24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. 1 ch. 31. 15. Ps. 45. 10. Matt. 19. 5. Mark 10. 7. 1 Cor. 6. 16. Eph. 5. 31. the original word for 'woman' is Isha (x), the feminine of Ish (N) man, and properly signifies, however uncouth the sound to our ears, man-ness. So in the old Latin vir, a man, vira, a woman, whence virago, contracted virgo, a virgin. The English word woman, however, will appear a more appropriate rendering if its Anglo-Saxon origin womb-man, i. e. female man, be borne in mind. It may be remarked also that the word 'called' both here and often elsewhere in the Scriptures is properly significant of nature, as well as of title. See note on Gen. 32. 28. 25 m And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not " ashamed. m ch. 3, 7, 10, 11. n Exod. 32. 25. Isa. 47. 3. binding nature of this holy covenant, and one woman. Although it be true 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, &c. Whether this is to be considered as an inspired comment of Moses on the language of the preceding verse, or as the words of Adam himself in continuation, it is difficult to determine. If they be supposed to have been uttered by Adam, as he could as yet have had no idea of a father, mother, child, or the relations and affections subsisting between them, they must have been prompted by immediate inspiration. 25. And were not ashamed. They soever of them the words are to be as- er; But CHAPTER III. expan made: and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? ed their expulsion from Paradise, and overwhelmed them with all the unutterable miseries of the fall. 1. The serpent. Heb. W nahash. The word 'serpent' in our language comes from the Latin serpo, to creep, but the Hebrew term has no relation to the form or motion or any external attribute of the serpent. It is a term descriptive solely of mental properties, being derived from a root signifying to search or scrutinize closely, to find out by experiment, and in some few instances to practise divination or augury. Gen. 44. 5. Lev. 19. 26. 1 Kings, 20. 33. The name therefore is obviously more appropriate, in its original import, to some kind of rational being, than to a brute beast or an unintelligent reptile And this brings us to the consideration of the question respecting the real agent of agents to whom the too successful temptation of our first parents was owing. This has been a point of great controversy in all ages, and in the efforts of learned ingenuity and perverted criticism to reduce this part of the sacred history to allegory or fable, even the presence of a real natural serpent has been denied, and the whole treated as a mere figurative or symbolical representation designed to convey under expressive emblems certain great moral truths, which it was important for man to know. But as to this alternative of resolving the present record into an allegory, it creates as many difficulties as it removes. For as Horsley well re The happiness of our first parents in Paradise must have far exceeded any thing which we can now imagine. Formed in the image of God, with all their faculties perfect and their appetites in subjection, undisturbed by care, and as yet unassailed by temptation, they walked with God as a man walketh with his friend, and enjoyed communion with heaven, though their abode was upon earth. There was no cloud upon their understanding, no undue bias on their will, nothing inordinate in their affections. As to external comforts, they were surrounded by every thing that could minister to their innocent delight, and in the keen relish of their new-created existence, their pure hearts ded with emotions of love, adoration, gratitude, and joy, towards their bountiful Creator. But this happiness, alas! was of short duration! In the present chapter a sad reverse comes over the beatific scene which we have hitherto contemplated. We are reluctantly brought forward to that awful revolution which took place in their condition. Henceforth we behold them fallen, sinful, degraded, wretched, ruined! Their history now becomes blended with that of the wicked and malig-marks, 'The narrative of this chapter nant spirit, who had left his first es tate' of holiness and bliss, and who, by his fiendish arts, having seduced the happy pair from their innocence, exposed them to the wrath of God, procur must be either all plain matter of fact, or all allegory. It cannot be matter of fact in one part, and allegory in another. For no writer of true history would mix plain matter of fact with allegory ing real words, since the inspired historiau expressly asserts the fact. But was this all? Is there not clear evidence of the presence also of a higher power latent under the serpentine form and acting through it as an obsequious organ? Moses, it is true, makes no express mention of any such agent, but there are plainly some things ascribed by the history to the serpent, which do not agree with the properties of a mere brute creature. The serpent has not only the faculty of speech, but he reasons upon matters relating to God and man; he speaks of good and evil as if possessed of a thorough knowledge of the laws of nature and providence; he argues against the divine prohibition; steals upon