FALL

fol (vb.): The idea of falling is most frequently expressed in Hebrew by naphal, but also by many other words; in Greek by pipto, and its compounds. The uses of the word in Scripture are very varied. There is the literal falling by descent; the falling of the countenance in sorrow, shame, anger, etc. (Genesis 4:5, 6); the falling in battle (Genesis 14:10 Numbers 14:3, etc.); the falling into trouble, etc. (Proverbs 24:16, 17); prostration in supplication and reverence (Genesis 17:3 Numbers 14:5, etc.); falling of the Spirit of Yahweh (Ezekiel 11:5; compare 3:24; 8:1); of apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:3 Hebrews 6:6 Jude 1:24), etc. the Revised Version (British and American) frequently changes "fall" of the King James Version into other words or phrases, as "stumble" (Leviticus 26:37 Psalm 64:8 2 Peter 1:10, etc.), "fade" (Isaiah 33:4), etc.; in Acts 27, the Revised Version (British and American) reads "be cast ashore on rocky ground" for "have fallen upon rocks" (Acts 27:29), "perish" for "fall" (Acts 27:34), "lighting upon" for "falling into" (Acts 27:41).

W. L. Walker

FALL, THE

fol:

1. Meaning of Genesis 3

2. Genesis 3 in the Old and New Testaments

3. The Fall and the Theory of Evolution

4. The Character of the Fall

The question concerning the origin, the age and the written record of the history of the Fall in Genesis 3 need not be discussed here. For in the first place, science can never reach to the oldest origins and the ultimate destinies of humanity, and historical and critical inquiry will never be able to prove either the veracity or the unveracity of this history. And in the second place, exactly as it now lies before us, this history has already formed for centuries a portion of holy Scripture, an indispensable element in the organism of the revelation of salvation, and as such has been accepted in faith by the Hebrew congregation (Jewish people), by Christ, by the apostles, and by the whole Christian church.

1. Meaning of Genesis 3:

That Genesis 3 gives us an account of the fall of man, of the loss of his primitive innocence and of the misery, particularly death, to which he has since been subjected, cannot reasonably be denied. The opinion of the Ophites, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, etc., that Genesis 3 relates the awakening of man to self-consciousness and personality (see ADAM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT), and therefore does not tell us of a fall, but a marked progression, is disputed by the name which the forbidden tree bears, as indicating to man not merely a tree of knowledge in the ordinary way, but quite specially a tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 3 is not in the least meant to relate to us how man obtained the idea of his nakedness and sexual passions, and from a state of childlike innocence changed in this respect to manlike maturity (Eerdman's De Beteekenis van het Paradijsverhaal, Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1905, 485-511). For according to Genesis, man was created full-grown, received a wife immediately as helpmeet, and at the same time saw himself allotted the task of multiplying and replenishing the earth. Moreover, the idea that sexual desire is something sinful and deserves punishment was entirely foreign to ancient Israel.

Finally, the interpretation of Wellhausen (Geschichte Israels, 1878, 344) cannot be accepted, that man in Genesis 3 should obtain "die intellektuelle Welterkenntniss, die metaphysische Erkenntniss der Dinge in ihrem Zusammenhange, ihrem Werth oder Unwerth, ihrem Nutzen oder Schaden" ("the intellectual knowledge of the world, the metaphysical knowledge of things in their connection, their worth or unworth, their utility or hurtfulness"). For in the first place, according to Genesis, this was man's peculiar province from the beginning; he received indeed the vocation to subdue the earth, to keep and till the ground, to give the animals their names. And in the second place, the acquiring of this knowledge among the Israelites, who esteemed practical wisdom so highly, is difficult to represent as a fall, or as a punishment deserved for disobedience.

