Who did God tell not to eat the forbidden fruit

Q: Who did Adam blame for eating the forbidden fruit?

Adam goes straight to the Big Guy in the Garden of Eden: The woman YOU gave me God made me eat the forbidden fruit!” Adam blames God.

Q: What did God say about the forbidden fruit?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

Q: What did God tell Adam about the tree?

To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it, Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

Genesis 2:16 indicates the original direct command from God was to Adam alone, as not only is "the man [i.e. Adam]" the subject, but the verb is 2nd person masculine singular, as are all the references that state "you" in v.17 (whether part of the verb or an actual pronoun in the Hebrew). This was prior to Eve's creation (2:18, 21-23).

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Who did Adam blame for eating the forbidden fruit?
What did God tell Adam and Eve?
What did God say about the forbidden fruit?
What did God tell Adam about the tree?

So when, in chapter 3, the serpent uses the plural "you," and Eve likewise replies with a plural "we," even in her paraphrase of the command in 3:3, we are left with three options:

Eve was also, sometime after her creation, directly commanded by God (which command may have included not touching also, per 3:3).
Eve was told by Adam they were not to eat it (and possibly adding not to touch it to keep as far as possible from temptation), passing the command of God on to her. This would still be viewed by her as a command from God to her, as a command from God can come via an intermediary (after all, every command from God in Scripture that one might consider applying to themselves today is at least by the one intermediary of the human author of Scripture, though possibly via a preacher, teacher, or otherwise).
Eve became aware of the command to Adam by Adam's discussing it, and chose to take that command upon herself as well since she was his helper.

Whatever the case, she "owned" the original command (along with the addition of not touching it) personally, such that when confronted by the serpent, she acknowledged the need for obedience herself.

Personally, since Scripture does not declare God spoke directly to Eve, I lean toward #2. From a contextual perspective, Eve's addition to "not touch" in 3:3 (which was not noted in Gen 2:16) implies that her instructions did not come directly from God, as if that aspect had been part of the direct command (or a modified form of it later) to both her and Adam, one would think that God (and thus the text of Scripture) would have made that distinction more evident, as touching is different than eating. Indeed, if touching had been a command itself, then mentioning eating would have been superfluous (as one could not eat it without touching it). So this addition implies strongly to me that either Adam warned her himself, adding the caution of not touching or she inferred it herself as a protective measure. In either case, it is not likely she received that form of the command directly from God.

But additionally, if one takes into account the New Testament testimony on this, then #2 or #3 is most likely, as it was not Eve's eating of the fruit that caused sin and death to enter the world, but Adam's (Rom 5:12-14). This statement indicates that it was the man, Adam, who was directly commanded by God and thus who bore the primary responsibility to obey, for it was his disobedience that brought sin and death (albeit, by Eve's transgression of tempting him to eat, Gen 3:6, 1 Tim 2:14, which might have also been a transgression against Adam's command to not touch if he had so given her that).

Q. Did God give the information about not eating of the tree’s fruit to just Adam, or was it for Adam and Eve? Or did Adam give the information to Eve after God created her?

As I read the narrative in Genesis, it seems pretty clear that God gave the command just to Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that Adam passed this command along to Eve.

Specifically, it was only after God told Adam not to eat from this tree that God then said to himself, “It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him,” and God created Eve. There is no subsequent record of God repeating the command to her. But when the serpent asks her what God said about this tree, she doesn’t respond, “This is the first I’ve heard anything about that.” She knows that they’re not supposed to eat from it. We can only infer that Adam told her this.

Significantly, it appears that Adam actually added something to what God said. God only told Adam, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” But Eve tells the serpent that God said, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it.” This is admittedly speculative, but we may infer that Adam was so concerned about the consequences of disobeying God that he figured, “We better not even touch the fruit,” and so that’s what he told Eve.

Later in the Bible there are warnings not to add anything to what God commands, and we can understand why. God gives us the grace to obey all of his commands so that they are not burdensome. But anyone who tries to require people to do more than God commands is asking them to do something they aren’t being given the grace for. Then it’s only too easy for someone else to come along and persuade them that they don’t have to do that. This was actually the serpent’s strategy—to persuade Eve that God had asked too much of her and that she didn’t need to obey. He just had a different version of “too much,” initially. He asked whether God had really said, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden.” Eve knew that God hadn’t said this, but she didn’t realize that He hadn’t actually said that they couldn’t even touch the fruit. And this gave the serpent something that could legitimately be contradicted, with tragic results.

So one lesson we can take from the story is that those who have the responsibility to communicate God’s commands to others need to be careful not to add anything to them. We may have a good motive, to keep people as far as possible from disobedience. But God’s grace can keep willing hearts obedient without that kind of assistance.

The Rev. Dr. Christopher R. Smith is an an ordained minister, a writer, and a biblical scholar. He was active in parish and student ministry for twenty-five years. He was a consulting editor to the International Bible Society (now Biblica) for The Books of the Bible, an edition of the New International Version (NIV) that presents the biblical books according to their natural literary outlines, without chapters and verses. His Understanding the Books of the Bible study guide series is keyed to this format. He was also a consultant to Tyndale House for the Immerse Bible, an edition of the New Living Translation (NLT) that similarly presents the Scriptures in their natural literary forms, without chapters and verses or section headings. He has a B.A. from Harvard in English and American Literature and Language, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell, and a Ph.D. in the History of Christian Life and Thought, with a minor concentration in Bible, from Boston College, in the joint program with Andover Newton Theological School. View all posts by Christopher R Smith

Who did Adam blame for eating the forbidden fruit?

Adam goes straight to the Big Guy in the Garden of Eden: “The woman YOU gave me God made me eat the forbidden fruit!” Adam blames God.

What did God tell Adam and Eve?

Adam and Eve were told they could eat anything they wanted — except the fruit from that tree. If they did, God told them they would die. Death was God's warning, before “the great fall,” and the loss of innocence for mankind. Eve had been created just for Adam, a helpmate suited for him.

What did God say about the forbidden fruit?

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. '"

What did God tell Adam about the tree?

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.