her” (‘immah, “with her”): Adam was there, and he “showed his wisdom by doing the same.” Eve later summed it up: “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption” (Moses 5:11).

Latter-day Saints call the act a transgression, not a sin, as the second article of faith does: “men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” In Elder Oaks’s words, “the act that produced the Fall was not a sin—inherently wrong—but a transgression—wrong because it was formally prohibited.”

Sources: Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness”, general conference, Oct. 1993. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Verses 8–13

God calls

In plain words

They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the LORD God among the trees. The LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” The LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

Language #

Hiding from the presence

The first thing Adam and Eve do with their eyes open is hide. “The cool of the day” is in Hebrew “the breeze (ruach) of the day,” the time “when, in the East, a cool wind springs up.”

The first thing Adam and Eve do with their eyes open is hide. “The cool of the day” is in Hebrew “the breeze (ruach) of the day,” the time “when, in the East, a cool wind springs up.” “From the presence of” is mippene, literally “from the face of”; the noun panim can be translated “face” or, more abstractly, “presence.”

That word carries the loss of the chapter. The Book of Mormon defines the Fall’s spiritual death in exactly these terms: “because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of the Lord” (2 Ne. 9:6; compare Alma 42:9). Before God drives them out, they withdraw themselves. Adam and Eve “‘hid themselves from the Lord’s presence’ on account of their disobedience, initiating their being ‘driven out’” of the garden (verse 24).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Matthew L. Bowen, “Cut Off from the Face and Presence: Alma’s Use of Hebraistic Idioms to Teach the Fall”, Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 157–69. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Latter-day Prophets #

Why God asks

God does not ask for information; He “knoweth all things” (2 Ne. 9:20).

God does not ask for information; He “knoweth all things” (2 Ne. 9:20). The questions of verses 9–13 are asked for Adam and Eve’s sake, because, as Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught, “personal accountability for all of one’s acts underlies the whole gospel plan and is the natural outgrowth of the law of free agency.”

The first question is one Hebrew word, ’ayyekkah: “where?” with the ending “you,” so “Where are you?” The Book of Moses reads “Where goest thou?” (Moses 4:15). Because there is “no verb of motion in the Hebrew text for ‘going’ in this line, the precise interpretation is unclear.” One Latter-day Saint reading hears an appeal in it: “‘Come back to me’ seems to be God’s message; a meaning of the word repent is literally ‘to return.’”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Moses 4:1–19, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017). Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: Partaking of the Fruit—Knowledge, Accountability, and Redemption”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 193–212.

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Language #

Blame, or an honest answer?

Adam’s and Eve’s answers are often heard as passing the blame: the man points to “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me,” and the woman to the serpent.

Adam’s and Eve’s answers are often heard as passing the blame: the man points to “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me,” and the woman to the serpent. The exchange is “sometimes portrayed as a kind of blame game in which Adam and Eve seek to duck responsibility.” But both answers end the same way, “and I did eat” (verses 12, 13), and Latter-day Saint scholars offer another reading: “the two individuals take responsibility for their own agency, noting that whatever the circumstances were at the moment of decision, the decision made was theirs alone.” Their responses were “less about casting or deflecting blame than about explaining why they had made their respective decisions.”

Eve’s word beguiled (Hebrew nasha) means to “beguile, deceive.” In this reading, saying so “evidenced the innocent, good intentions behind her decision, she having trusted one who had flagrantly and deliberately attempted to mislead her.” God questions the man and the woman, not the serpent, and of the three He curses only the serpent (verse 14).

Sources: Daniel L. Belnap, “In the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 and Its Significance to the Latter-day Saints”, in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Religious Studies Center, BYU; Deseret Book, 2021), 1–42. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: Partaking of the Fruit—Knowledge, Accountability, and Redemption”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 193–212. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 14–19

The sentences

In plain words

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all the animals. You will crawl on your belly and eat dust all your life. I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

To the woman He said, “I will greatly increase your pain and your pregnancies; in pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

To Adam He said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree I commanded you not to eat from, the ground is cursed because of you. With toil you will eat from it all your life. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for you were taken from it. You are dust, and to dust you will return.”

