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And Yahweh God said, Behold, the human has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ...
Some things to notice about Genesis 3:22 follow.
First, that pesky plural appears again: "the person has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." The one of us, suggests that when the snake, back in verse 5, promised the people they would be "like elohim", he meant elohim in the plural sense: like gods.
At least literally, this passage shows God becoming concerned that human beings will achieve godlike attributes. Something similar happens in the narrative of the Tower of Babel. The sheer anthropomorphism of a deity worried about humans being elevated to divine status is fascinating and is one reason it is hard to imagine later Christian or Jewish writers producing a story like this one. On the other hand, it can be argued that both in this passage and the Tower of Babel episode there is something ironic about Yahweh's supposed "concern"; Yahweh does in fact stay in control of the situation.
Second, that the snake did in fact disclose true information to the man and woman, and they have become like gods, rather than dying on that very day as God had said.
Third, although they are not struck dead that same day, God does immediately take action to deprive them of immortality.
Fourth, on a strictly grammatical level, this verse ends with an incomplete sentence fragment, as you can see by translating 22 and 23 back to back:
And Yahweh God said, Now the human has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Therefore, so that he does not reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever ... Yahweh God expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
Fifth, the snake's actions here have removed human beings from the possibility of eating the fruit of the tree of life. This could be read as parallel to when Gilgamesh, on his quest for immortality, has a youth-restoring plant stolen from him by a snake.
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