Genesis 3:1-7
Introducing the Ophidian. And with a long list of sea creatures from Pliny's Natural History, nakedness in the prophet Ezekiel, and Rashi and Rabbi Neḥemya's argument for the fig tree.
What is the creature that tempts Chava to eat the forbidden fruit? Nearly every translation calls him a serpent or snake. That’s certainly the plain meaning of נָחָשׁ, and it is what he becomes. But God punishes the נָחָשׁ in 3:14 by saying he will henceforth crawl about on his belly. Presumably he did not crawl on his belly before being punished so.
So I call him Ophidian: from Ophidia, the suborder of reptiles that includes snakes, which in turn comes from the Greek ὀφίδιον, diminutive of ὄφις, serpent.1
Let’s compare for a moment 2:25 and 3:7:
וַיִּֽהְי֤וּ שְׁנֵיהֶם֙ עֲרוּמִּ֔ים הָֽאָדָ֖ם וְאִשְׁתֹּ֑ו וְלֹ֖א יִתְבֹּשָֽׁשׁוּ
The two Man, Woman bare untroubled.
וַתִּפָּקַ֙חְנָה֙ עֵינֵ֣י שְׁנֵיהֶ֔ם וַיֵּ֣דְע֔וּ כִּ֥י עֵֽירֻמִּ֖ם הֵ֑ם וַֽיִּתְפְּרוּ֙ עֲלֵ֣ה תְאֵנָ֔ה וַיַּעֲשׂ֥וּ לָהֶ֖ם חֲגֹרֹֽת
Eyes opened both knew they were naked sewed fig leaves made themselves wraps.
The bolded words mean bare or naked: עָרוֹם and עֵירֹם. The former is the word used in the famous passage from Job 1:21: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return thither.” It also appears in Isaiah and Micah. The latter word appears in this form2 elsewhere only in a repeated in Ezekiel 18:7 and 16, וְעֵירֹ֖ם יְכַסֶּה־בָּֽגֶד, about clothing the naked. I would like to read and think more about the distinction between the two forms of nakedness, but I can’t find any mention of it in the commentaries. If any of you know of somewhere that discusses it, please email bibletranslation@substack.com or leave a comment.
One final note. Rashi’s commentary on 3:7 cites that Talmud3 to claim that Adam and Chava sew wraps for themselves from fig leaves because "This was the tree of which they had eaten; by the very thing through which their ruin had been caused was some improvement effected in their condition.” There is nothing in the text that says what sort of fruit tree it was, so why not? Rabbi Neḥemya makes more sense than Rabbi Yehuda, anyway.
And now the translation:
Ophidian was shrewder
than every Field Beast
LORD God made
He said
to Woman
“God said not to eat
from every tree?”
Woman replied, “From fruit trees
we eat
but of fruit
of the tree
mid-garden
God said, ‘Neither eat
nor touch
lest you die’”
Ophidian said
to Woman
“Die?
You will die?
No.
God knows
when you eat
from it
your eyes
will be opened
becoming like gods
knowing Good and Evil”
Woman saw
the Tree
good to eat
desirable to see
wise-making
took
from its fruit
ate
gave also
to her Man
with her
He ate
Eyes opened
both knew
they were naked
sewed
fig leaves
made themselves
wraps.For reasons all his own, Pliny, in the 32nd book of his Natural History, includes ὀφίδιον in his magical list of creatures living only in the sea. Here’s the list in the old Loeb translation, which translates ὀφίδιον as “eel”:
Belonging to the sea only are sturgeon, gilt-head, “asellus,” “acharne,” small fry, thresher-shark, eel, weever-fish, bogue, skate, grey mullet, angler-fish, garfish?—fish which we call thorny, sea-acorn, “sea-crow,” “cithari” the worst esteemed of the turbot kind, shad (?), goby, “callarias” of the “aselli” kind were it not smaller, Spanish mackerel also known as the Parian and as Sexitanb from its native land Baetica, the smallest of the mackerels, …, “cybium” (this is the name given, when it has been sliced, to the young tunny which returns from the Black Sea into Lake Maeotis after forty days), “cordyla” (this too is a very small young tunny; it has this name when it goes out from Lake Maeotis into the Black Sea), black bream, the “callionymus” or “uranoscopus,” “cinaedi”-wrasse—the only fishes which are yellow, sea-anemone, which we call nettle, species of crab, furrowed clams, smooth clams, clams of the kind “peloris,” differing in variety of roundness of their shells, “glycymarides”-clams, which are larger than “pelorides,” “coluthia” or “coryphia,” species of bivalves amongst which are also the pearl-bearers, “cochloe” (to the class of these belong the “five-fingered,” also “helices” called by others “actinophorae”), whose rays give a singing sound (outside thesee there are round shells used in dealing with