14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Witness of Christ #

The seed of the woman

The first promise of a Redeemer comes inside the curse on the serpent.

The first promise of a Redeemer comes inside the curse on the serpent. The King James “it” translates hu, the Hebrew “he,” which also serves for “it”; the Book of Moses reads “he shall bruise thy head” (Moses 4:21), and the ancient Greek translation has “he shall watch against thy head.” One verb, shuph, “bruise,” serves for both blows. What differs is where they land: on the serpent’s head, and on the heel of the woman’s seed.

The Church reads the seed as Jesus Christ: “God declared that Jesus Christ would bruise Satan’s head, while Satan would only be able to bruise the Savior’s heel.” Elder James E. Talmage noticed whose seed it is. Victory over sin and death “was to be realized through the offspring of woman; the promise was not made specifically to the man, nor to the pair. The only instance of offspring from woman dissociated from mortal fatherhood is the birth of Jesus the Christ.” Paul echoes the verse when he promises the Saints that “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, Salt Lake City, 1916; chapter 5, “Earthly Advent of the Christ Predicted,” 43. Genesis 3: The Fall, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Latter-day Prophets #

Sorrow, desire, and rule

The sentence on the woman has two parts: pain in bearing children, and a husband who would rule.

The sentence on the woman has two parts: pain in bearing children, and a husband who would rule. The word for “sorrow” (‘itsavon) means “pain, toil,” and the Old Testament uses it only three times, all in Genesis: here of childbirth, in verse 17 of Adam’s labor in the fields, and in Gen. 5:29 of “our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.” The man and the woman receive the same word. It “does not necessarily carry the emotional nuance that the English term ‘sorrow’ does,” and President Spencer W. Kimball wondered “if those who translated the Bible might have used the term distress instead of sorrow.”

“Desire” (teshuqah) means “longing.” The husband’s rule describes “the most common power dynamic in marriage arrangements of ancient Israel.” Latter-day prophets read the verse in light of the gospel. President Kimball: “I have a question about the word rule. It gives the wrong impression. I would prefer to use the word preside because that’s what he does.” Elder Ulisses Soares taught that in marriage “there is no superiority or inferiority”: husband and wife “walk side by side, as equals.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Daniel L. Belnap, “In the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 and Its Significance to the Latter-day Saints”, in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Religious Studies Center, BYU; Deseret Book, 2021), 1–42. Spencer W. Kimball, “The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood”, Ensign, Mar. 1976. Ulisses Soares, “In Partnership with the Lord”, general conference, Oct. 2022.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Latter-day Prophets #

The ground is cursed, not Adam

God curses two things in this chapter, the serpent (verse 14) and the ground (verse 17), and neither the man nor the woman.

God curses two things in this chapter, the serpent (verse 14) and the ground (verse 17), and neither the man nor the woman. President Marion G. Romney: “Note that the curse was not placed upon Adam, but upon the ground for Adam’s sake. Rather than a curse upon Adam, it was a blessing to him.”

The Hebrew ba‘avurekha means “on your account”: the ground is cursed because of what Adam did. Latter-day leaders have also read “for thy sake” as its purpose. Elder L. Whitney Clayton said it “meant for his benefit”: work “is a continual burden, but it is also a continual blessing.” In the garden Adam had eaten freely; now there would be thorns, thistles, and sweat (compare Gen. 2:16 with verses 18–19).

Sources: Marion G. Romney, ““In Mine Own Way””, general conference, Oct. 1976. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: Partaking of the Fruit—Knowledge, Accountability, and Redemption”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 193–212. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. L. Whitney Clayton, “That Your Burdens May Be Light”, general conference, Oct. 2009. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Verses 20–24

Clothed and sent out

In plain words

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, “The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now he must not reach out and take also from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. He drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Language #

Eve, the mother of all living

Adam names his wife just after the sentence “unto dust shalt thou return,” and the name he gives her is “Life.”

