She listened to the voice of an inferior, ostensibly the serpent, actually the rebellious angel. The Bible does not allude to any surprise on her part at hearing the serpent talk. It does say that the serpent was “the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made.” (Ge 3:1) Whether it ate of the forbidden fruit of “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad” and then appeared to be made wise, able to speak, is not stated. The rebellious angel, using the serpent to speak to her, presented (as she supposed) the opportunity to become independent, “to be like God, knowing good and bad,” and succeeded in convincing her that she would not die.​—Ge 2:17; 3:4, 5; 2Co 11:3.

An indication of this is the approach to Eve: “Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” Here the Serpent intimated that such a thing was unbelievable​—that God was unduly restrictive, withholding something that was the rightful due of the human pair.​—Ge 3:1.