There is no other explanation possible of Genesis 3 than that it is the narration of a fall, which consists in the transgression of an explicit command of God, thus bearing a moral significance, and therefore followed by repentance, shame, fear and punishment. The context of the chapter places this interpretation beyond all doubt, for before his fall man is represented as a creature made after God's image and receiving paradise as a dwelling-place, and after the fall he is sent into a rough world, is condemned to a life of labor and sorrow, and increases more and more in sin until the judgment of the Flood.

2. Genesis 3 in the Old and the New Testaments:

It is indeed remarkable how very seldom the Old Testament refers to this history of the Fall. This is not a sufficient reason for pronouncing it of later origin, for the same peculiarity presents itself at the time when, according to all criticism, it was recorded in literature. Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs never quote it; at the most, allusions may be found to it in Hosea 6:7 and Ecclesiastes 7:29; and even Jesus and His apostles in the New Testament very seldom appeal to Genesis 3 (John 8:44 Romans 5:12 1 Corinthians 15:22 2 Corinthians 11:3 1 Timothy 2:14). But it may be considered that the Prophets, Psalms and Proverbs only mention special facts of the past by way of exception, that the apostles even hardly ever quote the words and deeds of Jesus, and that all lived at a time when revelation itself was still proceeding and did not lie before them as a complete whole. With us it is quite a different matter; we are in a certain sense outside revelation, make it a subject of our study and meditation, try to discover the unity which holds all its parts together, and devote our special interest to Adam as a figure and counterpart of Christ. The creation and fall of man occupy therefore a much broader place in the province of our thoughts than they did among the writers of the books of the Old and New Testaments.

Nevertheless, the Fall is the silent hypothesis of the whole Biblical doctrine of sin and redemption; it does not rest only on a few vague passages, but forms an indispensable element in the revelation of salvation. The whole contemplation of man and humanity, of Nature and history, of ethical and physical evil, of redemption and the way in which to obtain it, is connected in Scripture with a Fall, such as Genesis 3 relates to us. Sin, for example, is common to all men (1 Kings 8:46 Psalm 14:3; Psalm 130:3; 143:2), and to every man from his conception (Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21 Job 14:4 Psalm 51:7). It arouses God's anger and deserves all kinds of punishment, not only of an ethical but of a physical nature (Genesis 3:14-19; Genesis 4:14; Genesis 6:7, 13; 11:8 Leviticus 26:14; Deuteronomy 28:15 Psalm 90:7, etc.); the whole of Scripture proceeds from the thought that sin and death are connected in the closest degree, as are also obedience and life. In the new heaven and new earth all suffering ceases with sin (Revelation 21:4). Therefore redemption is possible only in the way of forgiveness (Psalm 32:1 Isaiah 43:25, etc.), and circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:16 Jeremiah 4:4), and this includes, further, life, joy, peace, salvation. When Paul in Romans 5:12 1 Corinthians 15:22 indicates Adam as the origin of sin and death, and Christ as the source of righteousness and life, he develops no ideas which are contrary to the organism of revelation or which might be neglected without loss; he merely combines and formulates the data which are explicitly or silently contained in it.

3. The Fall and the Theory of Evolution:

Tradition does little toward the confirmation and elucidation of the Biblical narrative of the Fall. The study of mythology is still too little advanced to determine the ideal or historical value which may be contained in the legend of a Golden Age, in many people's obsequious honoring of the serpent, in the equally widespread belief in a tree of life. The Babylonian representation also (a seal on which a man and woman, seated, are figured as plucking fruit from a tree, while a serpent curls up behind the woman as if whispering in her ear), which G. Smith, Lenormant and Friedrich Delitzsch compare with the Paradise narrative, shows no similarity on nearer view (A. Jeremias, Das Altes Testament im Lichte des alten Orients2, Leipzig, 1906, 203). Indirectly, however, a very powerful witness for the fall of man is furnished by the whole empirical condition of the world and humanity. For a world, such as we know it, full of unrighteousness and sorrow, cannot be explained without the acceptance of such a fact. He who holds fast to the witness of Scripture and conscience to sin as sin (as anomia) cannot deduce it from creation, but must accept the conclusion that it began with a transgression of God's command and thus with a deed of the will. Pythagoras, Plato, Kant, Schelling, Baader have all understood and acknowledged this with more or less clearness. He who denies the Fall must explain sin as a necessity which has its origin in the Creation, in the nature of things, and therefore in God Himself; he justifies man but accuses God, misrepresents the character of sin and makes it everlasting and indefeasible. For if there has not been a fall into sin, there is no redemption of sin possible; sin then loses its merely ethical significance, becomes a trait of the nature of man, and is inexterminable.

