What did God mean when He told Adam and Eve the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die?

A death of innocence for sure! Kind of like children now when they start learning and they start  seeing how things are in this world. The innocence dies, the knowledge begins and part of life is now death...  I believe the more knowledge we gain and the more things we learn.... we die a bit more inside before we literally die.

What did God mean when He told Adam and Eve the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die?

God is spirit

Life in the Presents is earth, the truth. As to it will also be alike; but nevertheless its the tree of life it will be called.

To see' in born again,

Christ now; the key back  As to, 

One  must be born again.

New International Version

"As for you,

go your way till the end.

You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance."

New International VersionThe end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. See, it comes!

New International VersionIt rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.

New International VersionThen the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.

New International VersionFor the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.

New International VersionFor who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

A DAY WITH YHVH GOD IS A 1000 YEARS AND ADAM AND EVE WERE TOLD IN THE DAY THEY ATE OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL THEY WOULD DIE.

IN THE FIRST 1000 YEARS OF LIFE ON EARTH THEY DIED.

This is a tough one for most. The Hebrew word for "day" can have multiple meanings. It can mean a 24 hr period, or a certain prolonged period of time, such as "in my father's day." 

Here is the key to understanding....

2 Peter 3:8 KJV — But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

In some passages, a "day" then may mean 1000 years in the Lords estimation.

Now see....

Genesis 5:5 KJV — And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

Adam died at age 930. Thats well within one of the Lords "days" of 1000 earth years.

930 < 1000

So Adam died in the same "day" that he ate the forbidden fruit.

Genesis 2:17 KJV — But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The fruit of that tree was (among other things) deadly, spiritual poison.

Spiritual death, loss of covenant relationship with God.

One could take it that the people they were *did* die, then and there.

Or, that they were made for immortality and earned the gift of death that day.

Not to shock you, but knowledge may not be good for your health.  

Their punishment was mortality. Hunger, thirst, sickness, age, and death.