the woman with the most alluring artifice, and finally persuades her to disobey the injunction. No mere animal, it is evident could be capable of itself of what is here attributed to the serpent, which must consequently have been impelled by some superior intelligent agent who used that creature as the passive instruments of his malignity. Such being the case, no doubt can remain as to this agent, for no being, except the apostate spirit, could either plan or execute the malevolent design of supplanting primeval innocence, and destroying the happiness of paradise. This con in one continued narrative, without any | intimation of a transition from the one to the other. If therefore any part of this narrative be matter of fact, no part of it is allegorical. On the other hand, if any part be allegorical, no part is naked matter of fact; and the consequence of this will be, that every thing in every part of the whole narrative must be allegorical. If the formation of the woman out of man be allegory, the woman must be an allegorical woman. The man must therefore be an allegorical man; for of such a man only the allegorical woman will be a meet companion. If the man be allegorical, his Paradise is an allegorical garden; the trees that grew in it, allegorical trees; the rivers that watered it, allegorical rivers; and thus we may ascend to the very beginning of the creation, and conclude at last that the heavens are allegorical heavens, and the earth an allegorical earth. Thus the whole history of the creation will be an allegory, of which the real subject is not disclosed, and in this absurdity the whole scheme of allegorizing ends.' Biblical Criticism, vol. I. pp. 9, 10. We may therefore safely rest in the literal interpretation of the narrative, and assert the presence and the agency of a true material serpent. That the act attributed to him of uttering articulate sounds, was indeed pre-clusion is confirmed by the nature of eminently wonderful and miraculous, no one will hesitate to admit. But a similar circumstance is unequivocally asserted of Balaam's ass, Num. 22. 28, and the truth of the miracle cannot be questioned, as it is confirmed by apostolic authority, 2 Pet. 2. 16. It is there said indeed that the Lord opened the mouth of the ass,' whereas in the present narrative it is not said by what agency utterance was given to the serpent; but the possibility is equal in both cases and a due reverence for Scripture, would seem to force from us the admission that here was a real serpent utter the sentence which the Lord God, ver. 14, pronounces upon the serpent, 'Because thou hast done this thou art cursed,' &c. Here the sentence is plainly directed against an intelligent being and free agent, who had been guilty of committing a crime of enormous character. It were ridiculous to suppose the Almighty in so solemn a manner addressing only a brute animal incapable of moral guilt. Intimations, moreover, to the same effect are found in other parts of the sacred volume. Thus our Saviour, John, 8. 44, tells the Jews that they were of their father the dev il,' and that he was a murderer from the beginning,' where he probably alludes to his estructive agency in the transaction here recorded, as well as to that which he exercised in instigating Cain to the murder of Abel. For if he was 'a murderer from the beginning,'| he must have been so from the earliest period in which he could have been guilty of this crime; and he could not justly be styled 'the father of lies,' if he were not the first from whom a lie ever proceeded. But he plainly acted in both these characters at the period referred to, and to this our Lord undoubtedly alludes. Again, the Apostle Paul in exhorting the Corinthians to beware of false teachers, says, 'I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity | that is in Christ.' Here is a comparison between the seduction of the Corinthians, and the seduction of Eve; and as the former were in no danger of being deceived by a mere brute animal, Eve cannot be supposed to have been beguiled by a mere irrational creature. If the serpent in Genesis were nothing more than the brute reptile, the comparison is destroyed, but if it were the organ of Satan, the comparison is true and forcible; that is, there was danger lest Satan should deceive the Corinthi an converts through the means of false teachers, as he did Eve by means of the serpent. That such is the apostle's meaning is implied in vs. 13-15, of the same chapter; 'For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan | himself is transformed into an angel of light.' We know from Scripture of no other period in the history of this archapostate when the transformation here predicated of him is so likely to have taken place as that now referred to when he perhaps assumed the form of a bright, glorious, and winged serpent, of that kind which in Scripture are called seraphs or seraphim, from their luminous, burning, glowing appearance, an appearance that might very naturally have suggested the phrase, 'angel of light.' There can be no reasonable doubt, therefore, that the devil actuated the serpent by which Eve was beguiled, and that he was consequently the instigator of the first sin in Paradise. This being is here designated under the appellation serpent from his insidious, subtle, and malignant nature, and the epithet old is applied to him Rev. 12. 