This comes out, in later years, in the many endeavors to unite the Fall with the doctrine of evolution (compare Tennant, The Origin and Propagation of Sin 2, 1905; A. S. Peake, Christianity: Its Nature and Its Truth, 1908; W. E. Orchard, Modern Theories of Sin, 1909; Francis J. Hall, Evolution and the Fall, 1910). All these endeavors lead to setting on one side the objective standard of sin, which is the law of God, and determining the nature and importance of sin subjectively by the feeling of guilt, which in its turn again depends on the knowledge of and the love for the moral ideal, and itself forms an important factor in moral progress. It is true that the strength of all these endeavors is drawn from theory of the descent of man from the animal. But as to this theory, it is worthy of notice:

(1) that it is up to the present day a hypothesis, and is proved by no single observation, whether direct or indirect;

(2) that the fossils of prehistoric men, found in Germany, Belgium, France and elsewhere have demonstrated the low degree of culture in which these men have lived, but in no sense their dissimilarity with mankind of today (W. Branca, Der Stand unserer Kenntnisse vom fossilen Menschen, Leipzig, 1910);

(3) that the uncivilized and prehistoric man may be as little identified with the first man as the unjustly so-called nature-people and children under age;

(4) that the oldest history of the human race, which has become known through the discoveries at Babylon in the last century, was not that of a state of barbarism, but of high and rich culture (D. Gath Whitley, "What was the Primitive Condition of Man?" Princeton Theol. Review, October, 1906; J. Orr, God's Image in Man, 1906);

(5) that the acceptance of theory of descent as a universal and unlimited rule leads to the denial of the unity of the human race, in a physical and also in an intellectual, moral and religious sense. For it may be possible, even in the school of Darwin, to maintain the unity of the human race so long a time as tradition exercises its influence on the habit of mind; but theory itself undermines its foundation and marks it as an arbitrary opinion. From the standpoint of evolution, there is not only no reason to hold to the "of one blood" of Acts 17:26 the King James Version, but there has never even been a first man; the transition from animal to man was so slow and successive, that the essential distinction fails to be seen. And with the effacing of this boundary, the unity of the moral ideal, of religion, of the laws of thought and of truth, fails also; theory of evolution expels the absolute everywhere and leads necessarily to psychologism, relativism, pragmatism and even to pluralism, which is literally polytheism in a religious sense. The unity of the human race, on the other hand, as it is taught in holy Scripture, is not an indifferent physical question, but an important intellectual, moral and religious one; it is a "postulate" of the whole history of civilization, and expressly or silently accepted by nearly all historians. And conscience bears witness to it, in so far as all men show the work of the moral law written in their hearts, and their thoughts accuse or excuse one another (Romans 2:15); it shows back to the Fall as an "Urthatsache der Geschichte."

