And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
7. And the eyes, &c.] The serpent’s promise is fulfilled; their eyes having been opened, they have forfeited the state of innocence of which nakedness was symbolical, cf. Gen 2:25. The knowledge to which they have attained is neither that of happiness, wisdom, nor power, but that of the consciousness of sin and of its conflict with the Will of God.
fig leaves ] These leaves would be chosen because of their size. The fig tree is said to be indigenous in Palestine, but not in Babylonia. If so, it is an indirect proof that our version of the story is genuinely Israelite. “Fig leaves are thick, palmately lobed, and often a span or more across” (Hastings’ D.B., s.v.).
aprons ] Better, as R.V. marg., girdles: LXX , Lat. perizomata.
The rendering “breeches,” which appeared in the Genevan Bible (1560), caused that version to be popularly known as “the breeches Bible.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 3:7
The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked
The dawn of guilt
I.
A CONSCIOUS LOSS OF RECTITUDE. Moral nudity (Rev 3:17).
1. They deeply felt it.
2. They sought to conceal it.
II. AN ALARMING DREAD OF GOD.
1. This was unnatural.
2. Irrational.
3. Fruitless. God found Adam out.
III. A MISERABLE SUBTERFUGE FOR SIN. The transferring of our own blame to others has ever marked the history of sin. Some plead circumstance, some their organization, and some the conduct of others. (Homilist.)
The fruits of the temptation
I. They suffered together. The immediate effects of their act of disobedience were of a sense of shame–the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked (Gen 3:7); and a dread of judgment–Adam and his wife hid themselves, through fear, as Adam afterwards admits–I was afraid (Gen 3:8; Gen 3:10). They were ashamed, then, and they were afraid. This was the fulfilment of the threatening–Thou shalt surely die–dying, thou shalt die. There was present death felt, and future death feared. And as shame and fear drive them away from God, so, when they are brought into His presence, the same feelings still prevail, and prompt the last desperate expedient, of deceit or guile, which marks the extent of their subjection to bondage, the bondage of corruption. They do not deny, but they palliate, and extenuate, their sin. The attempt to excuse their sin only proves how helplessly they are debased by it, as the slaves of a hard master, who, having them now at a disadvantage, through their forfeiture of the free favour of God, presses unrelentingly upon them, and compels them to be as false and as unscrupulous as himself. Shame, therefore, fear, and falsehood, are the bitter fruits of sin. Guilt is felt; death is dreaded; guile is practised. The consciousness of crime begets terror; for the wicked flee when no one pursueth. How degrading is the bondage of sin! How entirely does it destroy all truth in the inward parts! The sinner, once yielding to the tempter, is at his mercy, and having lost his hold of the truth of God, he is but too glad, for his relief from despair, to believe and to plead the lies of the devil.
II. God, however, has a better way. He has thoughts of love towards the guilty parents of our race. For the sentence which He goes on to pronounce, when He has called them before Him, is not such as they might have expected. It is not retributive, but remedial, and in all its parts it is fitted exactly to meet their case.
1. In the first place, their complaint against the serpent is instantly attended to. He is judged and condemned.
2. Having disposed of the serpent, the sentence proceeds, secondly, to deal with his victims more directly, and announces both to the woman and to the man a period of forbearance and long suffering on the part of God. Their fear is, in so far, postponed. The woman is still to bear children, the man is still to find food. But there are these four tokens of the doom they feared still abiding on them:
(1) The womans pain in child-bearing;
(2) Her subjection to the man;
(3) The mans toil and trouble in finding food;
(4) His liability to the corruption of death.
III. And now, Satan being put aside, who, as the father of lies, prompted guile, and death being postponed, so as to give hope instead of fear, the sentence goes on to provide for the removal of the shame which sin had caused: Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them (Gen 3:21). (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Observations
I. MAN CAN DISCERN NOTHING BUT WHAT AND WHEN, AND HOW FAR GOD IS PLEASED TO DISCOVER IT UNTO HIM.
II. IT IS A GREAT FOLLY IN MEN NOT TO FORESEE EVIL BEFORE IT BE TOO LATE TO HELP IT. Wise men beforehand see a plague and prevent it Pro 22:3), and hearken for time to come (Isa 42:23), and indeed for this special end was wisdom given, that men having their eyes in their head (Ecclesiastes it. 14) they might foresee both good and evil to come, that they might lay hold on the one while it may be had, and avoid and prevent the other before it comes. As for after-wisdom, it is of no use but to increase our misery, by looking back upon our misery when it is too late to help it.
