Genesis 3:2

Summary

Genesis 3:2 reports the woman's reply to the snake: she states that they eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden. The verse forms the opening of her response, which continues in verse 3 with the restriction concerning one specific tree.

Key words

• va-Tomer ("she said", H0559) — qal narrative verb with the narrative vav (H9001), marking the next event in sequence: "and she said."
• ha-'Ishah ("the woman", H0802G) — definite noun, the subject performing the speech act.
• peri ("[the] fruit of", H6529) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be linked to what follows ("fruit of X").
• 'etz ("[the] tree[s] of", H6086H) — masculine singular noun, also in construct state, chaining to the next noun.
• no-Khel ("we will eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, first person plural, indicating an action not yet completed or habitual/ongoing, rendered here as "we eat" or "we will eat."

What the text says

The verse opens with va-Tomer ("and she said"), using the narrative vav (H9001) that links this statement directly to the prior exchange with the snake. The subject is ha-'Ishah ("the woman"), marked with the definite article H9009, addressing ha-Nachash ("the snake"), also definite, via the preposition 'el ("to", H0413).

The core of her statement is a construct chain: mi-Peri ("from fruit of") + 'etz ("tree of") + ha-Gan ("the garden"). Both peri (H6529) and 'etz (H6086H) appear in construct form, meaning neither stands alone grammatically — each requires the following noun to complete its meaning. This produces a nested phrase: "fruit of [the] tree(s) of the garden." The preposition mi ("from", H9006) attached to peri indicates partitive eating — eating "from" the fruit, not the whole of it.

The clause ends with the verb no-Khel ("we will eat", H0398), a qal imperfect first-person plural form. The imperfect aspect in Biblical Hebrew typically conveys incomplete, future, or habitual action, which allows this to be read either as a general statement of practice ("we eat") or as describing permitted future action ("we may eat" / "we will eat"). The verb's position at the end of the sentence, after the construct chain, is typical of Hebrew syntax where the object phrase can precede the verb for emphasis or topic-fronting.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the construct chain as apo pantos xylou tou paradeisou ("from every tree of the paradise"), inserting "every" (πάντος) where the Hebrew construct chain has no equivalent quantifier — the Hebrew simply says "fruit of tree of the garden" without an explicit "every" or "all." The Vulgate similarly reads de fructu lignorum quae sunt in paradiso ("from the fruit of the trees which are in paradise"), pluralizing "trees" (lignorum) where the Hebrew 'etz (H6086H) is grammatically singular in construct form, though such singular construct nouns can carry collective sense in Hebrew.