What Does Genesis 3:5 Mean?
For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
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.THE KEY
The serpent frames the limit as withholding: opened eyes are presented as the route to godlike knowing.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where a boundary is presented as deprivation and forbidden knowledge as a path to becoming more. It sets God’s knowing beside the humans’ promised knowing, then makes opened eyes the threshold to that likeness. The next verse shows the first thing they see: their own nakedness.
THE ROOT
יֹדֵעַ
yōdēaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
yādaʿ (יָדַע): to know, perceive, or recognize.
“knows” in this verse is yōdēaʿ. The same verb appears first for God’s knowing and then for the humans’ promised knowing, making that shared capacity the hinge of the verse. Elsewhere it can describe intimate, experienced knowing, as when Adam “knew” Eve (Genesis 4:1), so it reaches beyond collecting information.
ALSO GROWS
yōdēaʿ: knows
יֹדֵעַ
This form names the knowing the serpent first attributes to God.
yōdəʿê: knowing
יֹדְעֵי
The same root names the knowledge promised to the humans, linking their desired likeness to God’s knowing.
yādaʿ: knew
יָדַע
The same root describes Adam’s intimate knowing of Eve in Genesis 4:1, showing its range beyond information.
וְנִפְקְחוּ
venifqəḥû
GROWS FROM
פקח
paqach (פָּקַח): to open, especially the eyes or ears.
“opened” in this verse is venifqəḥû. This root names a change in what can be seen; it does not itself promise wisdom or wholeness. When the eyes open in the next verse, the first new recognition is nakedness, so the opening exposes a reality without making the humans all-knowing.
ALSO GROWS
nifqəḥû: were opened
נִפְקְחוּ
In Genesis 3:7 the same root describes the eyes opening and the humans recognizing their nakedness.
pōqēaḥ: opens
פּוֹקֵחַ
Isaiah 42:7 uses this root for opening blind eyes, where the opening reveals what was unseen.
THE PATTERN
Opened eyes bring unseen realities into view; what becomes visible depends on the kind of opening.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they perceived that they were bare, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made for themselves waistcloths.And Elisha prayed and said, LORD, I pray you, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and look, the mountain was filled with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.And their eyes were thrown open, and they recognized him, and he became unseen to them.THE THREAD
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for the ages.This repeats the promise almost word for word: becoming as one of the divine beings and knowing good and evil. It clarifies the likeness described here while placing that knowing beside the still-inaccessible tree of life.
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