III. SATAN NEVER DISCOVERS ANYTHING UNTO US, BUT TO DO MISCHIEF. Thus he shows us the baits of sin to allure us; as he did to our Saviour Christ the glory of all the kingdoms of the earth, to entice Him to fall down and worship him (Mat 4:8). Thus he discovers the means of affecting what our inordinate lusts move us unto, to encourage us to sin, as by Jonadab he showed Ammon the means how he might satisfy his lust upon his sister Tamar (2Sa 13:5), and by Jezebel to Ahab the means of getting Naboths vineyard (1Ki 21:7), and if he shows the foulness of sin, after it is acted, it is to drive men, if possibly he can, into despair, when the case is desperate.
IV. EVEN THOSE WHICH DISCOVER NOT BEFOREHAND THE EVILS WHICH THE ERRORS OF THEIR WAYS LEAD THEM INTO, YET THEY SHALL SEE IN THE END, AND FEEL TOO THE MISERY INTO WHICH THEY BRING THEM.
V. SIN IS ABLE TO MAKE THE MOST EXCELLENT AND GLORIOUS OF GODS CREATURES VILE AND SHAMEFUL.
1. It defaces the image of God in them, which especially consists in righteousness (Eph 4:24), which sin perverts (Job 33:27).
2. It separates a man from God (as all sin doth, Isa 59:2) who is our Isa 60:19; Isa 28:5).
3. It disorders all the faculties of the soul, and parts of the body, and consequently all the motions and actions that flow from them, and subjects us to our own base lusts and vile affections, to do things that are not comely (Rom 1:4; Rom 1:26; Rom 1:28).
VI. MEN ARE MORE APT TO BE SENSIBLE OF, AND TO BE MORE AFFECTED WITH THE OUTWARD EVILS THAT SIN BRINGS UPON THEM, THAN WITH THE SIN THAT CAUSETH THEM.
VII. GARMENTS ARE BUT THE COVERS OF OUR SHAME.
1. The first occasion of the use of clothing was to cover our shame.
2. The materials of it are things much baser than ourselves, in just estimation.
3. The apparel at the least doth but grace the body, but adorns not the soul at all, which is the only part wherein man is truly honourable.
4. And the outward person they commend also, only to men of vain minds, but to no wise or sober man.
5. And withal, do more discover the vanity of our minds than they cover the shame of our bodies.
VIII. MOST OF OUR NECESSITIES ARE BROUGHT UPON US BY SIN.
IX. WHEN MEN ARE ONCE FALLEN OFF FROM GOD, THEIR NATURE THEREBY CORRUPTED, CARRIES THEM STRONGLY FORWARDS TO SEEK HELP FROM THE CREATURE.
1. They Ere wholly carnal and sensual in their dispositions, and therefore easily carried after sensual and carnal things.
2. They cannot but be enemies to God, from whom they are driven away by the guiltiness of their own consciences, as having no cause to depend on Him whose yoke they have cast off, and therefore have ground to expect no help from Him, to whom they resolve to do no service.
3. And they are by the just judgment of God delivered over to abase themselves to vile things far below them.. selves, because they have not advanced God, nor glorified Him as God, as they ought.