oil), sea-cucumber, “cynops,” shrimps, “dog’s right-hand,” weever-fish; (certain people want the “little weever” to be regarded as a different animal; in fact it is like a large “gerricula,” and has on its gills prickles which look towards the tail; and when it is lifted in the hand, it inflicts a wound like a scorpion), “erythrinus,” sucking-fish, sea-urchin, black “elephants” of the lobster kind, having four forked legs (they also have two arms, each with double joints and a single pair of pincers having a toothed edge), “fabri” or “zaei,” “glauciscus,” cat-fish, conger eel, “girres,” dogfish, “garos,” runner-crab (?) “horsetail,” flying-fish, jellyfish, sea-horse, “hepar,” flying gurnard (?), rainbow-wrasse (?), species of mackerel, fluttering squid, crawfishes, “lantern-fish,” “lelepris,” “lamirus,” sea-hare, “lion”-lobsters, whose arms are like crabs’ and the rest is like the crawfish, red mullet, a wrasse highly praised amongst rock-fish, grey mullet, “black-tail,” “mena,” “maeotes,” murry, “mys”-mussel, mussel, bearded mussel (?), purple-mollusc, “eyed” fish, eel (?), species of bivalves, sea-ear, large tunny (this is the largest of the pelamys kind and it never comes back to Lake Maeotis; it is like the “tritomum” and is best in its old age), globe-fish, “orthagoriscus”, “phager,” “phycis” one of the rock-fish, “pelamys”-tunny, of which kind the largest is called “choice piece,” tougher than the “tritomus,” “pig”-fish, sea-louse, plaice (?), sting-ray, species of octopus, scallops (the very large ones, and, among these, those which are very black in summer time, being the most highly esteemed; moreover, these are found at Mytilene, Tyndaris, Salonae, Altinum, the island of Chios, and Alexandria in Egypt), small scallops, purple-molluscs, “pegrides” (?), pinna, hermit crab (or pinna-guard crab), angel-fish which we call “squatus,” turbot, parrot-wrasse, which is of first rank to-day, sole, sargue, prawn (or shrimp), “sarda” (this is the name given to an elongated pelamystunny which comes from the Ocean), mackerel, saupe, “sorus,” two kinds of sculpin, two kinds of maigre, scolopendra-worm, “smyrus,” cuttle-fish, spiral molluscs, razor-shells variously called “solen,” “aulos”, “donax,” “onyx,” and “dactylus”; thorny oysters, picarels, starfishes, sponges, “turdus”-wrasse, famous amongst rock-fish, tunny, “thranis,” which others call sword-fish, “thrissa,” electric ray, sea-squirt, “tritomum” (“three-cut”) belonging to a large kind of tunny, from each of which three “cybia” can be cut, “veneria,” cuttle-egg (?), sword-fish. We will add to these some animals, mentioned by Ovid, which are found in no other writer, but which are perhaps native to the Black Sea, where he began that unfinished book in the last days of his life: horned ray, “cercyrus” which lives amongst rocks, “orphus,” and red “erythinus,” “iulus,” tinted sea-breams and gilt-head of golden colour; and, besides these, perch, “tragus,” “black-tail” with pretty tail, “epodes” of the flat kind. Besides these remarkable kinds of fishes he records: that the sea-perch conceives of herself, that the “glaucus” never appears in summer; and he mentions the pilot-fish as always accompanying ships on their course, and the “chromis” which makes its nest in the waves. He says that the “helops” is “unknown to our waters”; from which it is clear that those who have believed that acipenser (sturgeon) is the same are in error. Many people have given the first prize for taste to the helops among all fish.
A closely related word, עֶרְיָה, shows up throughout Ezekiel, especially in the vivid 16th chapter, where it appears next to עֵרֹ֥ם:
רְבָבָ֗ה כְּצֶ֤מַח הַשָּׂדֶה֙ נְתַתִּ֔יךְ וַתִּרְבִּי֙ וַֽתִּגְדְּלִ֔י וַתָּבֹ֖אִי בַּעֲדִ֣י עֲדָיִ֑ים שָׁדַ֤יִם נָכֹ֙נוּ֙ וּשְׂעָרֵ֣ךְ צִמֵּ֔חַ וְאַ֖תְּ עֵרֹ֥ם וְעֶרְיָֽה׃. etc.
Sanhedrin 70b:
Rabbi Yehuda says: The Tree of Knowledge was the wheat plant. This is proven by the fact that, even today, an infant does not know how to call out to his father or mother until he tastes the taste of grain, and for this reason wheat is called “the Tree of Knowledge.” Rabbi Neḥemya says: The Tree of Knowledge was a fig tree, because it was with the matter with which they sinned that they were rehabilitated, as it is stated: “And they sewed together fig leaves, and made for themselves loincloths”