9, from his having commenced his diabolical acts at the creation, and continued to practise them through several thousand years down to the period of that prophecy. He is moreover elsewhere called Devil from his being a calumniator, or slanderer; Satan from his being an adversary or hater; and the Wicked One from his general character. The - Was more subtle than any beast of the field. Heb. 179. That is, more cunning, wily, insidious. term in its primary import signifies naked, but like many other Hebrew words originally expressive of physical properties, it came gradually to be applied to certain mental acts or attributes of a somewhat analogous nature. Whatever is naked is more free from impediments, and can therefore act in a more unembarrassed, easy, flexible, and effective manner than that which is hindered and harassed by any kind of covering. The transfer of the term, therefore, from corporeal to intellectual operations, as equivalent to expert, adroit, possessing quickness of mind, discernment, sagacity, either in a good or bad sense, is at once natural and accordant with the metaphorical usages of most ancient tongues. Thus, Heb. 5. 14. 'Who by reason of use have their senses exercised (Gr. yɛyvpvasμeva make naked) to discern both good and evil.' It is consequently in numerous instances the term in the original which its unwary victim, and of aiming to secure its head when assaulted, it is not peculiarly distinguished by superior astuteness. But its shape and properties may not have been originally the same as they now are. It is not unlikely that a debasing and deteriorating change has taken place in consequence of the curse pronounced upon it. It is here but if it had then been a vile reptile as classed among 'the beasts of the field;' urally ranked among the creeping things,' as the distinction is somewhat closely observed in the first chapter of Genesis; and the denunciation, 'Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt seem moreover to import some great and remarkable punishment, such at least as his being reduced to a more ab the Greek translators have represented by the epithet Opovipos wise, and in the present passage that version exhibits φρονιμότατος most wise, in allusion to which our Saviour says to his disciples, Mat. 10. 16, Be ye wise (ppovipoi) as serpents and harmless as doves.' In other cases it is translated by πavovoyos cunning, crafty, and in our English version is very often rendered by the epithet prudent, as Prov. 12. 16, 'A pruit now is, it would have been more natdent man (1) covereth shame.' Pro. 14. 8, "The wisdom of the prudent (173) is to understand his way ? The verbal root occurs in the sense of acting with serpentine subtilty in 1 Sam. 23. 22, where in reference to Da-thou eat all the days of thy life,' would vid's hiding himself in lurking places and thence making sudden sallies on his enemies, it is said, 'It is told me that he dealeth very subtilly (7).'ject condition than that in which he In the present case commentators are not unanimous in explaining the application of the epithet. Some think that it refers both to the animal and the devil who actuated it; others, that the serpent is called 'subtle' solely by reason of the subtlety of the devil, who used it as his instrument, as the tongue is said to be wise or crafty when moved by a person possessed of these qual ties. The former of these opinions strikes us as the more probable of the two. The attribute described pertained, we think, seraphim or burning serpents, both to the primary and the secondary probably from their resplendent colour, in which they resembled an order of agent here employed. time, we do not hesitate to admit that angelic beings called also seraphs or the dominant and more especial refer- seraphim. Isaiah also ch. 14. 29, speaks ence is to the spiritual rather than the of a 'fiying fiery serpent,' doubtless of a similar species. We know therefore natural serpent; for of him insidious of no insuperable objection to considercunning and malignant subtlety may be preeminently predicated. ing the serpent of Eden as a far more splendid and beautiful creature than the common reptile so denominated; and the traditionary comment of Rabbi Bechai may perhaps rest upon solid grounds. This is the secret (or mys tery) of the holy language, that a ser pent is called saraph as an angel is called At the same We may remark also that as far as the epithet applies to the material serpent, it is not properly characteristic of the reptile tribe as at present known to us, as this is neither the most sagacious, nor the most cunning and subtle of the brute creation. Except in the mere instinct of lurking insidiously to attack was created. Accordingly we find a general belief both among the ancient Jews and the early Christians that the serpent before the fall was not only gentle and innocuous, but in form and appearance among the most beautiful of creatures. In Num. 21. 6, it is said that 'The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.' נחשים Here the original phrase is saraph;' and then after |