X. SIN BESETS MEN AND MAKES THEM FOOLS.
XI. ALL THE CARE THAT MEN TAKE, IS USUALLY RATHER TO HIDE THEIR SIN THAN TO TAKE IT AWAY.
XII. ALL SATANS FAIR PROMISE, PROVE IN THE EVENT NOTHING ELSE BUT LIES AND MERE DELUSIONS. (J. White, M. A.)
Sin known by its fruit
The real nature of sin, its disgrace and misery and ruin, are never fully known till it has been committed. The tempter veils it in a false and delusive garb, which can never be entirely stripped off but by actual experience. As a matter of assurance, Adam and Eve knew beforehand the miserable consequences of their breach of the Divine command: In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. They could, therefore, have no possible reason to doubt on this point; the terrible result lay open before them; perhaps revealed in many more particulars than are recorded, for the history of this eventful period is exceedingly short; yet still nothing was known, or could be known, of the awful reality, till it was felt in the stricken heart, till the accursed step had been taken, and the wretched working stood confessed in all the blight and agony. And in similar ways he continues to deceive mankind: every temptation to evil is an instrument in his hand, promising by its appearance, or else in our imagination, some pleasure or some gain: this is the whisper of the same great adversary of souls, this a reflection of his deceitful image. Let us now seek, in the spirit of humility, to learn and apply the moral lesson of the text; which teaches us the direful consequences of sin, the evils with which it makes us acquainted, as the foretaste and assurance of the dreadful end to which it infallibly leads. It was not till the commission of their sin, but it was instantly after, that the eyes of our parents were opened; that the evils of guilt and disobedience flashed upon them in all their terribleness and extent. Their conscience was immediately smitten: new thoughts entered their minds, new and painful feelings arose instantly in their bosom: there was in them a sense of disgrace and degradation; love and confidence were gone, and shame had taken possession, and fear and trembling. We must all have felt, on manifold occasions, the sudden and painful effects of sin; the sharp convictions, the uneasiness and wretchedness, and not seldom the injury thereby inflicted upon us; the disgrace attending it when brought to light; our altered position in the esteem of men, nay, even in our own esteem. How often has the fairest character been blasted by only one transgression! and the humbled offender suddenly brought to perceive the truth of all the denunciations and threatenings against sin; what would he not give to retrace that one step, to recall that one word, to undo that one miserable deed? How sad and complete was his folly! How could he have been thus deceived and betrayed? What shame, what indignation, what grief, what abasement, what violent self-accusation, yea, what astonishment is raised within him! That he, a man of reason, a man of faith, a man of religious profession, one of the people of God, should have flung such discredit upon the whole cause, should have so sinned against the majesty and holiness, the goodness and long suffering of the Lord; should have admitted such corruption into that body which Christ has redeemed, which was made one with Christ, should thus have disordered and dishonoured and endangered his soul. I say, how many a servant of God has been distressed by such feelings and sentiments; sometimes hurried into wretchedness, lowered to the dust! I speak not of the hardened and abandoned sinner: of those whose consciences are, as the apostle describes it, seared with a hot iron: when the mind and affections have grown long familiar with vice and iniquity, and have become inured to its effects, we must expect the feeling to be blunted, the moral eye to be judicially closed: the Spirit of God, which keeps alive the conscience, withdraws from the bosom of the determined offender, leaves it ordinarily incapable of emotion: I say ordinarily, because there are seasons, when even the vilest transgressors are suddenly roused and awakened to a sense of guilt and ruin; led, like the prodigal, to look back upon the happiness they have lost; and mourn, after a godly sort, over their evil and perishing condition. But this is a conviction not to be trusted to, often appearing too late: bringing disturbance and distress, but no comfort, no living hope of salvation. How blessed are they, whose conscience is quickly moved and opened to the perception of evil: there is a hope of their speedy recovery; no one, who is truly alive to the wretchedness of sin, can be content to abide in it: it is every way hateful and distressful, as well as dangerous, to the soul that is humbled under a sense of it: and the consciousness and sorrow and vexation of spirit frequently, as in the case of our first parents, follow the offence in rapid succession, and the heart is overwhelmed. (J. Slade, M. A.)
Sad results of the Fall
The Fall of man was most disastrous in its results to our entire being. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, was no idle threat; for Adam did die the moment that he transgressed the command–he died the great spiritual death by which all his spiritual powers became then and evermore, until God should restore them, absolutely dead. I said all the spiritual powers, and if I divide them after the analogy of the senses of the body, my meaning will be still more clear. Through the Fall, the spiritual taste of man became perverted, so that he puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter; he chooses the poison of hell and loathes the bread of heaven; he licks the dust of the serpent and rejects the food of angels. The spiritual hearing became grievously injured, for man naturally no longer hears Gods Word, but stops his ears at his Makers voice. Let the gospel minister charm never so wisely, yet is the unconverted soul like the deaf adder, which hears not the charmers voice. The spiritual feeling, by virtue of our depravity, is fearfully deadened. That which would once have filled the man with alarm and terror no longer excites emotion. Whether the thunders of Sinai or the turtle notes of Calvary claim his attention, man is resolutely deaf to both. Even the spiritual smell with which man should discern between that which is pure and holy and that which is unsavoury to the Most High has become defiled, and now mans spiritual nostril, while unrenewed, derives no enjoyment from the sweet savour which is in Jesus Christ, but seeks after the putrid joys of sin. As with other senses, so is it with mans sight. He is so spiritually blind, that things most plain and clear he cannot and will not see. The understanding, which is the souls eye, is covered with scales of ignorance, and when these are removed by the finger of instruction, the visual orb is still so affected that it only sees men as trees walking. Our condition is thus most terrible, but at the same time it affords ample room for a display of the splendours of Divine grace. Dear friends, we are naturally so entirely ruined, that if saved the whole work must be of God, and the whole glory must crown the head of the Triune Jehovah. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The effects of the Fall
I. The effects of the Fall may be arranged under three divisions: the loss of Gods special gifts; the corruption of mans own nature; and his new position of guiltiness in the sight of God. And for our present purpose it will be most convenient to consider these now under two heads–the internal, which will cover the first and second; and the external, which corresponds to the third.
