T HE STORY OF THE FALL OF HUMANITY IN GENESIS 3 SEEMS STRAIGHTFORWARD , perhaps because we’ve heard it told so many times. The truth is that the passage presents a lot of interpretive questions. We’ve devoted some time to a couple of them in the previous chapter. Now it’s time to examine the main character, the serpent. Once again, there’s a lot more than meets the eye here.
One of the things that always bothered me about the story was why Eve wasn’t scared witless when the serpent spoke to her. There’s no indication that she thought the incident unusual. I’ve run into some odd explanations for that, such as, “Maybe animals back then could walk and talk.” That sort of speculation is aimed at preserving an overliteralized view of the text, and it’s often accompanied by an appeal to science—a claim that snake anatomy shows snakes once had legs. It’s a bit misguided when someone attempts to defend biblical literalism by appealing to the evolutionary history of snakes. And anyway, the whole approach misses the point. It also presumes that the villain was simply an animal. He wasn’t.
The truth is that an ancient reader would not have expected Eve to be frightened. Given the context—she was in Eden, the realm of Yahweh and his elohim council—it would have been clear that she was conversing with a divine being. As we’ve seen in earlier chapters, the biblical author has telegraphed that Eve was on divine turf.
In ancient Near Eastern literature of the Old Testament world, animal speech is not uncommon. The context for such speaking is that of magic, which of course is tied to the world of the gods, or direct divine intervention. No Egyptian, for example, would have presumed that the animals they experienced in their normal lives could talk. But when the gods or magical forces were in view, that was a different story. Animals were often the vehicle for manifesting a divine presence or power in a story. The kind of animal would often depend on characteristics associated with that animal, or on the status of that animal in a culture’s religion.
Consequently, the point of Genesis 3 is not to inform us about ancient zoology or a time when animals could talk. We’re not in the realm of science by design . Genesis telegraphed simple but profound ideas to Israelite readers: The world you experience was created by an all-powerful God; human beings are his created representatives; Eden was his abode; he was accompanied by a supernatural host; one member of that divine entourage was not pleased by God’s decisions to create humanity and give them dominion. All that leads to how humanity got into the mess it’s in.
In some respects, we know that the Genesis “serpent” wasn’t really a member of the animal kingdom. We have other passages to help us grasp that point, particularly in the New Testament. We understand that, even though New Testament writers refer to the serpent back in Eden, they are really referring to a supernatural entity—not a mere member of the animal kingdom (2 Cor 11:3; 1 Thess 3:5; Rev 12:9).
This is how we need to think about the story of Genesis 3 . An Israelite would have known that the episode described interference in the human drama by a divine being, a malcontent from within Yahweh’s council. 1 The vocabulary used by the writer reveals several things about the divine enemy that has emerged from the council. If we’re thinking only in terms of a snake, we’ll miss the messaging.
My task in this chapter and the next is to help you think beyond the literalness of the serpent language. If it’s true that the enemy in the garden was a supernatural being, then he wasn’t a snake. 2
But it’s also true that the story is told as it is for a reason. As odd as it sounds, the vocabulary and the imagery are designed to alert readers to the presence of a divine being, not a literal snake. Making that case will involve comparing Genesis 3 to other Old Testament passages. But to see that those passages are indeed conceptually linked to Genesis 3 , we need to review some of things we’ve learned.
Eden was the divine abode and, therefore, the place that Yahweh held council meetings. Here are some of the terms and verses associated with Eden we briefly noted in an earlier chapter. I’ve added the Hebrew words behind the English.
|
Hebrew Term |
English Meaning |
Concept |
Important Verses |
|
elim, elohim (plural) |
“gods” |
council members |
Gen 3:5, 22 |
|
gan |
“garden” |
Divine abode, council meeting place |
Gen 2:8–10, 15–16 Gen 3:1–3, 8, 10, 23–24 |
|
ʾ ed nahar yamim |
“(watery) mist” “river” “seas, waters” |
description of the well-watered garden of the council |
Gen 2:6, 10–14; Ezek 28:2 |
|
har |
“mount, mountain” |
mountain range where divine council met |
Ezek 28:13 |
|
moshab elohim |
“seat of the gods” (place of governing authority) |
the divine assembly |
Ezek 28:2 |
You can see quickly that, other than Genesis 2–3 , the other source of verse citations is Ezekiel 28 . That’s one of the chapters conceptually linked to Genesis 3 . Its connection is explicit. Ezekiel 28:13–14 refers to “Eden, the garden of God … God’s holy mountain.”
The table does not list all the points of connection between the two. There are a number of others, most of them hotly debated by scholars. 3 Back in the first chapter I told you that there are many interpretations for strange passages in the Bible, but the best ones are those that make sense in the context of many others—the mosaic. The relationship of Genesis 3 to Ezekiel 28 and other passages is going to illustrate that point.
