Why Did Adam Not Die Immediately?

Genesis 2:17 ESV but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The expression “in the day” seems to indicate that Adam will die on the same day that he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, that was not at all what happened, since Adam died many years later at the age of 930 (Genesis 5:5).

The Hebrew expression commonly rendered “in the day” in Genesis 2:17 is bəyōwm, which is the word yōwm, meaning “day”, with the b- prefix. This expression is used as an idiom meaning “when”, and it occurs also in Jeremiah 31:32, where Jehovah speaks of “the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day [bəyōwm] I took them by their hand to bring them out from the land of Egypt.” Of course, God did not make that covenant with the Israelites on the same day that they left Egypt, but many days later at Mount Sinai.

Therefore, God’s warning to Adam in Genesis 2:17, “in the day you eat from it, you shall surely die,” should not be understood to mean that Adam will die on the same day that he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but that when Adam ate from the tree, then he will eventually die.