1. Viewed internally then, the effects of the Fall must be regarded as two fold. The one was negative–the immediate loss of that original righteousness which we have learnt to connect immediately with Gods supernatural gift of grace. The other was positive–the wound, which struck instantly to the very heart of mans nature, carried poison along with it, which tainted all that nature with immediate corruption. The will had rebelled, therefore the channel of Gods grace was closed. So much was negative. But within that cast off and isolated will there lurked a prolific power of fatal mischief, which immediately burst forth into positive evil. Hence sprung at once that concupiscence and lust which hath of itself the nature of sin; hence the flesh learnt immediately to lust against the spirit; hence came the sin that reigns in our mortal bodies; hence that other law in our members, which wars against the law of our minds.
2. But all this evil was mans own work. It was man himself who closed the door of grace. It was man himself who severed his will from his only safeguard, by withdrawing it from dependence upon God. It was man himself who thus introduced rebellion into his nature, who caused this outburst of trouble and confusion in his heart. We must look to another quarter for the penalty which God imposed. And this is the external aspect, which, as I have said, demands a separate consideration. Man no sooner fell than he recognized the immediate certainty of punishment, and fruitlessly strove to conceal himself from the vengeance of his offended Creator. So weak and worthless was his new-found knowledge. It told him how he might hide his shame on earth; it could not aid him when he wished to escape the wrath of God. Gods sentence may be briefly said to involve three different judgments; the first to toil and sorrow; the second to exile; and the third, which completes them, to death.
II. Let us pass then to that closing portion of our subject–the extension of the sin of Adam to ourselves, in connection with the doctrine of the Atonement of our Lord. (Archdeacon Hannah.)
