“What Have You Done?!” (Gen 3:13)
Into and Out of the Garden
13 YHWH said to the woman, “What have you done?!”
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְ׳הוָ֧ה אֱלֹהִ֛ים לָאִשָּׁ֖ה מַה־זֹּ֣את עָשִׂ֑ית
Literally he said “What is this you have done?” Unlike “Where are you?” or “Who told you?” or “Did you eat?”, this is not a question but an accusation. “This” is זאת zōt, the feminine singular form, but that has nothing to do with her being female; it is just part of the idiom. See Exod 13:14, where the Israelites are told that one day their children will ask מַה־זֹּ֑את mah zōt “What is this?” about the goings-on at the Passover seder.
When “what is this …” is followed by “that you have done?” the flavor of the question changes. Let’s look at the other examples in the Bible, given here in the NJPS translation:
Gen. 12:18 Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me! Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
- Abram tells Sarai to identify herself to Pharaoh as his sister, after which (as they used to say in the movies) “hilarity ensues.” But it is not so funny if you are Pharaoh and being afflicted by YHWH.
Gen. 26:10 Abimelech said, “What have you done to us! One of the people might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”
- Version 3 of that same story, with Isaac and Rebekah standing in for Abraham and Sarah (who also feature in Version 2, in Genesis 20).
Gen. 29:25 When morning came, there was Leah! So he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I was in your service for Rachel! Why did you deceive me?”
- Laban has palmed off his older daughter Leah on Jacob instead of her younger sister.
Ex. 14:11 And they said to Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?”
- The Israelites who have escaped slavery in Egypt are complaining to Moses that they will die of starvation and thirst in the desert. Meanwhile the Egyptians have suddenly asked themselves, “What is this we have done [מַה־זֹּ֣את עָשִׂ֔ינוּ], releasing Israel from our service?” (Exod 14:5).
Judg. 2:2 And you, for your part, must make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you must tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me—look what you have done!
- The NJPS translation perfectly conveys that מַה־זֹּ֥את עֲשִׂיתֶֽם mah zot asitem (the only plural “you” with this idiom) is not a question asking for information, but a harsh rejoinder to an action. The Israelites have not followed God’s commands, and he knows perfectly well what they have done.
Judg. 15:11 Thereupon three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “You knew that the Philistines rule over us; why have you done this to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I did to them.”
- Despite the NJPS translation here, the men of Judah are not asking Samson what made him decide to antagonize their Philistine overlords. It is really another case of “Look what you have done to us!”
Jonah 1:10 The men were greatly terrified, and they asked him, “What have you done?” And when the men learned that he was fleeing from the service of the LORD—for so he told them—
- This may actually be a request for information, but it is not being asked out of curiosity. This is the crew of the ship in the midst of the tempest, a ship that is going to go down unless something is done right away, and they have figured out that it’s all because of Jonah. What they really want to know is, “What must we do to you to make the sea calm around us?” (v. 11).
The same idiom, without זאת ‘this’, is used another couple dozen of times for the same purpose. We’ll see another one before too long, in Gen 4:10, when God accuses Cain of killing his brother; that Genesis 20 story about Abraham and Sarah and Abimelech (Version 2 of “the Matriarch of Israel in Danger”) has one too.
E. A. Speiser, in his Anchor Bible commentary, translates our phrase as “How could you do such a thing?” The earthling has told YHWH just what happened and YHWH seems to know that he’s telling the simple truth — which, as we know by comparing v. 12 with v. 6, he indeed is. But YHWH is still in a state of astonishment.
We might imagine a quite different continuation to v. 12:
11 YHWH God said, “Who told you you were nude? That tree I told you not to eat from — you ate from it?” 12 The earthling said, “The woman you gave me — she gave me something from the tree, so I ate.” 13 YHWH God said, “How could you?! You will live to regret it.” 14 “Now you,” he said to the woman. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
Instead, God turns directly to the woman with his accusation — in the form of a question. When she points a finger at the snake, YHWH will not even pretend to ask a question, but will simply explain the disastrous consequences of his, the snake’s, action.
The woman’s turn to face the consequences, and then the man’s, will certainly come. For now, the earthling — the only one, as far as our story tells us, who was explicitly told by the owner of the garden not to eat from a particular tree — is somehow in an intermediary position. He is not accused, but he has certainly already pleaded (as the joke goes), “Guilty … with an explanation.”
YHWH has not yet expressed anger at him, but his question to the woman is definitely an angry one. He is not saying, “Gee, why’d you do it?” Somebody has got to take the fall. You know who’s coming next.