Genesis3chapter 3

This chapter is heard inside the opening portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the creation account and the garden (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The portion carries it on to the generations of Adam and the days of Noah, so the fall is read as one step in a long reading. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Radak is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus holds, in the translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, licensed CC-BY. He reads the woman's answer to the serpent as a misquotation she made herself. God had forbidden the eating of the tree, and she added the touching of it, which Radak calls "an addition which had been altogether her own" (Radak on Genesis 3:2:1). He reads her thought as a kindness on God's part, that God kept them from touching the tree as a guard against eating from it. His second comment is on the spelling of the word for naked in the tenth verse, which he reads as a lengthened syllable (Radak on Genesis 3:10:1).

Rashi comments on twenty one of the twenty four verses of this chapter, and the corpus holds the text of none of them, because the licence Sefaria reports for that English version keeps it out. They run from Rashi on Genesis 3:1:1 on the serpent to Rashi on Genesis 3:24:1 on the turning sword, and they are cited and linked here. Ibn Ezra on Genesis 3:23:1, on the sending out of the garden, is cited the same way.

The reading of the fifteenth verse is the point where this chapter meets the Christian reading most directly. This site records that the Targums read the seed of the woman of the days of King Messiah, with the head of the serpent crushed at the end. The holders are Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and Targum Neofiti on Genesis 3:15 (src/components/book/guides/genesis/GenesisGuide.tsx, the Jewish tradition section). A modern Jewish reading takes the verse of the standing enmity between people and snakes. The older Jewish reading and the Christian one meet at the same verse, and this site reports both with their holders.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty under Midrash and ten under Talmud. It carries the locator for each one with no text, so the references stand here and the sayings are read at the source.

Bereshit Rabbah is the heaviest of them, and it reads this chapter through from the woman's answer to the sending out. The locators are 19:3 and 19:4 on the second verse, 19:6 on the seventh, and 19:9 and 19:10 on the eleventh. It reads the thirteenth verse at 20:10, the eighteenth at 21:1, the twentieth at 20:11 and the twenty third at 21:7. It reads the serpent at 85:2 across the seam of the chapters. Aggadat Bereshit reads the sixth verse at 50:4, the twelfth at 11:2 and 62:2, the fourteenth at 79:5, the fifteenth at 83:1, the seventeenth at 53:3 and the twenty first at 43:1.

Eikhah Rabbah reads the question God puts to the man at 1:1, which sets the first hiding in the garden beside the mourning over Jerusalem. Devarim Rabbah reads the serpent's promise at 5:10, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah at 856:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the sixteenth verse at 9:7 and 10:2, the twenty second at 13:3 and the twenty fourth at 23:13.

The Talmud is cited at Berakhot 3b:3 on the serpent and at Berakhot 40a:14 on the sewing of the leaves. The Jerusalem Talmud reads the woman's answer at Sotah 7:1:3, and Avodah Zarah 8a:7 reads the return to the dust. Avot DeRabbi Natan carries five of the ten, at 39:3 on the serpent, 1:6 on the sixth verse, 34:6 and 37:9 on the eighth, and 1:7 on the curse of the serpent.