Serpents represent what we know from our bodily senses, and the reasoning based on our senses. Since the people of the Most Ancient Church had become more external, they were susceptible to the lure of trusting their senses more than they trusted the leading of the Lord. That was particularly true for the sense of self the people had been given, which is represented by the woman. Eating of the trees in the garden represented taking in desires for good and true ideas from the knowledge granted them by the Lord.

So here, for the first time, we see people, from their own senses, actually questioning the Lord. From their senses they wished to explore the knowledge represented by fruit of the garden, but wondered why they were denied the tree of knowledge.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 194, 195, 196, 197)

1529. It is very well known in heaven, but not so well known in the world of spirits, where so great a light comes from, namely from the Lord. And what is astonishing, the Lord appears to celestial angels in the third heaven as the Sun, but to spiritual angels as the Moon. There is no other source of light. But the intensity of the light angels experience depends on how celestial and spiritual they are, and the nature of the light depends on the nature of these qualities. Thus the Lord's celestial and spiritual itself shows itself before angels' external vision by means of the light.