Lessons
1. Yielding to Satan and suffering in evil are the twins of the same day.
2. Man and woman are equal in vengeance as well as sin.
3. Sin blinds to good, but opens mind and sight to experience evil.
4. Sin makes men very knowing in misery; wise to see their fall from heaven to hell.
5. Sin strips stark naked of spiritual and bodily good, and makes sensible of nothing but shame.
6. Sin is ashamed of itself, and seeks a covering.
7. Sin is very foolish in patching a veil or covering to hide from God–Leaves (Gen 3:7).
8. The voice of God pursueth sinners after guilt; sometimes inward and outward.
9. God hath His fit time to visit sinners.
10. God walks sometimes in wind and storms to find out the guilty.
11. Conscience hears and trembles at Gods voice pursuing.
12. The face of the Lord God, which is life to His, is terrible to the guilty.
13. Sin persuades souls as if it were possible to hide from God.
14. All carnal shifts will sin make to shun Gods sight; if leaves do not, then trees must closet them (Gen 3:8). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Opened eyes
What an opening of the eyes was this, my brethren! What disclosures followed! How much is contained in these few words, The eyes of them both were opened! Various are the circumstances under which men may open their eyes. After a dark, dreary, stormy night, the eyes may be opened to behold the dawn of a fine day, and the heart may be gladdened by the bright rays of the sun gilding the chambers of the east and restoring warmth and comfort to all around. After a night of pain and weariness on a bed of sickness, the eyes of the sufferer from a gentle slumber may be opened to a sense of relief at the return of light with respite from suffering. After a tedious and dangerous sea voyage, the eyes may be opened some morning to behold with joy the desired port at hand. Under these and a thousand such-like circumstances the eyes of a man may be opened with emotions of various kinds; but no case that we can imagine can be a parallel with the one now before us–even the condition of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, immediately after their fatal disobedience, when, yielding to the wiles of Satan, they ate of the forbidden fruit, and proved the truth of the Divine warning and declaration. The eyes of them both were opened to see the snare which had been artfully spread for them, and in which they had been caught; and what did they see? They saw misery before them; horror and dismay attended the sight, and their discovery was accompanied with the most galling bitterness. For all men are naturally more ashamed of being detected in sin than of committing it; and more desirous of keeping up a good opinion of themselves than of obtaining pardon from God, though they can hide nothing from Him, and can neither elude His justice nor recover His favour by any device or contrivance of their own. What a discovery must Adam and Eve have made when their eyes were opened! How appalling the conviction of their condition! They were fallen, degraded creatures; no longer holy, pure, innocent, perfect, but unholy, defiled, guilty, depraved. They recognized sin in themselves, they felt it: and although they vainly attempted to excuse it, yet they denied it not. They were fallen beings; guilt lay upon them, the anger of God pressed hard on them; their expectations were disappointed; instead of delicious enjoyment, they had bitterness to reward their pains; and although natural death did not instantly take place, the prospect of it was set before them, hung over them in suspense, and spiritual death was theirs. In this sad state we are all born, children of wrath, slaves of Satan, enemies to God, and by nature we are not sensible of it. Adam and Eve felt their change instantly; they had known innocence and happiness; they perceived at once the difference occasioned by guilt and misery. But we by nature are not sensible of our guilt and danger; our eyes are not open to behold our wretchedness: and hence we are not disposed to flee to that Refuge promised to Adam, and fulfilled and set before us in Christ Jesus. Like the church of the Laodiceans, we are disposed to say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. Our eyes must be opened to a sense of our danger and guilt; we must see spiritual things in a spiritual light; and then we shall not only see our guilt and danger, but the mercy, goodness, and love of God in stretching out an arm of salvation, and raising up a Saviour in the person of Jesus Christ. Having drawn your attention to mans wretchedness, and the cause of it, I must now invite you to consider the remedy provided for it, and freely set before us in the gospel. This St. Paul sets forth very forcibly (Rom 5:1-21): Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. (T. R. Redwar.)
The covering of fig leaves
This one act, this one feeling, was, above all things, expressive of the fall of the whole condition of man as he now is; it is the sense of something within which we wish to hide. For it has been said that there is no man who would not rather die than that all which he knows of himself should be known to the world. It is the want of a covering which we so deeply and thoroughly feel. Our souls must needs dwell apart, isolated in this their own consciousness of ill. So that when we turn for sympathy to each other, yet language conceals as much as it expresses; and when we turn to God, our prayers immediately take the form of confession, though it be but to confess what we know that He knows; yet it is expressive of a burden which we feel, and which we most of all wish to get rid of; and in turning to Him our feeling is, Thou art a place to hide me in: Thou shalt hide me by Thine own Presence. Hide me,–but from what? Not from other men only, but from ourselves. And what are the pursuits of busy life, but to hide from ourselves this our internal want and shame? Thou sayest I am rich, and knowest not that thou art miserable, and blind, and naked. And what is the great dread of death? It is chiefly connected with this divesting and stripping off of all disguises, and going naked into the land of spirits. For in this, our earthly house, we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Hence the glory of the redeemed is to be clothed–to be clothed in white raiment before the throne, and to walk with Christ in white. The law of nature has become hallowed into the law of grace. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked. Our great care is that we be not found naked. The judgment and condemnation is, Thy nakedness shall be uncovered. Further, another expression here in the text is remarkable and emphatic–made for themselves; made for themselves, in distinction from the covering of God. It is fruitless, and worse, to strive to hide ourselves from ourselves and God. Woe unto him, saith the Lord, that cover with a covering, but not of My spirit. It is in this our great want He has visited us: When thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee; under the sense of sin I succoured thee, and thou shalt see greater things than these. His comings to us are called Epiphanies and Manifestations, as dissipating all vain disguises of the soul. It is said, He will destroy the face of the covering east over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He unclothes us, that we may be clothed upon by Himself, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. (I. Williams, B. D.)
The terrible disease introduced by the Fall
Sin had, like a snake from hell, crossed over and darkened human nature. A disease had appeared on earth of the most frightful and inveterate kind, moral in its nature, destined to be universal in its prevalence, deep seated in its roots, varied in its aspects, hereditary in its descent, defying all cures save one, and issuing where that one cure was not sought for or applied–in everlasting death.
