Genesis 3 explained

The first sin starts with a question that turns God's yes into a no. God's first words afterwards are a question too, "Where are you?", and inside the judgment he puts a promise: the woman's offspring will bruise the serpent's head.

God's words in 2:16-17 began with a generous yes: "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden", with one exception. The serpent's first words flip it: "Has God really said, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" The woman corrects him, but her answer shifts too: she adds "You shall not touch it", which isn't in God's words in 2:17. Then the serpent contradicts God outright: "You won’t really die." In Hebrew he repeats God's words from 2:17, mot tamut, "you will surely die", now spoken to both of them, with "not" placed in front.

It's easy to picture the woman alone with the serpent. Verse 6 says she "gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too."

Genesis 3:6

Genesis 3:6→leads toRomans 5:19

Paul sets Adam and Jesus side by side: "as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous." "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive."

זֶרַעzera'say ZEH-rah

Seed, and so offspring or descendants (Brown-Driver-Briggs: "sowing, seed, offspring"). It's the same word as the plants' "seed" in Genesis 1. Like English "seed" or "offspring", it can mean one descendant or many. In 3:15 it's used twice, for the serpent's offspring and the woman's, and then comes a singular "he": "He will bruise your head."

The serpent's first move was to make God's generous yes sound like a no. Where are you tempted to see God as holding out on you?