malicious purpose, overstated God’s defined limits with the phrase any tree (3:1). Satan sought to engage Eve in debate. He worked on Eve’s implicit trust. From his viewpoint, he had to have a reply. Satan couched a carefully planned suggestion within his words. According to plan, Eve should have a suspicion that God had denied her some deserved pleasure of eating of all the fruit in the garden. Satan’s end desire, of course, was that Eve would come to doubt the precise purpose of God’s command.
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