Ezekiel 28 is not specifically about the fall of humankind. It’s also not a commentary on Genesis 3 . The chapter begins with God chastising the prince of Tyre (Ezek 28:1–8). God accuses this prince of extraordinary arrogance. In verse 2 the prince considers himself a god ( el ), who sits in the seat of the gods ( moshab elohim ), a term associated with the divine council. 4
The choice of el for who the prince considers himself to be is interesting. It also appears in verse 9, where it is in parallel to elohim . The word el is another word that means “god” in Hebrew and other Semitic languages. The people of Ugarit called their high god El—they used the term as a proper name. So did the people of Tyre, which was a Phoenician city. The Phoenician religion had a divine council led by El, who was also called elyon (“Most High”) in Phoenician texts and considered the creator of the earth.
To the ancient reader familiar with El, the notion that the prince of Tyre would think himself fit to rule in El’s place (or even to be a more generic deity-participant in the divine council) would be ludicrous. For biblical writers, the idea was also offensive. For them Yahweh was Most High—the true king of all gods and creator of heaven and earth. This is why the biblical writers refer to Yahweh as el-elyon (“God Most High”; Gen 14:20, 22). The point of assigning el and elyon to Yahweh was not to endorse how Phoenicians and residents of Ugarit thought about their gods, but to assert Yahweh’s superiority. He was incomparable among spiritual beings; the others were pretenders. Consequently, the biblical writers would have viewed the human arrogance of the prince of Tyre as an affront to the God of Israel.
God proceeds to acknowledge the great intelligence of this prince, but reminds him that he is no god, and certainly not the Most High (Ezek 28:2–6). This sort of arrogance must be punished. Judgment will come. God asks sarcastically (v. 9), “Will you indeed still say ‘I am a god!’ before the face of your killers?”
In verse 10 God adds a strange detail: “You will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers.” Since the prince of Tyre is an uncircumcised Gentile anyway, the phrasing seems to lack coherence. If we read a little further in Ezekiel, the point would be clear to an ancient reader. The underworld realm of the dead, Sheol, is described by Ezekiel as the place where the uncircumcised warrior-king enemies of Israel find themselves (Ezek 32:21, 24–30, 32; Isa 14:9). This is the place of the Rephaim dead, quasi-supernatural beings we’ll encounter later.
It is at this point that God has the prophet raise a lament over the prince of Tyre, the brilliant prince whose arrogance led to his fall, not only to the earth but under the earth. God, through the prophet, begins:
12 You were a perfect model of an example,
full of wisdom and perfect of beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God,
and every precious stone was your adornment:
carnelian, topaz and moonstone,
turquoise, onyx and jasper,
sapphire, malachite and emerald.
And gold was the craftsmanship of your settings
and your mountings in you;
on the day when you were created they were prepared (Ezek 28:12–13).
These verses raise questions. The prince of Tyre wasn’t in Eden—he was in Tyre. We see now that, although Ezekiel 28 is about the prince of Tyre, in describing this prince’s arrogance, downfall, and original state, the prophet utilizes an older tale of a downfall in Eden .
Many scholars argue that the Edenic figure in view is Adam. That perspective is workable with parts of the description, but not all of them. The more coherent alternative is the serpent—more pointedly, a divine being who has forgotten his place in the pecking order.
But where do we see a serpent in Ezekiel 28 ? Let’s look first at what’s clear before addressing that question.
This “prince” was in Eden, the garden of God (v. 13). He is beautiful—words like shining or radiant are what come to mind when reading about the panoply of gems that were his “adornment” (vv. 12b–13).
Some have taken this language to refer to a literal jewel-encrusted garment worn by the human prince. They in turn argue that the prince of Eden was Adam. They also note that many of the jewels listed here correspond to the jewels on the breastplate of the Israelite high priest (Exod 28:17–20; 39:10–13). The picture, they say, is Adam as priest-king of Eden. Since Jesus was the second Adam and a priest-king, the analogy fits. The backdrop to the prince of Tyre’s arrogance is the rebellious Adam, not the serpent.
This sounds reasonable until you start looking at how “Adam” is characterized in the verses that follow.
14 You were an anointed guardian cherub,
and I placed you on God’s holy mountain;
you walked in the midst of stones of fire.
15 You were blameless in your ways
from the day when you were created,
until wickedness was found in you.
16 In the abundance of your trading,
they filled the midst of you with violence, and you sinned;
and I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and I expelled you, the guardian cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you ruined your wisdom because of your splendor.
I threw you on the ground before kings;
I have exposed you for viewing (Ezek 28:14–17).
Was Adam an “anointed guardian cherub”? Where do we read in Genesis 3 that Adam was filled with violence, or that his sin was propelled by the fact he was egotistically enamored of his own beauty and splendor? When was Adam cast to the ground to be exposed before kings (v. 17)?
All of the phrases alluded to in the questions above are important. Dealing with them will take the rest of this chapter and the next. The key question that frames any discussion of them is this: Is Ezekiel drawing on a tale about the rebellion of a divine being against God, or about Adam’s rebellion against God? I believe the former is more coherent, a decision that links what’s going on here back to the only divine rebel in Genesis 3 —the serpent. In what remains of this chapter, I’ll begin to explain my reasoning, and then continue that exploration in the next chapter. 5
Ezekiel 28:12b addresses the prince of Tyre this way: “You were a perfect model of an example.” Some translations have “You were the signet of perfection.” This line is one of the more troublesome in the book for translation. Some scholars go as far as to list it among the more problematic in the entire Old Testament. 6 The Hebrew word behind “perfect model” or “signet ring” ( ch-w-t-m ) is the crux of the problem. The word is not a noun, but a participle that literally means “the sealer.” A translation of “signet ring” takes the term to denote some object, but the term is addressed as a person (“You”). The fact that this “sealer” is described as being “full of wisdom” and “perfect in beauty” also makes it clear that an object is not in view, but some intelligent person or entity.
The question of course is just how this entity should be identified. Ultimately, the answer to this question derives from the answer to the previous question of whether Ezekiel is drawing on a story about a divine rebel or a human one. That question is the focus of the next chapter. But there are certain observations that can be made here that will help frame that discussion.
Let’s reconsider the gemstones that describe the appearance of the “the sealer” in Ezekiel 28:13. As I mentioned earlier, proponents of the view that Ezekiel is drawing on Adam’s rebellion for his analogous portrayal of the prince of Tyre want to argue that the gemstones point to a human priest-king. But the “adornment” can quite easily be telegraphing something else—divinity. All of the gems have one thing in common—they shine or sparkle. Luminescence is a characteristic of divine beings or divine presence across the ancient Near Eastern world and the Old Testament (e.g., Ezek 1:4–7, 27–28 [cf. Ezek 10:19–20]; Dan 10:6; Rev 1:15). This description of the divine cherub in Eden is designed to convey divinity—a shining presence.
There are more details. The anointed cherub ultimately gets cast out of Eden, out from “the midst of the stones of fire.” We already know from other data that Eden is the place of the council. The “stones of fire” is another clue in that direction. This phrase is associated in other Jewish texts (1 Enoch 18:6–11 ; 1 Enoch 24–25 ) with the supernatural, mountainous dwelling of God and the divine council. 7
It may be objected here that Eden was the dwelling place of God and so the “stones of fire” do not only point to the divine beings of Yahweh’s council. That much is true, but there’s more to the phrase than a dwelling place. Other scholars have also drawn attention to the ancient Near Eastern propensity to describe divine beings as stars. Job 38:7 refers to the sons of God as “stars,” and Isaiah 14:12–13 refers to a being fallen from heaven as the “Day Star, son of Dawn” ( ESV ) who wanted to ascend above the “stars of God” in the divine realm. The “stones of fire” therefore do not only describe an abode, but also divine entities in that abode. 8
The “ground” to which this haughty divine being is cast and where he is disgraced is also of interest. The Hebrew word translated “ground” is ʾerets . It is a common term for the earth under our feet. But it is also a word that is used to refer to the underworld, the realm of the dead (e.g., Jonah 2:6), where ancient warrior-kings await their comrades in death (Ezek 32:21, 24–30, 32; Isa 14:9). Adam, of course, was already on earth, so he couldn’t be sentenced there. And he didn’t wind up in the underworld. Yet this is the sort of language we would expect if the point was the expulsion of a heavenly being from the divine council.
Lastly, some scholars have suggested that the problematic term “sealer” (Hebrew ch-w-t-m ) might be a cryptic reference to the serpent figure of Genesis 3 . If their suggestion is correct, the point of confusion becomes a clever signal that Adam is not in view. 9
There is a rare phenomenon in ancient Semitic languages where the final letter m is silent (the “enclitic mem ”). 10 If the m is made silent in (in effect, removed from) our confusing word, the word becomes ch-w-t , which means “serpent” in Phoenician and other Semitic languages. 11 That noun in its lemma form is ch-w-h . 12
Though the case for this reading cannot be made conclusively, its message would be to read Ezekiel 28:11–19 in light of Genesis 3 and its serpent. 13 It produces a play on words that takes us directly back to the scene of the fall in Eden. Since we know that we are not dealing with a mere animal in Genesis 3 , but rather a divine being that is cast as creaturely, the description that this figure in the garden was an “anointed guardian cherub” makes sense. A cherub was a divine throne guardian in the ancient Near Eastern worldview. 14 Ancient Near Eastern art and engravings have many examples of such throne guardians as animals, including serpents. There is little coherence to viewing the guardian cherub in Ezekiel 28 as the human Adam.
Let’s summarize where this leaves us. Ezekiel 28 browbeats the prince of Tyre using an ancient tale of divine arrogance in Eden, where a member of Yahweh’s council thought himself on par with the Most High. This divine throne guardian was expelled from Eden to the “ground” or underworld.
These elements show up in another passage: Isaiah 14 . 15 We’ll consider what Isaiah says next and then take a fresh look at what went on in Eden.