4. The Character of the Fall:

What the condition and history of the human race could hardly lead us to imagine, holy Scripture relates to us as a tragic fact in its first pages. The first man was created by God after His own image, not therefore in brutish unconsciousness or childlike naivete, but in a state of bodily and spiritual maturity, with understanding and reason, with knowledge and speech, with knowledge especially of God and His law. Then was given to him moreover a command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This command was not contained in the moral law as such; it was not a natural but a positive commandment; it rested entirely and only on God's will and must be obeyed exclusively for this reason. It placed before man the choice, whether he would be faithful and obedient to God's word and would leave to Him alone the decision as to what is good or evil, or whether he would reserve to himself the right arbitrarily to decide what is good or evil. Thus the question was: Shall theonomy or autonomy be the way to happiness? On this account also the tree was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It did not bear this name in the sense that man might obtain from it the empirical knowledge of good and evil, for by his transgression he in truth lost the empirical knowledge of good. But the tree was so named, because man, by eating of it and so transgressing God's commandment, arrogated to himself "die Fahigkeit zur selbstandigen Wahl der Mittel, durch die man sein Gluck schaffen will": "the capacity of independent choice of the means by which he would attain his happiness" (Koberle, Sunde und Gnade im relig. Leben des Volkes Israel bis auf Christenrum, 1905, 64). Theonomy, as obedience to God from free love, includes as such the idea and the possibility of autonomy, therefore that of antinomy also.

But it is the free act and therefore the guilt of man that has changed the possibility into reality. For the mind, there remains here an insoluble problem, as much in the question, why God allowed this Fall to take place, as in the other, how man, created in the likeness of God, could and did fall. There is a great deal of truth in the often-expressed thought, that we can give no account of the origin of sin, because it is not logical, and does not result as a conclusion drawn from two premises. But facts are brutal. What seems logically impossible often exists in reality. The laws of moral life are different from those of thought and from those also of mechanical nature. The narrative in Genesis 3, in any case, is psychologically faithful in the highest degree. For the same way as it appears there in the first man, it repeatedly takes place among ourselves (James 1:14, 15). Furthermore we ought to allow God to justify Himself. The course of revelation discovers to faith how, through all the ages, He holds sin in its entire development in His own almighty hands, and works through grace for a consummation in which, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He will gather together in one all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). (J. Orr, Sin as a Problem of Today, London, 1910.)

Herman Bavinck

Fall of man

An expression probably borrowed from the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom, to express the fact of the revolt of our first parents from God, and the consequent sin and misery in which they and all their posterity were involved.

The history of the Fall is recorded in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3. That history is to be literally interpreted. It records facts which underlie the whole system of revealed truth. It is referred to by our Lord and his apostles not only as being true, but as furnishing the ground of all God's subsequent dispensations and dealings with the children of men. The record of Adam's temptation and fall must be taken as a true historical account, if we are to understand the Bible at all as a revelation of God's purpose of mercy.

The effects of this first sin upon our first parents themselves were (1) "shame, a sense of degradation and pollution; (2) dread of the displeasure of God, or a sense of guilt, and the consequent desire to hide from his presence. These effects were unavoidable. They prove the loss not only of innocence but of original righteousness, and, with it, of the favour and fellowship of God. The state therefore to which Adam was reduced by his disobedience, so far as his subjective condition is concerned, was analogous to that of the fallen angels. He was entirely and absolutely ruined" (Hodge's Theology).

But the unbelief and disobedience of our first parents brought not only on themselves this misery and ruin, it entailed also the same sad consequences on all their descendants.

(1.) The guilt, i.e., liability to punishment, of that sin comes by imputation upon all men, because all were represented by Adam in the covenant of works (q.v.). (see IMPUTATION.)

(2.) Hence, also, all his descendants inherit a corrupt nature. In all by nature there is an inherent and prevailing tendency to sin. This universal depravity is taught by universal experience. All men sin as soon as they are capable of moral actions. The testimony of the Scriptures to the same effect is most abundant (Romans 1; 2; 3:1-19, etc.).

(3.) This innate depravity is total: we are by nature "dead in trespasses and sins," and must be "born again" before we can enter into the kingdom (John 3:7, etc.).

(4.) Resulting from this "corruption of our whole nature" is our absolute moral inability to change our nature or to obey the law of God.

