Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
drunk," &c.? "Yes, I am sure he has, and it is well said, and by his grace I will abide by it, whatever the tempter suggests to the contrary."
Scofield:
The serpent The serpent, in his Edenic form, is not to be thought of as a writhing reptile. That is the effect of the curse Genesis 3:14. The creature which lent itself to Satan may well have been the most beautiful as was the most "subtle" of creatures less than man. Traces of that beauty remain despite the curse. Every movement of a serpent is graceful, and many species are beautifully coloured. In the serpent, Satan first appeared as "an angel of light" 2 Corinthians 11:14.
Jamieson Fausset Brown /JFB/ Bible Commentary:
The serpent—The fall of man was effected by the seductions of a serpent. That it was a real serpent is evident from the plain and artless style of the history and from the many allusions made to it in the New Testament. But the material serpent was the instrument or tool of a higher agent, Satan or the devil, to whom the sacred writers apply from this incident the reproachful name of "the dragon, that old serpent" [Re 20:2]. Though Moses makes no mention of this wicked spirit— giving only the history of the visible world—yet in the fuller discoveries of the Gospel, it is distinctly intimated that Satan was the author of the plot (Joh 8:44; 2Co 11:3; 1Jo 3:8; 1Ti 2:14; Re 20:2). More subtile—Serpents are proverbial for wisdom (Mt 10:16). But these reptiles were at first, probably, far superior in beauty as well as in sagacity to what they are in their present state. He said—There being in the pure bosoms of the first pair no principle of evil to work upon, a solicitation to sin could come only from "without," as in the analogous case of Jesus Christ (Mt 4:3); and as the tempter could not assume the human form, there being only Adam and Eve in the world, the agency of an inferior creature had to be