Moses 5:10-11: Adam Says My Transgression, Eve Says Our

I read Moses 5:10-11 out loud to Melissa this week, and she said Eve's verse is one long what-if. She pointed out that Eve never says what she did and only lists what they'd be missing. Melissa taught third grade for five years and she still hears a sentence the way a teacher does. She's right about the grammar, so I'll start there.

I went through the sacrifice half of Moses 5 and the Cain half back in April, so I'm leaving them alone. These two verses are the first parents summing up what happened to them in their own words and they come right after the Holy Ghost speaks in verse 9.

Adam makes statements and Eve makes a conditional

And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God. (Moses 5:10)

And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. (Moses 5:11)

Adam's sentence has three clauses and each one is a plain claim: his eyes are opened and in this life he shall have joy and in the flesh he shall see God. Eve's sentence has one clause and four things hanging from it, which are seed and the knowledge of good and evil and the joy of redemption and eternal life. Every one of them is something they would not have had.

Adam is also said to prophesy "concerning all the families of the earth." Eve, for her part, is "glad," and she speaks because she "heard all these things," which sounds like a reply to what was said and not a speech she started.

Neither verse mentions the tree or the fruit or the serpent or the garden. In these two verses "transgression" is the only name either of them gives the act, though in Moses 4:18-19 each of them said "I did eat."

Verse 4 has them hearing the Lord's voice, but they "saw him not; for they were shut out from his presence." Six verses later Adam says "again in the flesh I shall see God."

Both of them speak after verse 9, where the Holy Ghost falls on Adam and says "as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed."

Adam and Eve don't answer in that vocabulary.

The Spirit says "fallen" and "redeemed." Adam says "transgression," Eve says "transgression" and picks up "redemption" as the noun for what the Spirit just called being redeemed.

My transgression and our transgression

Back in Moses 4 the same two people talk about the same event, and it goes differently. Asked where he was going, Adam says "I was afraid, because I beheld that I was naked, and I hid myself" (4:16). Asked about the tree, he says "The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat" (4:18). Eve says "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (4:19). Genesis 3:10, 12 and 13 have the same exchange.

In these chapters, 5:10 and 5:11 are the next time either of them says anything about the eating.

Adam, who handed the fault to his wife, now says "my transgression." Eve, who handed it to the serpent, says "our," and that word takes in the husband who told the Lord she was the one who gave him the fruit, along with the wife who had told the Lord it was the serpent.

There's one more thing in Moses 4 worth putting beside Adam's verse. The serpent says "your eyes shall be opened" (4:11), and then "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they had been naked" (4:13), and fig leaves follow. Adam in 5:10 uses the same two words and begins with a blessing. The chapter doesn't say he's answering the serpent. It just lets the same phrase mean a different thing in his mouth.

What Eve's list is made of

Seed is first on Eve's list, and Lehi, speaking to Jacob in 2 Nephi 2:22-23, says that if Adam had not transgressed "they would have had no children," and they would have stayed "in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery." Lehi lays it out as an argument. Eve says it as one of the two people it happened to, and in fewer words.

Her list ends on "the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient." That's a surprising word to land on right after "transgression." Last Sunday I wrote about Alma 42 and the time that's granted, where Alma calls it "a probationary time, a time to repent and serve God" (42:4). Eve doesn't use "probationary." She uses "obedient," and it's the last word of the verse.

They tell their children

Verse 12 is one sentence, "And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters." The verse says "all things" and stops, so it doesn't tell me whether the children got Adam's three clauses or Eve's four items or the angel's explanation in verse 7 or the Holy Ghost's words in verse 9. They were born after the expulsion (verses 1 and 2), which means whatever they knew about the garden they were told.

Then verse 13 opens with "Satan came among them," and the rest of the chapter goes to what the children did with it. Adam and Eve are named again in verse 16, where they "ceased not to call upon God" and Eve, at Cain's birth, says "wherefore he may not reject his words." The same verse goes on: "But behold, Cain hearkened not." By verse 27 Adam and his wife "mourned before the Lord, because of Cain and his brethren."

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Moses 5:10 say Adam was glad he disobeyed?

Adam blesses God and says "because of my transgression my eyes are opened." The verse calls it a transgression and names what came of it. It says nothing about how he felt while eating, and I wouldn't fill that in for him.

Is this the same teaching as 2 Nephi 2?

Close. Lehi's "no children" and "having no joy" in 2 Nephi 2:22-23 line up with Eve's "never should have had seed" and "the joy of our redemption." The difference is who's talking and when. Lehi is a prophet explaining it to his son Jacob, and Eve is speaking after the Holy Ghost has told her husband he can be redeemed.

Is the joy Adam expects in this life the same as the joy of redemption?

Verse 10 says "in this life I shall have joy." Verse 11 says "the joy of our redemption." The text uses two phrases and doesn't say they're the same joy, or when the second one starts. I'd keep them as two phrases.

What I still don't like about this passage

I don't like the version where Eve understood the whole plan at the tree and chose it. Verse 11 is spoken after verse 9, after the garden is behind them, after the tilling in verse 1 and the "many days" in verse 6. At the tree, Moses 4:12 says she saw that it was "good for food," "pleasant to the eyes," and "to be desired to make her wise." Joy isn't in that list and neither is seed. Her one recorded sentence about the eating in chapter 4 is that the serpent beguiled her. What she concludes in chapter 5 is something she came to, and a lesson that moves it back into the garden has changed the order of the chapter.

I also don't like how little the chapter does with the two together. Eve is glad in verse 11, hopes in verse 16 that Cain will not reject the Lord's words, and Adam and his wife are mourning in verse 27. I'd like a verse that says how that gladness and that grief sit in one household, and Moses 5 doesn't have one.

— D.