The Serpent in the Tree

 Who was the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve? Was he an Earthly creature or a heavenly angel or somehow both? Was he one in the same as Satan? What other Biblical evidence do we have to support or refute this idea that Satan and the serpent are one in the same?

There are so many questions regarding the serpent and I’m not sure I can answer them all. But I will try to explain exactly what the Bible does say about Serpent to see if we can draw from the scripture a true understanding of who and what he is.

Let’s begin with Genesis where we are first introduced to the Serpent in the tree.

Genesis 3:1-15 ¹Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “ ⁴“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. ⁸Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” ¹⁰He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” ¹¹And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” ¹²The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” ¹⁴So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the live stock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. ¹⁵And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NIV)

There are many strange things about this encounter. To begin with, there is almost no lead up this event taking place. The scripture directly before this passage says:

Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (NKJ)

The very next thing we see in the story is the Serpent in the tree. We do not have any indication whatsoever of the time gap between 2:25 and 3:1. It could have been days, weeks, months or years. There is no way of knowing for certain.

The next thing we have is the statement:

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. (NKJ)

This tends to make us believe that the Serpent was in fact an animal of some kind that God had created. Otherwise, why compare it to the other beasts of the field. But was it an animal that was possessed by an angelic being of some sort, or an animal who was just more intelligent than all the others God had created. Strong’s Concordance tells us this about the word Serpent that we us in our English translations of the Bible.

The Hebrew word is 5175 Nâchâsh (na-khawsh’) which means a snake from the sound of a hiss. The prime root of this word is 5172 Nâchâsh (na-khash’) to whisper or to prognosticate.

This alone does not tell us much about the Serpent other than the term used to describe it is borne out of the idea that he whispered something to Eve. In other words, he put an idea into her head. But we know the Serpent was more than a mere spirit that entered into Eve’s thought process because God actually curses this creature in verse 14. God tells this creature that he will be lower than all the animals of the Earth and will live his life on his belly and that he will eat dust all his days on the Earth.

None of this alone tells us much about the Serpent that we did not already know, so now let’s look at some other passages in other parts of the Bible that may shed some light on who this creature was. We have a passage in Ezekiel 28 that may give us some rather revealing insight into the Serpent.

Ezekiel 28:13-15 ¹³ “You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. ¹⁴You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. ¹⁵You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.’ (NIV)

Here we have a description of a Guardian Cherub, who was put in charge of Eden to protect it. It is unclear if this is the guardian that God placed in Eden to keep men out after Adam and his wife were expelled or if this is the Serpent who deceived Eve. But the last line in this passage may suggest that it was the latter:

¹⁵ “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.”

Remarkably, this is the same cherub who is being chastised here in Ezekiel 28 for corrupting the king of Tyre. Put these two passages together and they give us something very mysterious to ponder.

Now let’s look at one more passage to see where once again Satan is linked back to the Garden event and this creature.

Revelation 12:7-9 ⁷And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. ⁸But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. ⁹The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the Earth, and his angels with him. (NIV)

Here, finally, in the last book of the New Testament, we have one passage that seems to connect all the terms Serpent, Devil and Satan together. It is difficult to know how Satan and the Serpent relate to the creature in the tree or the king of Tyre, but we do have John’s revelation that finally brings all these references together into one entity. We still have a tendency however, in our modern day theologies, to misunderstand the term Satan. Obviously Satan is used here as a term referring to this entity, but in the Jewish tradition, Satan was term meaning Accuser, or Tempter, and not necessarily a proper noun referring to an actual name of one particular Angel. Satan, in the Jewish tradition was often used in the plural sense. Richard Laurence tells us that, Satan means Impious angels. Literally, “the Satans” Ha-Satan in Hebrew (”the adversary”) was originally the title of an office, not the name of an angel or to Prefer accusations against or, “to accuse”.

The best example we have of this in scripture is in the book of Job.

Job 1:6-7 ⁶Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. ⁷And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the Earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” (NKJ)

This passage has always been a puzzle to me until I began to study this topic in detail. I could never understand how Satan, who I was taught to believe had already been cast out of heaven, would come before the Lord with the other “Sons of God”. The name Satan used here, would clearly seem to be consistent with the use of an office or as an accuser as Laurence suggests. It is also consistent with the story told in the Book of Enoch.

Now I understand that in mainstream protestant theology, we do not accept the Book of Enoch as divinely inspired text, and therefore it is not part of the protestant Bible, but many Eastern churches and some Roman Catholic Bibles, do include this book as part of their belief. For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it is a series of visions given to Enoch before he was taken to Heaven. His visions are much like that of John’s in Revelation as they reveal many hidden things that go on behind the scenes between Heaven and Earth. In the Book of Enoch, he speaks of the Watchers, who are a class of angles who’s job it is to watch man and report to God on Man’s deeds. Some of these Watchers fell prey to lust and left their heavenly domain and married the daughters of men, as mentioned in Genesis 6:2. Without going into great detail, let me just say that this passage in Revelation 12 seems to fit very nicely with the mythology of the Watchers spoken about in the Book of Enoch.

The relationships between God and Satan and Satan and Man are the most puzzling aspects of the Bible. Was the Serpent one and the same as the same Satan we in the Christian faith teach or was it just another creature in God’s creation? Was he a Cherub appointed as the Guardian over the Garden of Eden or perhaps over the whole earth, as the suggested in Ezekiel with the words “…every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. ¹⁴You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.” This seems to suggest that this entity was present during the very formation of the earth. I believe the phrase “You walked upon the fiery stones.” suggests the time when the earth was still nothing more than a mass of molten rock. Whatever the case, this is truly a mystery that may not be completely revealed to us until all is said and done. What is the relationship between God and the Deceiver and why is he allowed to continue influence the affairs of man even though he has clearly sinned and been cast out of his place in heaven, it is difficult to say. I do address these things in some detail in my fiction books, but even that is based on speculation, mythology, and my imagination.

In conclusion, I believe it is safe to say that the Serpent in the tree was in fact the Devil or a Satan. Is there some link between this creature and the snakes of today as we often like to believe, or was this just a metaphor of some kind? I don’t know the answer to that but, we can say, both from John’s Revelation and the books of Genesis, Job and Isaiah, and Ezekiel,  that there are many strange things going on between Heaven and Earth that we are not able to see from our vantage point. Scientists have recently theorized that our universe my be made up of at least ten dimensions, but six of which were “rolled up” just milliseconds after the Big Bang so that we do not have access to then. Could this be evidence that Heaven and Earth coexist together, but humans cannot see a significant part of God’s creation, because we have been shielded away from six tenths of it, but the angels have access to Heaven, Earth and us?  The Bible certainly seems to indicate as much.

To read more of my essays on Genesis or to learn more about my fiction books based on the stories in Genesis, visit my website at http://thewitnesschronicles.com.