The Hebrew text of (Genesis 3) says Eve "saw that the tree was good for food." The Targum Jonathan says she saw Sammael, the angel of death, standing right there, and was afraid. That single addition changes everything about the scene. Eve does not eat in ignorance. She eats despite seeing death itself.
The serpent's argument gets sharper too. In the Hebrew, the serpent simply says "you will not die." The Targum gives him a philosophical weapon. The serpent "spake accusation against his Creator" and told Eve that "every artificer hateth the son of his art." God, the serpent claims, is a jealous craftsman who does not want His creation to become His equal. Eating the fruit would make them "as the great angels, who are wise to know between good and evil." This is not a snake whispering temptation. This is a theological argument about God's motives.
Before the fall, Adam and Eve wore "purple robes" of glory. When they ate, the Targum says they were "divested of the purple robe in which they had been created." They did not simply discover they were naked. They lost their royal garments. Later, God replaced those robes with "vestures of honour from the skin of the serpent, which he had cast from him." The serpent's own shed skin became humanity's clothing.
The curse on the serpent is expanded dramatically. His feet were cut off. His skin would be shed every seven years. The poison of death was placed in his mouth. And the enmity between the serpent and Eve's descendants is reframed as a matter of Torah observance. When her sons keep the commandments, they will crush the serpent's head. When they abandon the law, the serpent will bite their heel. The remedy for that bite comes "in the days of the King Meshiha" (Messiah).
After expulsion, Adam did not wander aimlessly. He went to dwell on Mount Moriah, the future site of the Temple. And the final verse reveals that God created the Torah before the world, prepared Eden for the righteous, and prepared Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) for the wicked, "like the sharp, consuming sword of two edges." The Targum turns Genesis 3 from a story about fruit into a story about the entire architecture of reward and punishment.
And the serpent was wiser unto evil than all the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Is it truth that the Lord God hath said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said to the serpent, From the rest of the fruits of the trees of the garden we have power to eat;
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden the Lord hath said, You shall not eat of it, nor approach it, lest you die.
In that hour the serpent spake accusation against his Creator, and said to the woman, Dying you will not die; for every artificer hateth the son of his art:
for it is manifest before the Lord, that in the day that you eat of it, you will be as the great angels, who are wise to know between good and evil.
And the woman beheld Sammael, the angel of death, and was afraid; yet she knew that the tree was good to eat, and that it was medicine for the enlightenment of the eyes, and desirable tree by means of which to understand. And she took of its fruit, and did eat; and she gave to her husband with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of both were enlightened, and they knew that they were naked, divested of the purple robe in which they had been created. And they saw the sight of their shame, and sewed to themselves the leaves of figs, and made to them cinctures.
And they heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God walking in the garden in the repose of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from before the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
And the Lord God called to Adam, and said to him, Is not all the world which I have made manifest before Me; the darkness as the light? and how hast thou thought in thine heart to hide from before Me? The place where thou art concealed, do I not see? Where are the commandments that I commanded thee?
And he said, The voice of Thy Word heard I in the garden, and I was afraid, because I am naked; and the commandment which Thou didst teach me, I have transgressed; therefore I hid myself from shame.
And He said, Who showed thee that thou art naked? Unless thou hast eaten of the fruit of the tree of which I commanded that thou shouldst not eat.
And Adam said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree, and I did eat.
And the Lord God said to the woman, What hast thou done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me with his subtilty, and deceived me with his wickedness, and I ate.
And the Lord God brought the three unto judgment; and He said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou of all the cattle, and of all the beasts of the field: upon thy belly thou shalt go, and thy feet shall be cut off, and thy skin thou shalt cast away once in seven years; and the poison of death shall be in thy mouth, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between the seed of thy son, and the seed of her sons; and it shall be when the sons of the woman keep the commandments of the law, they will be prepared to smite thee upon thy head; but when they forsake the commandments of the law, thou wilt be ready to wound them in their heel. Nevertheless for them there shall be a medicine, but for thee there will be no medicine; and they shall make a remedy for the heel in the days of the King Meshiha.
Unto the woman He said, Multiplying, I will multiply thy affliction by the blood of thy virginity, and by thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bear children, and to thy husband shall be thy desire, and he will have rule over thee unto righteousness or unto sin.
But to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the word of thy wife, and hast eaten of the fruit of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, accursed is the ground, in that it did not show thee thy guilt; in labour shalt thou eat (of) it all the days of thy life.
And thorns and thistles will it put forth and increase on account of thee, and thou shalt eat the herb which is on the face of the field. And Adam answered: I pray, through mercies from before Thee, O Lord, that we may not be accounted as the cattle, to eat the herb of the face of the field. Let us stand up, and labour with the labour of the hands, and eat food of the food of the earth; and thus let there be distinction before Thee, between the children of men and the offspring of cattle.
By the labour of thy hands thou shalt eat food, until thou turn again to the dust from which thou wast created: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return; for from the dust it is to be that thou art to arise, to render judgment and reckoning for all that thou hast done, in the day of the great judgment.
And Adam called the name of his wife Hava, because she is the mother of all the children of men.
And the Lord God made to Adam and to his wife vestures of honour from the skin of the serpent, which he had cast from him, upon the skin of their flesh, instead of that adornment which had been cast away; and He clothed them.
And the Lord God said to the angels who ministered before Him, Behold, Adam is sole on the earth, as I am sole in the heavens above; and it will be that they will arise from him who will know to discern between good and evil. Had he kept the commandments which I appointed to him, he would have lived and subsisted as the tree of life for ever. But now, because he hath not kept that which I prescribed, it is decreed against him that we keep him from the garden of Eden, before he reach forth his hand and take of the tree of life: for, behold, if he eat thereof, living he will live and subsist for ever.
And the Lord God removed him from the garden of Eden; and he went and dwelt on Mount Moriah, to cultivate the ground from which he had been created.
And He drave out the man from thence where He had made to dwell the glory of His Shekina at the first between the two Kerubaia. Before He had created the world, He created the law; He prepared the garden of Eden for the righteous, that they might eat and delight themselves with the fruit of the tree; because they would have practised in their lives the doctrine of the law in this world, and have maintained the commandments: (but) he prepared Gehinnam for the wicked, which is like the sharp, consuming sword of two edges; in the midst of it He hath prepared flakes of fire and burning coals for the judgment of the wicked who rebelled in their life against the doctrine of the law. To serve the law is better than (to eat of) the fruit of the tree of life, (the law) which the Word of the Lord prepared, that man in keeping it might continue, and walk in the paths of the way of life in the world to come.
