A common misinterpretation of Genesis 2:17 is that it promises immediate physical death upon eating the forbidden fruit, leading some to claim God deceived Adam since he lived for centuries afterward; in reality, 'death' encompasses spiritual death occurring instantly as relational rupture with God, while physical death follows later, and 'in the day' idiomatically means 'when' or 'as surely as,' not a literal 24-hour period, thus avoiding accusations of divine falsehood.
Genesis 2:17
King James Version (1769)
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 2:17 conveys God's direct command to Adam prohibiting him from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with the solemn warning that disobedience will result in death on that very day; this establishes divine authority, the foundational test of human obedience, and the inevitable consequence of sin as spiritual death—immediate separation from God's life-giving presence—foreshadowing physical mortality and the broken fellowship that sin introduces into creation.