John Calvin Commentary Genesis 3:20

"And the man called his wife`s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living." — Genesis 3:20 (ASV)

And Adam called, etc. There are two ways in which this may be read. The former, in the pluperfect tense, is ‘Adam had called.’ If we follow this reading, what Moses means is that Adam had been greatly deceived in promising life to himself and to his posterity from a wife, whom he afterwards found by experience to be the introducer of death.

And Moses (as we have seen) is accustomed, without preserving the order of the history, to add later things that had occurred earlier. If, however, we read the passage in the preterite tense, it may be understood either in a good or bad sense.

Some think that Adam, animated by the hope of a happier condition because God had promised that the head of the serpent would be wounded by the seed of the woman, called her by a name implying ‘life.’ This would be a noble and even heroic fortitude of mind, since he could not, without an arduous and difficult struggle, deem her the mother of the living, who, before any man could have been born, had involved all in eternal destruction.

But, because I fear this conjecture may be weak, let the reader consider whether Moses did not design rather to charge Adam with thoughtlessness, who, being himself immersed in death, yet gave to his wife so proud a name.

Nevertheless, I do not doubt that, when he heard God's declaration concerning the prolongation of life, he began again to breathe and to take courage. Then, as one revived, he gave his wife a name derived from life. But it does not follow that, by a faith in accordance with the word of God, he triumphed over death as he ought to have done.

I therefore interpret the passage as follows: as soon as he had escaped present death, being encouraged by a measure of consolation, he celebrated that divine benefit which, beyond all expectation, he had received, in the name he gave his wife.