Passage

Genesis 2.17

"but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17, NASB95)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"15. And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16. And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:"

"17. but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"18. And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him. 19. And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every bird of the heavens; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them: and whatsoever the man called every living creature, that was the name thereof." (Genesis 2:15-19, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"15. Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. 16. Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;"

"17. but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”"

"18. Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 19. Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name." (Genesis 2:15-19, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"15. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. ^{the man: or, Adam} 16. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: ^{thou: Heb. eating thou shalt eat}"

"17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. ^{thou shalt surely: Heb. dying thou shalt die}"

"18. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. ^{meet: Heb. as before him} 19. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. ^{Adam: or, the man}" (Genesis 2:15-19, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"15. And Jehovah God taketh the man, and causeth him to rest in the garden of Eden, to serve it, and to keep it. 16. And Jehovah God layeth a charge on the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden eating thou dost eat;"

"17. and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it, dying thou dost die.'"

"18. And Jehovah God saith, 'Not good for the man to be alone, I do make to him an helper, as his counterpart.' 19. And Jehovah God formeth from the ground every beast of the field, and every fowl of the heavens, and bringeth in unto the man, to see what he doth call it; and whatever the man calleth a living creature, that [is] its name." (Genesis 2:15-19, YLT)

The first prohibition in Scripture pairs the only "you shall not" of pre-fall Eden with the only stated penalty: death. The construction in Hebrew is the infinitive absolute mot tamut, literally "dying you shall die," which can carry either a juridical certainty ("you will most certainly die") or an inceptive sense ("on that day a process of dying will begin"). That ambiguity is exegetically load-bearing: it underwrites the standard Christian distinction between the spiritual death entered "in the day" of disobedience and the bodily mortality that follows. The verse is the textual anchor for the Christian doctrines of the fall, original sin, and federal headship, and the foundation of the Adam-Christ parallel Paul develops in Romans 5.12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15.21-22.

Setting

Speaker: YHWH God (in covenantal address)
Audience: Adam, before Eve is formed
Location: the garden of Eden
Time period: within the creation week; pre-fall

Theological reading

The "day" question is the first interpretive choice. On a strict same-day reading Adam should have collapsed upon eating, and skeptics press exactly this objection, since Adam lived to 930 years (Genesis 5:5). The standard response distinguishes two deaths. Spiritual death, the rupture of the human-divine fellowship and the loss of unmediated communion with God, took effect immediately: Adam hid (Genesis 3:8), was expelled (3:23), and was barred from the tree of life (3:22). Bodily death, the dissolution of soul and body, was inaugurated the same day as a now-irreversible process and consummated centuries later. Many ancient versions read yom ("day") idiomatically as "when," softening the temporal force, but the spiritual-death reading does not depend on that move.

The deeper claim of the verse is that death is a moral and covenantal reality, not a brute biological fact. God's word makes death the consequence of breaking covenant. This frames the Christian objection to evolutionary readings that locate human death prior to Adam: if death is the wage of sin (Romans 6:23) and the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), it cannot be a creational good that simply intensifies under Adam. The verse also establishes federal headship in seed form: one man's act, under a stated condition, brings a fate not just on himself but on those he represents, which Paul makes explicit. See Federal Headship, Original Sin, Adam and Eve Historicity.

The Christian dualism of the verse must be distinguished from Manichaean dualism. Death is not a co-eternal counter-creator; it is a derivative consequence of a creaturely act in a good creation. This is why the resurrection of Christ, the second Adam, can undo death rather than merely balance it.

Key words

H4191 - mut, mut (to die). The infinitive-absolute construction mot tamut is the grammatical heart of the verse.
H4194 - mavet, mavet (death). The nominal counterpart, used across the Old Testament for the state and reality of death.
H2896 - tov, tov (good). Half of the tree's name, in deliberate tension with God's verdict "very good" over the creation in Genesis 1:31.
H3045 - yada, yada (to know). The kind of knowledge the tree confers is experiential, not merely informational.

Theological themes

The covenant of works. A stated prohibition with a stated penalty under a probationary head. Reformed theology builds an entire covenantal architecture from this verse.
Death as judicial, not natural. Mortality is the announced consequence of breaking covenant, not a built-in feature of pre-fall creation for the federal head.
Two deaths. Spiritual death (immediate, relational) and bodily death (inaugurated, eventual) together constitute the curse.
Federal headship in seed. One man's choice under stated terms governs a fate that ripples through those he represents.
Knowledge of good and evil. Not the abstract capacity to recognize moral categories but the experiential acquisition of evil from inside it.
The infinitive absolute. Mot tamut is the Hebrew's strongest emphasis-construction; the penalty is stated with maximum certainty.
Gracious context. The prohibition is framed by abundance ("of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat," v. 16); the one no is set against a hundred yeses.

Cross-references

Genesis 3, the fall narrative that activates the penalty.
Romans 5.12-21, Paul's Adam-Christ exposition built directly on this verse.
1 Corinthians 15.21-22, "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive."
Romans 6.23, "the wages of sin is death."
Genesis 5.5, Adam's eventual bodily death at 930.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.