Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’  The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”'  But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
 

Satan's temptations so often start with an exaggeration of God's law.  He suggests to us that we are being unfairly restricted from that which is our due.  There is only one tree in the entire garden from which they may not eat yet he manages to make them feel like they are being kept from all of them.  The woman responds to the exaggeration by restating Gods law: he allows us to eat from any of the trees in the garden except from the one in the middle.  One wonders if when she said those words "in the middle" that the forbidden tree did not at that moment seem like the most precious, delicious tree in the entire garden.  That is the way with us.  We are given six days for labor but sometimes that seventh day seems the most conducive to work.  We are given the unspeakably vast and delightful Word of God as our food and yet we want to go and nibble at poison from the world to sustain us.

The woman answers Satan directly, with a reiteration of God's law.  Then she adds the punishment which comes from disobedience: "you shall die."  One wonders at that moment if an insinuation of doubt has not really crept in.  "God loves us so much...will we really die?  That seems a harsh punishment.  Whey doesn't he want us to have the  knowledge of good and evil, anyway?"  At this point she has lost.  At the point where we enter into discourse with temptation we are gone.  Notice that when Jesus is tempted in the desert (Matthew 4.1-11) he never enters into this kind of dialog.  He responds with God's law and moves on.

After the woman reiterates God's law and punishment the tempter tries to explain God's motives.  As though he knows!  So the dialog deepens.  We know God's law, we know right from wrong but then we seek out God's deeper reason behind the law.  Surely he didn't mean it to be so restrictive?  His command suddenly seems to suffocate.  "This can't be right.  God would not intend such an unnatural thing."  We rationalize.  We try to seek out his true intentions.  We tell ourselves we're still obeying him, we simply want to know the reason behind the law so we can the more carefully and wisely obey it.  Notice how we begin fine-tuning his law, crafting it.  Suddenly we are no longer obeying the law but reconstructing it according to how we think it ought to be.

The woman approaches the tree.  It appears good.  It's good to look at.  I think, despite what God said, I'll actually be a better person in the end for giving this a try.  I reach out my hand and take.

The tempter is extraordinarily adept at exaggerating what God asks of us, making us think it is impossible and therefore not worth striving for - a hopeless case.  "God asks the impossible."  He also tries to convince us sin is inevitable, that he will always win the day.