Landmark Baptist

The "not" in the devil's tale to Mother Eve centers around the commandment she and Adam received of the Lord regarding the eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God said "...for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Gen. 2:17b The serpent capitalized on ideas and promised that she would not fall down dead, but become like God knowing good and evil.
The last two words of the verse incorporate a double verbal action, participial with regular verb form and is to be translated, "dying, thou shalt die." Instant physical death was not to be inferred. Of couse, that is now understood as a matter of practical reality, but it was there in the language. Death is a process that would be launched and it would not, could not be avoided once the commandmant was broken.