Adam names his wife just after the sentence “unto dust shalt thou return,” and the name he gives her is “Life.” Chavvah means “life,” and it echoes chay, “living,” in the reason given: she was “the mother of all living.” The ancient Greek translation simply calls her that: “Adam called the name of his wife Life.” The Book of Moses traces the name to God: “for thus have I, the Lord God, called the first of all women, which are many” (Moses 4:26). She is called mother before she has any child; her first son is born in Gen. 4:1.

Why the naming comes here, Genesis does not say. In one older reading Adam “believed the promise with regard to the woman’s seed, and manifested his faith in the name which he gave to his wife.” A Latter-day Saint reading sees in the name her standing as her own person, which “could not have occurred until Eve had exercised her own agency, thus its placement so late in the narrative.” Latter-day revelation “gives us an awareness of her nobility”: she “will share eternal glory with” Adam, and President Joseph F. Smith saw “our glorious Mother Eve” among the faithful in the spirit world (D&C 138:39).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Daniel L. Belnap, “In the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 and Its Significance to the Latter-day Saints”, in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Religious Studies Center, BYU; Deseret Book, 2021), 1–42. “Eve”, Bible Dictionary.

21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

Imagery #

Clothed by God

Adam and Eve covered themselves first, with fig leaves sewn into aprons (verse 7).

Adam and Eve covered themselves first, with fig leaves sewn into aprons (verse 7). Before they leave the garden God replaces those with coats He makes Himself, and He dresses them. The Hebrew words are the ones later used for clothing priests. “Coats” is kotnot, the “tunic” worn next to the body, and “clothed them” is wayyalbishem. When Moses dressed Aaron’s sons for the priesthood, “Moses brought Aaron’s sons, and put coats upon them” (Lev. 8:13): in Hebrew wayyalbishem kuttonot, the same verb and noun. In one Latter-day Saint reading the coats “provide poignant and powerful symbols of priestly covering pointing forward to Christ’s atonement.”

Skins mean that an animal died. Sister J. Anette Dennis: “It is likely that an animal was sacrificed to make those coats of skins—symbolic of the Savior’s own sacrifice for us. Kaphar is the basic Hebrew word for atonement, and one of its meanings is ‘to cover.’” (The lexicon defines the verb as “cover over (figurative), pacify, make propitiation”; the word itself is not in this verse.) Outside the garden the Lord commanded sacrifice, and an angel explained it: “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father” (Moses 5:7). The Church teaches that the coats “had deep symbolic meaning—symbolism that is also represented in the holy garments we receive through the temple endowment.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: Partaking of the Fruit—Knowledge, Accountability, and Redemption”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 193–212. J. Anette Dennis, “Put Ye On the Lord Jesus Christ”, general conference, Apr. 2024. Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Related Scriptures #

Why the tree of life was guarded

Verse 22 can sound as if God were guarding His own privileges. The Book of Mormon reads the guard as mercy.

Verse 22 can sound as if God were guarding His own privileges. The Book of Mormon reads the guard as mercy. A man in Ammonihah asked Alma about this very verse: “What does the scripture mean, which saith that God placed cherubim and a flaming sword on the east of the garden of Eden” (Alma 12:21)? Alma answered that if Adam and Eve had then eaten of the tree of life, “they would have been forever miserable, having no preparatory state; and thus the plan of redemption would have been frustrated” (Alma 12:26). Instead “there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God” (Alma 12:24). He told his son Corianton the same: had Adam “put forth his hand immediately, and partaken of the tree of life, he would have lived forever… having no space for repentance” (Alma 42:5).

As for whom God is speaking to in “as one of us,” the Book of Moses answers: “I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten: Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil” (Moses 4:28). On the plural, see the note on Gen. 1:26.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Imagery #

Cherubim at the east of the garden

Cherubim are “figures representing heavenly creatures, the exact form being unknown,” and Israel knew them from its sanctuary.

Cherubim are “figures representing heavenly creatures, the exact form being unknown,” and Israel knew them from its sanctuary. Two cherubim of gold stood on the mercy seat of the ark in the Holy of Holies (Ex. 25:18–22), and the veil that hung before it was woven “with cherubims” (Ex. 26:31–33). At Eden they are set at the east of the garden, which implies “that the entrance was on the east side.”

