The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die.

Genesis 2:15-17

God planted the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the first place to give Adam and Eve a choice. They could either love God and follow His loving commands or not. But, in order for them to choose freely, there must be an actual choice; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been free to choose to love at all.

We sometimes think of the serpent in the story of the Fall of Man as a little “cute” snake. But the Hebrew word used for the serpent, nahash, paints a different picture. Nahash more accurately translates as “leviathan,” or a giant, ferocious sea monster type of creature. Think “Godzilla” rather than a cuddly little snake. This fact should change the way we think of the encounter between Adam and Eve and the “serpent,” who was really no serpent at all.