Why Didn’t Adam And Eve Die Immediately For Their Sin? The Bible clearly makes us understand that God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:15-17). However, Adam and Eve ate from the tree and lived to recount the story. With this in mind, how can we reconcile God’s warning with their continued existence? Many Biblical scholars typically answer this question in different ways.
Some Biblical scholars say that Adam and Eve did die, but not immediately. The Hebrew phrase translated “in the day” in Genesis 2:17 is sometimes used to mean “for certain” (e.g., Exodus 10:28; 1 Kings 2:37, 42). And as we know, Adam and Eve “certainly” died; although their death took place much later (Genesis 5:5). This point of view is highly supported by Genesis 3:22 in which the Lord God Almighty decides to prevent man from eating from the tree of life and living forever. Adam and Eve lost Eternal Life, were expelled from the Garden of Eden, and eventually experienced physical death. Other Biblical scholars regard the “death” warning of Genesis 2:17 as being spiritual death. It is believed and Biblically supported that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they experienced a separation from God, a loss of a relationship due to their sin.
Why Didn’t Adam And Eve Die Immediately For Their Sin?
The sin of Adam and Eve separated them from God. In fact, it damaged the close relationship that they had with God. The Bible teaches us that their first actions after sinning were to cover themselves up and hide from God (Genesis 3:7-8). We can point to this alienation from the Source of Life as spiritual death. Furthermore, some Biblical scholars understand and teach that both physical and spiritual death resulted from the original sin. That is, the moment Adam and Eve sinned against God, their souls were separated from God, and their bodies began to die. Their spiritual deadness and susceptibility to physical death have been passed upon all humanity (Romans 5:12).
Hallelujah to the Lord God Almighty, Father of Creation. Behold, He did not abandon Adam and Eve. The Bible tells us how He provided clothes for them (Genesis 3:21), and allowed them to have children (Genesis 4). God also promised “the seed of the woman” to crush the power of the Serpent (Genesis 3:15). This amazing promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior. Amazingly, Jesus Christ defeated Sin and Death on the Cross and now provides Abundant Life to anyone who welcomes and Believes in Him (John 10:10). Likewise, God’s special gift of Eternal Life to mankind comes through Jesus Christ, Savior of the world. In support of this, Romans 5:19 says, “For as by the one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s [Jesus’] obedience the many will be made righteous.”
More Biblical Facts
Some people have claimed that the Bible doesn’t necessarily mean what it says in Genesis 2:17, since Adam and Eve didn’t die immediately after they ate the forbidden fruit. It is rather unfortunate that they argue that the passage really means “die,” and not “surely die,” which is what gives the impression that Adam and Eve would die on the very day that they eat the forbidden fruit. Truth be told, Adam and Eve never died on the same day or immediately after they ate the fruit (Genesis 5:4–5) as some people seem to think Genesis 2:17 implies. So, either God was in error, or man’s interpretation is in error. But because we know that God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18), then fallible humans must be making the mistake.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at where the confusion arises. The Hebrew phrase in English is more literally: “Tree knowledge good evil eat day eat die (dying) die.” The Hebrew is, literally, die-die (muwth-muwth)with two different verb tenses (dying and die), which can be translated as “surely die” or “dying you shall die.” Behold, this indicates the beginning of dying, an ingressive sense, which finally culminates with death. Following this, we can now say that from the day Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they began to die and would finally return to dust (Genesis 3:19). If they were meant to die right then, the text should have simply used muwth only once, which means “dead, died, or die” and not beginning to die or surely die (as muwth-muwth is used in Hebrew). However, we must understand that English translations can miss some of the nuances.