1. The disease was a moral disease. This grand disease of sin combines all the evil qualities of bodily distempers in a figurative yet real form–the continual fretting heat of fever, the loathsomeness of smallpox, the fierce torments of inflammation, and the lingering decay of consumption, and infects with something akin to these diseases, not the material, but the immaterial part, and turns not the body but the soul into such a mass of malady that from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundness in us; nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
2. Again, the disease introduced by the sin of Adam is universal in its ravages. It has infected not only all Adams sons and daughters, but all of them in almost every moment of their existence. Their very dreams are infected with this distemper. The boa constrictor binds only the outer part of the body of its victim, although he binds it all; but the serpent of sin has seized on and knitted together individual man–body, soul, and spirit–and even collective man, into a knot of selfish, malignant, mortal distemperatures. The entire being is encrusted with this leprosy.
3. Again, the disease introduced by mans first disobedience is deep seated in its roots. It is in the very centre of the system, and infects all the springs of life. It makes us cold, and dead, and languid, in the pursuit of the things that are good. It, in fine, pollutes the fountain of the heart, and turns it into a cistern for foul toads, instead of being a sweet and salubrious source of living waters.
4. Again, this disease is a hereditary disease. It is within us as early as existence; it descends from parent to child more faithfully than the family features, or disposition, or intellect. As the tree in the seed, so lies the future iniquity of the man in the child, and in this sense the boy is father of the man. And even as letters are sometimes traced in milk on white paper, and are only legible when placed before the fire, so the evil principles in mans heart are often not disclosed till they are exposed to the flame of temptation, and then they come forth in black prominency and terrible distinctness.
5. Again, this is a disease which assumes various forms and aspects. Its varieties are as numerous as the varieties of man and of sinner. Each particular sin is a new species of this disorder. It has one aspect in the ambitious man who sacrifices millions in his thirst for renown. It has another in the petty tyrant of a village or factory. It has one aspect in the openly profane, and another in the hypocrite and secret sinner.
6. Again, this is a disease which defies all human means of cure. Many attempts, indeed, have been made to check its ravages and abate its power. Empires innumerable have stood up, each with his several nostrum in his hand as an infallible remedy for the evil; all differing from each other as to the nature of the grand specific, but all agreeing in this, that they offer a cure apart from the help of God. When we think of the enormous number of remedies which have been proposed, and are still being proposed, to effect the cure of the world, we seem standing in an immense laboratory, where, however, there are more labels than medicines; where even the medicines are, in general, exploded or powerless, and where we miss the true and sovereign remedy, the Balm of Gilead. Yes, that bloody Balm, and balmy Blood, as it was in the beginning, two thousand years ago, is still the one thing that can effectually mitigate the evil of the disease of sin, as well as the only remedy that has the authoritative stamp of God.
7. We remark, again, that this disease, if not cured, will terminate in everlasting death and destruction from the presence of the Lord. And what a termination this must be! If men are at all moved by regarding this world as a vast bed of disease, they must surely be moved immensely more when they look to the next as a vast bed of death. (G. Gilfillan.)
Open eyes
Some time ago passengers in the streets of Paris were attracted to the figure of a woman on the parapet of a roof in that city. She had fallen asleep in the afternoon, and under the influence of somnambulism had stepped out of an open window on to the edge of the house. There she was walking to and fro to the horror of the gazers below, who expected every moment to witness a false step and terrible fall. They dared not shout, lest by awakening her inopportunely they should be only hastening on the inevitable calamity. But this came soon enough; for moving, as somnambulists do, with eyes open, the reflection of a lamp lit in an opposite window by an artisan engaged in some mechanical operation, all unconscious of what was going on outside, aroused her from sleep. The moment her eyes were opened to discover the perilous position in which she had placed herself, she tottered, fell, and was dashed below. Such is the sleep of sin; it places the soul on the precipice of peril, and when the spell is broken it leaves the sinner to fall headlong into the gulf of woe. (W. Adamson.)
Men covering their sins with specious pretences reproved
As when Adam had tasted of the forbidden fruit, he espied his own nakedness, poverty, and how that he was miserably fallen, for remedy whereof he went about to hide it with fig leaves, and so shroud himself amongst the trees of the garden, so it is that too, too many of Adams sons now living go about to cloak their sins with the fig leaves of their foolish inventions, and to hide their treacherous designs in the thicket of their wicked imaginations, covering their vices with the cloak of virtue. And hence it comes to pass that murder is accounted manhood; pride looked on as decency; covetousness as frugality; drunkenness as good fellowship, etc. (J. Spencer.)