Commenting on John 9:3, Ryle well remarks: "A deep and instructive principle lies in these words. They surely throw some light on that great question, the origin of evil. God has thought fit to allow evil to exist in order that he may have a platform for showing his mercy, grace, and compassion. If man had never fallen there would have been no opportunity of showing divine mercy. But by permitting evil, mysterious as it seems, God's works of grace, mercy, and wisdom in saving sinners have been wonderfully manifested to all his creatures. The redeeming of the church of elect sinners is the means of `showing to principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God' (Ephesians 3:10). Without the Fall we should have known nothing of the Cross and the Gospel."

On the monuments of Egypt are found representations of a deity in human form, piercing with a spear the head of a serpent. This is regarded as an illustration of the wide dissemination of the tradition of the Fall. The story of the "golden age," which gives place to the "iron age", the age of purity and innocence, which is followed by a time when man becomes a prey to sin and misery, as represented in the mythology of Greece and Rome, has also been regarded as a tradition of the Fall.

1. (v. t.) To Descend, either suddenly or gradually; particularly, to descend by the force of gravity; to drop; to sink; as, the apple falls; the tide falls; the mercury falls in the barometer.

2. (v. t.) To cease to be erect; to take suddenly a recumbent posture; to become prostrate; to drop; as, a child totters and falls; a tree falls; a worshiper falls on his knees.

3. (v. t.) To find a final outlet; to discharge its waters; to empty; -- with into; as, the river Rhone falls into the Mediterranean.

4. (v. t.) To become prostrate and dead; to die; especially, to die by violence, as in battle.

5. (v. t.) To cease to be active or strong; to die away; to lose strength; to subside; to become less intense; as, the wind falls.

6. (v. t.) To issue forth into life; to be brought forth; -- said of the young of certain animals.

7. (v. t.) To decline in power, glory, wealth, or importance; to become insignificant; to lose rank or position; to decline in weight, value, price etc.; to become less; as, the falls; stocks fell two points.

8. (v. t.) To be overthrown or captured; to be destroyed.

9. (v. t.) To descend in character or reputation; to become degraded; to sink into vice, error, or sin; to depart from the faith; to apostatize; to sin.

10. (v. t.) To become ensnared or embarrassed; to be entrapped; to be worse off than before; as to fall into error; to fall into difficulties.

11. (v. t.) To assume a look of shame or disappointment; to become or appear dejected; -- said of the countenance.

12. (v. t.) To sink; to languish; to become feeble or faint; as, our spirits rise and fall with our fortunes.

13. (v. t.) To pass somewhat suddenly, and passively, into a new state of body or mind; to become; as, to fall asleep; to fall into a passion; to fall in love; to fall into temptation.

14. (v. t.) To happen; to come to pass; to light; to befall; to issue; to terminate.

15. (v. t.) To come; to occur; to arrive.

16. (v. t.) To begin with haste, ardor, or vehemence; to rush or hurry; as, they fell to blows.

17. (v. t.) To pass or be transferred by chance, lot, distribution, inheritance, or otherwise; as, the estate fell to his brother; the kingdom fell into the hands of his rivals.

18. (v. t.) To belong or appertain.

19. (v. t.) To be dropped or uttered carelessly; as, an unguarded expression fell from his lips; not a murmur fell from him.

20. (v. t.) To let fall; to drop.

21. (v. t.) To sink; to depress; as, to fall the voice.

22. (v. t.) To diminish; to lessen or lower.

23. (v. t.) To bring forth; as, to fall lambs.

24. (v. t.) To fell; to cut down; as, to fall a tree.

25. (n.) The act of falling; a dropping or descending be the force of gravity; descent; as, a fall from a horse, or from the yard of ship.

26. (n.) The act of dropping or tumbling from an erect posture; as, he was walking on ice, and had a fall.

27. (n.) Death; destruction; overthrow; ruin.

28. (n.) Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; termination of greatness, power, or dominion; ruin; overthrow; as, the fall of the Roman empire.

29. (n.) The surrender of a besieged fortress or town ; as, the fall of Sebastopol.