What they guard is “the way” (derekh) to the tree of life: the road back, not the tree alone. When Alma was asked about this verse, the questioner “was asking a question related to how men and women could overcome the effects of the Fall and return to the presence of God.” The cherubim stand “as sentinels keeping the ‘way’ of their potential return,” and for Latter-day Saints “the sacred drama of the Creation, the Fall, and humankind’s journey back into the presence of God is more fully unfolded in the temple.”

Sources: “Cherubim”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why Did Alma Teach His Opponents about the Temple?”, KnoWhy #119, May 26, 2017. Matthew L. Bowen, “Cut Off from the Face and Presence: Alma’s Use of Hebraistic Idioms to Teach the Fall”, Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 157–69.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 3

The chapter’s promise of a Redeemer is in verse 15: the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head (see the note). Paul names the two Adams: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). An apostle has testified that God’s plan “provided for a Savior, the very Son of God Himself—another ‘Adam,’ the Apostle Paul would call Him—who would come in the meridian of time to atone for the first Adam’s transgression.”

The coats of skins point to Him too (see the note on verse 21). Adam and Eve’s first covering was their own and temporary; God “would provide a more permanent covering in the form of an infinite and eternal atonement and do for Adam and Eve what they could not do for themselves.” Jacob describes the righteous at the judgment as “clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Ne. 9:14).

And the tree of life, its way closed at the end of the chapter, is promised again at the end of the Bible: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7); “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life” (Rev. 22:14).

Worth exploring next

Lehi on the Fall. 2 Ne. 2:14–27, the fullest explanation of this chapter in scripture.
Alma on the cherubim and the tree of life. Alma 12:20–37 and Alma 42:1–15.
What Adam and Eve learned outside the garden. Moses 5:1–12.
The two Adams. Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–22, 45–49.
A verse-by-verse reading. The Religious Studies Center’s The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days gives two chapters to Moses 4 (“The Fall—Doctrinal Perspectives and Insights” and “Partaking of the Fruit—Knowledge, Accountability, and Redemption”), and with it reads Genesis 3 closely, Hebrew included.

This chapter elsewhere in scripture

Moses 4:5–31 — The same account as the Lord’s words to Moses, with Satan named as the one who “spake by the mouth of the serpent.”

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Genesis 3: The Fall, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Scripture Central, “Why is Knowing Genre Important for Understanding the Old Testament?”, KnoWhy #831, Dec. 30, 2025.
“Fall of Adam and Eve”, Bible Dictionary.
Jeffrey R. Holland, “Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet”, general conference, Apr. 2015.
“Fall of Adam and Eve”, Topics and Questions, Gospel Library.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Matthew L. Bowen, “Cut Off from the Face and Presence: Alma’s Use of Hebraistic Idioms to Teach the Fall”, Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 157–69.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Daniel L. Belnap, “In the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 and Its Significance to the Latter-day Saints”, in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Religious Studies Center, BYU; Deseret Book, 2021), 1–42.
Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: The Fall—Doctrinal Perspectives and Insights”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 175–92.
Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 4: Partaking of the Fruit—Knowledge, Accountability, and Redemption”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 193–212.
Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness”, general conference, Oct. 1993.
Moses 4:1–19, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017).
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, Salt Lake City, 1916; chapter 5, “Earthly Advent of the Christ Predicted,” 43.
Spencer W. Kimball, “The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood”, Ensign, Mar. 1976.
Ulisses Soares, “In Partnership with the Lord”, general conference, Oct. 2022.
Marion G. Romney, ““In Mine Own Way””, general conference, Oct. 1976.
L. Whitney Clayton, “That Your Burdens May Be Light”, general conference, Oct. 2009.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
“Eve”, Bible Dictionary.
J. Anette Dennis, “Put Ye On the Lord Jesus Christ”, general conference, Apr. 2024.
“Cherubim”, Bible Dictionary.
Scripture Central, “Why Did Alma Teach His Opponents about the Temple?”, KnoWhy #119, May 26, 2017.
“Tree of Life”, Guide to the Scriptures.

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