Opened eyes
Wonderful in its depth of meaning is this expression, the eyes of them both were opened! They saw before; no new organs of vision were created; yet they saw what they had never seen, as we ourselves have done. Temptation blinds us, guilt opens our eyes; temptation is night, guilt is morning. In guilt we see ourselves, we see our hideousness, we see our baseness: we see hell! Their eyes were opened, and they saw that their character was gone! You can throw away a character in one act, as you throw away a stone. Can you go after it and recover it? Never! You may get something back by penitence and strife, but not the holy thing exactly as it was. A stone that is thrown along the road you may recover, but a stone thrown at night time into the sea who can get back again! (J. Parker, D. D.)
Clothes
They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And this we have been doing ever since! We try to replace nature by art. When we have lost the garment sent from heaven we try to replace it with one woven from earth. But our deformity shows through the finest robe! The robe may be ample, brilliant, luxurious, but the cripple shows through its gorgeous folds. Ever since this fig-leaf sewing, life has become a question of clothes. (J. Parker, D. D.)
A sense of shame is not natural to man
A sense of shame either in regard to soul or body is not natural. It does not belong to the unfallen. It is the fruit of sin. The sinners first feeling is, I am not fit for God, or man, or angels to look upon. Hence the essence of confession is, being ashamed of ourselves. We are made to feel two things; first, a sense of condemnation; and secondly, a sense of shame; we are unfit to receive Gods favour, and unfit to appear in His presence. Hence Job said, I am vile; and hence Ezra said, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to Thee, my God (Ezr 9:6). Hence also Jeremiah describes the stout-hearted Jews, They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush Jer 6:15). Hence Solomons reference to the impudent face of the strange woman (Pro 7:13), and Jeremiahs description of Israel, Thou hadst a whores forehead, thou refusest to be ashamed Jer 3:3). It was the shame of our sin that Christ bore upon the cross; and therefore it is said of Him that He despised the shame. It was laid upon Him, and He shrank not from it. He felt it, yet He hid not His face from it. He was the well-beloved of the Father, yet He hung upon the tree as one unfit for God to look upon; fit only to be cast out from His presence. He took our place of shame that we might be permitted to take His place of honour. In giving credit to Gods record concerning Him we are identified with Him as our representative; our shame passes over to Him, and His glory becomes ours forever. It was this sense of shame that led Adam and Eve to have recourse to fig leaves for a covering. What is it but this same consciousness of shame that leads men to resort to ornaments? These are intended by them to compensate for the shame or the deformity under which men are lying. They feel that shame belongs to them; nay, confusion of face. They feel that they are not now perfect in beauty, as once they were. Hence they resort to ornament in order to make up for this. They deck themselves with jewels that their deformity may be turned into beauty. But there is danger here–danger against which the apostle warns us, specially the female sex (1Pe 3:3-4). There is nothing, indeed, innately sinful in the gold, or the silver, or the gems which have been wrought by the skill of men into such forms of brightness. But in our present state they do not suit us. They are unmeet for sinners. They speak of pride, and they also minister to pride. They are for the kingdom, not for the desert. They are for the city of the glorified, not for the tent of the stranger. They will come in due time, and they will be brilliant enough to compensate for the shame of earth. But we cannot be trusted with them now. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. The eyes of them both were opened] They now had a sufficient discovery of their sin and folly in disobeying the command of God; they could discern between good and evil; and what was the consequence? Confusion and shame were engendered, because innocence was lost and guilt contracted.
Let us review the whole of this melancholy business, the fall and its effects.
1. From the New Testament we learn that Satan associated himself with the creature which we term the serpent, and the original the nachash, in order to seduce and ruin mankind; 2Co 11:3; Re 12:9; Re 20:2.
2. That this creature was the most suitable to his purpose, as being the most subtle, the most intelligent and cunning of all beasts of the field, endued with the gift of speech and reason, and consequently one in which he could best conceal himself.
3. As he knew that while they depended on God they could not be ruined, he therefore endeavoured to seduce them from this dependence.
4. He does this by working on that propensity of the mind to desire an increase of knowledge, with which God, for the most gracious purposes, had endued it.