30. (n.) Diminution or decrease in price or value; depreciation; as, the fall of prices; the fall of rents.

31. (n.) A sinking of tone; cadence; as, the fall of the voice at the close of a sentence.

32. (n.) Declivity; the descent of land or a hill; a slope.

33. (n.) Descent of water; a cascade; a cataract; a rush of water down a precipice or steep; -- usually in the plural, sometimes in the singular; as, the falls of Niagara.

34. (n.) The discharge of a river or current of water into the ocean, or into a lake or pond; as, the fall of the Po into the Gulf of Venice.

35. (n.) Extent of descent; the distance which anything falls; as, the water of a stream has a fall of five feet.

36. (n.) The season when leaves fall from trees; autumn.

37. (n.) That which falls; a falling; as, a fall of rain; a heavy fall of snow.

38. (n.) The act of felling or cutting down.

39. (n.) Lapse or declension from innocence or goodness. Specifically: The first apostasy; the act of our first parents in eating the forbidden fruit; also, the apostasy of the rebellious angels.

40. (n.) Formerly, a kind of ruff or band for the neck; a falling band; a faule.

41. (n.) That part (as one of the ropes) of a tackle to which the power is applied in hoisting.

5307. naphal -- to fall, lie
... << 5306, 5307. naphal. 5308 >>. to fall, lie. Transliteration: naphal Phonetic
Spelling: (naw-fal') Short Definition: fall. Word Origin a prim. ...
/hebrew/5307.htm - 7k

5308. nephal -- to fall
... << 5307, 5308. nephal. 5309 >>. to fall. Transliteration: nephal Phonetic Spelling:
(nef-al') Short Definition: down. ... fall down, have occasion. ...
/hebrew/5308.htm - 6k

1933a. hava -- to fall
... hava. 1933b >>. to fall. Transliteration: hava Short Definition: fall. Word Origin
a prim. root Definition to fall NASB Word Usage fall (1). << 1933, 1933a. ...
/hebrew/1933a.htm - 5k

1961. hayah -- to fall out, come to pass, become, be
... hayah. 1962 >>. to fall out, come to pass, become, be. Transliteration: hayah Phonetic
Spelling: (haw-yaw) Short Definition: come. Word Origin a prim. ...
/hebrew/1961.htm - 8k

5327c. natsah -- to fall in ruins
... << 5327b, 5327c. natsah. 5328 >>. to fall in ruins. Transliteration: natsah
Short Definition: waste. Word Origin a prim. root Definition ...
/hebrew/5327c.htm - 5k

7750. sut -- to swerve, fall away
... to swerve, fall away. Transliteration: sut Phonetic Spelling: (soot) Short Definition:
lapse. ... root Definition to swerve, fall away NASB Word Usage lapse (1). ...
/hebrew/7750.htm - 6k

7290a. radam -- to be in or fall into heavy sleep
... << 7290, 7290a. radam. 7290b >>. to be in or fall into heavy sleep.
Transliteration: radam Short Definition: sleep. Word Origin a prim. ...
/hebrew/7290a.htm - 5k

1855. deqaq -- to be shattered, fall to pieces
... << 1854, 1855. deqaq. 1856 >>. to be shattered, fall to pieces. Transliteration:
deqaq Phonetic Spelling: (dek-ak') Short Definition: crushed. ...
/hebrew/1855.htm - 6k

1204. baath -- to fall upon, startle, terrify
... << 1203, 1204. baath. 1205 >>. to fall upon, startle, terrify. Transliteration:
baath Phonetic Spelling: (baw-ath') Short Definition: terrify. Word Origin a prim ...
/hebrew/1204.htm - 6k

7290. radam -- to be in or fall into heavy sleep
... << 7289, 7290. radam. 7290a >>. to be in or fall into heavy sleep. Transliteration:
radam Phonetic Spelling: (raw-dam') Short Definition: asleep. ...
/hebrew/7290.htm - 5k