Bible Strands
Genesis 3:5
“For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The serpent speaks to the woman in the Garden of Eden, immediately after denying that she will die (Gen 3:4), and just before she takes the fruit (Gen 3:6).
The words — נִפְקְחוּ (nifkechu, H6491), "they will be opened," is the hinge of the verse: the serpent's entire persuasion rests on a promise of sensory and cognitive opening.
The thread — The claim "you will be like God" echoes the self-exaltation condemned in Ezekiel 28:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:4, and the masquerade exposed in 2 Corinthians 11:13.
Why it lands — The serpent's argument reframes God's command as a withholding, and the reader must notice that the promise sounds like empowerment but is actually a claim against God's character.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
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.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 28:2 “Son of man, tell the ruler of Tyre that this is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea.’ Yet you are a man and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:4 He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
- 2 Corinthians 11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
- Genesis 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
- 2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
- Exodus 20:7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave anyone unpunished who takes His name in vain.
- Matthew 6:23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
- Acts 12:22 And they began to shout, “This is the voice of a god, not a man!”
- Acts 26:18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.’
- 2 Corinthians 11:3 I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ.