Genesis 3:22

The context

The sentence comes at the end of the garden story, after the man and woman have eaten and after the curses have been pronounced. God speaks in the plural, notes that the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil, and acts to prevent a further step. The chapter ends with guards and a flaming sword.

What it establishes

It establishes that the garden's loss is a sentence with a reason, not an accident: the tree of life is closed off, and mortality becomes the human condition. The narrative treats the expulsion as both judgment and, in a strange way, protection.

What it does not establish

The plural does not prove the Trinity. The speakers have been identified as a divine council, as God addressing himself, or as a foreshadowing of later doctrine, and the text does not say. Using this verse as evidence for triune persons reads a much later formulation back into the scene.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.