If everything that the LORD God made was good (טֹ֖וב), beneficial and helpful to humanity, evaluated as such by His own mind (Genesis 1:31), then how are we to understand that one of His creatures—the serpent--was crafty? The term “crafty” is naturally understood as a negative trait. How, then, can we evaluate something negative as positive, as “good”? Did a good God create evil?

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