She takes the fruit and eats, and then, in the plain words of Genesis 3:6, she “gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” He was there when she handed it to him, and possibly through the whole conversation before it, though the text does not say so outright. And when God speaks to him afterward, the charge is about a command he had heard for himself.
With her
With her. Two words in the King James, and they settle that he stood beside her when she gave him the fruit. They do not by themselves put him at her side for every word the serpent spoke, and this page will not make them do it. The text records no word from him before he ate.
Who heard the command
The command came first. In Genesis 2:16-17 “the LORD God commanded the man,” and every “thou” in it is singular. He is the only one the text shows hearing the command from God.
When the serpent speaks, at 3:1, 3:4 and 3:5, every “you” in his mouth is plural in the King James. “Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.” “Ye shall not surely die.” “Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods.” That leans toward a second listener without proving one, since the rule bound them both and he could speak of both while addressing her. The words of the rule were already changing in that conversation, widened by the serpent, and in her answer the rule came back with a clause added.
Milton’s version
The scene most people carry has Adam away somewhere and arriving afterward. It has a famous English telling: in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book IX, Eve asks to work apart, meets the serpent alone, and brings the fruit back to Adam. Genesis tells it more briefly, and in Genesis Adam is with her when she gives it.
What God asks him
Their eyes are opened and they hide. At 3:9, “the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” Then: “Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” Adam’s answer points away from himself: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” The woman, asked next, points away too: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” God hears both answers, and when he passes sentence, he goes back to the command.
The charge itself names two things.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Genesis 3:17 (KJV)
“Hearkened unto the voice of thy wife” means Adam did what she said. Genesis uses nearly the same words later, at 16:2, when Abram does what Sarai asks of him, so the phrase tells us he obeyed her and says nothing about where he was standing. The second half of the charge is the one that lands: “of which I commanded thee.”
Writing to Timothy, Paul says, “Adam was not deceived.” To the Romans he writes, at 5:12 and 5:19, that “by one man sin entered into the world,” and “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” Read beside Genesis, Paul’s “not deceived” means Adam knew what he was taking: he had heard the command himself, and he took what he was handed.
Say back what you were told
A command you heard yourself stays yours when someone else hands you the fruit. Adam’s excuse named the woman and named God for giving her, and God answered with what Adam had been told. That is a point about responsibility, his and anyone’s, and Genesis is a poor place to look for a joke about husbands. The practice it leaves is short: before you take what is offered, say back exactly what you were told, and leave out the version being handed to you. In her answer the rule came back with a clause added. Adam, as far as the text records, said nothing at all before he ate.
And when the man hid among the trees, the first thing God did was call to him.