prohibition, expressed in the emphatic form (lo’ rather than ‘al) as in the Decalogue. What exactly is meant by the “knowledge of good and evil” which is prohibited is not made explicit in the text, and need not, I suggest, be an issue at this point.5 In the context of the story it is the fact of prohibition, rather than the content of what is prohibited, that assumes central importance. Thirdly, the penalty for doing what is prohibited is death. The emphatic verbal form used (“You shall surely die”: