Genesis 3:5

for God doth know, &c. Having denied the fact of the penalty, the serpent proceeds to suggest that there is an unjust motive for the threat. It is not, he says, for the good of the man and the woman, but in order to exclude them from their privilege and right. No reason had been assigned: the serpent suggests one, that of jealous fear, lest men should be as God. According to the story, there is a half-truth in each utterance of the tempter; (1) "ye shall not surely die": and it is true that the penalty of Genesis 2:17 was not literally carried out. The man did not die in the daythat he ate of the fruit: (2) "in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened"; the prediction is verified in Genesis 3:7: (3) "Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil": the prediction is confirmed by the words of Jehovah Himself, Genesis 3:22, "Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." These three assertions, the denial of penalty, the promise of knowledge, and the prospect of independence, therefore, are not lies capable of direct refutation, but half-truths requiring explanation.

your eyes shall be opened An expression denoting the sudden acquisition of discernment to apprehend that which before had been hidden from ordinary sight. Cf. Genesis 21:19; 1Sa 14:29; 2 Kings 6:17.

as God or as gods. Both translations are possible, as in the Hebrew the word for God, Elohim, is plural; and consequently it is sometimes impossible to say whether "a god," or "gods," is the right translation: e.g. 1 Samuel 28:13, "and the woman said unto Saul, I see a god (or -gods") coming up out of the earth." In favour of the plural "gods" is the expression in Genesis 3:22, "the man is become as one of us." The word "Elohim" may be used of the Heavenly Beings, "Sons of God," who living in the presence of God are spoken of as sharers in His Divinity; see note on Genesis 1:26. But as the purpose of the serpent is to implant distrust of, and disaffection towards, the Lord who had made the man and woman, the singular, "as God," is to be preferred.