Man has heard God’s judgment. Life becomes difficult and people are going to die. Yet Adam is not without hope. He has heard God’s promise and accepted it in faith. For this very reason, he has given his wife a name that is full of future hope and prospect. He gives her the name Eve.
We read the reason for this in the second part of Genesis 3:20: because she was the mother of all living.
Adam gives her this name even though she has not yet given birth to a child. It shows that this is Adam’s answer of faith in response to God’s promise after the fall. He confesses that Eve will receive children according to God’s promise. He expresses the certainty of this by not using a future tense but by saying that she is the mother of all living. He is so sure of what God has promised that he formulates it as if it has already happened. We also often find this way of speaking among the prophets.
Adam confesses that man’s future will not end in death. God’s promise is the guarantee of the future and redeemed life. God’s promise means that the Redeemer who will one day come from Eve’s offspring is sure to come.
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.