5. In order to succeed, he insinuates that God, through motives of envy, had given the prohibition – God doth know that in the day ye eat of it, ye shall be like himself, c.
6. As their present state of blessedness must be inexpressibly dear to them, he endeavours to persuade them that they could not fall from this state: Ye shall not surely die – ye shall not only retain your present blessedness, but it shall be greatly increased a temptation by which he has ever since fatally succeeded in the ruin of multitudes of souls, whom he persuaded that being once right they could never finally go wrong.
7. As he kept the unlawfulness of the means proposed out of sight, persuaded them that they could not fall from their steadfastness, assured them that they should resemble God himself, and consequently be self-sufficient, and totally independent of him; they listened, and fixing their eye only on the promised good, neglecting the positive command, and determining to become wise and independent at all events, they took of the fruit and did eat.
Let us now examine the effects.
1. Their eyes were opened, and they saw they were naked. They saw what they never saw before, that they were stripped of their excellence; that they had lost their innocence; and that they had fallen into a state of indigence and danger.
2. Though their eyes were opened to see their nakedness, yet their mind was clouded, and their judgment confused. They seem to have lost all just notions of honour and dishonour, of what was shameful and what was praise-worthy. It was dishonourable and shameful to break the commandment of God; but it was neither to go naked, when clothing was not necessary.
3. They seem in a moment, not only to have lost sound judgment, but also reflection: a short time before Adam was so wise that he could name all the creatures brought before him, according to their respective natures and qualities; now he does not know the first principle concerning the Divine nature, that it knows all things, and that it is omnipresent, therefore he endeavours to hide himself among the trees from the eye of the all-seeing God! How astonishing is this! When the creatures were brought to him he could name them, because he could discern their respective natures and properties; when Eve was brought to him he could immediately tell what she was, who she was, and for what end made, though he was in a deep sleep when God formed her; and this seems to be particularly noted, merely to show the depth of his wisdom, and the perfection of his discernment. But alas! how are the mighty fallen! Compare his present with his past state, his state before the transgression with his state after it; and say, is this the same creature? the creature of whom God said, as he said of all his works, He is very good-just what he should be, a living image of the living God; but now lower than the beasts of the field?
4. This account could never have been credited had not the indisputable proofs and evidences of it been continued by uninterrupted succession to the present time. All the descendants of this first guilty pair resemble their degenerate ancestors, and copy their conduct. The original mode of transgression is still continued, and the original sin in consequence. Here are the proofs. 1. Every human being is endeavouring to obtain knowledge by unlawful means, even while the lawful means and every available help are at hand. 2. They are endeavouring to be independent, and to live without God in the world; hence prayer, the language of dependence on God’s providence and grace, is neglected, I might say detested, by the great majority of men. Had I no other proof than this that man is a fallen creature, my soul would bow to this evidence. 3. Being destitute of the true knowledge of God they seek privacy for their crimes, not considering that the eye of God is upon them, being only solicitous to hide them from the eye of man. These are all proofs in point; but we shall soon meet with additional ones. See on Ge 3:10; Ge 3:12.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The eyes of them both. The eyes of their minds and conscience, which hitherto had been closed and blinded by the arts of the devil, were opened, as the devil had promised them, though in a far differing and sadder sense.
They knew that they were naked. They knew it before, when it was their glory, but now they know it with grief and shame, from a sense both of their guilt for the sin newly past, and of that sinful concupiscence which they now found working in them.
They tied, twisted, or fastened, the lesser branches or twigs, upon which were also the leaves of a fig tree, which peradventure was then near them, and which because of its broad leaves was most fit for that use.
Made themselves aprons, to cover their nakedness.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And the eyes of them both were opened,…. Not of their bodies, but of their minds; not so as to have an advanced knowledge of things pleasant, profitable, and useful, as was promised and expected, but of things very disagreeable and distressing. Their eyes were opened to see that they had been deceived by the serpent, that they had broke the commandment of God, and incurred the displeasure of their Creator and kind benefactor, and had brought ruin and destruction upon themselves; they saw what blessings and privileges they had lost, communion with God, the dominion of the creatures, the purity and holiness of their nature, and what miseries they had involved themselves and their posterity in; how exposed they were to the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and to eternal death:
and they knew that they were naked; they must know before that they were naked in their bodies, but they did not perceive that their nakedness was at all uncomely, or any disadvantage to them; but now they were sensible of both, that whereas they could look upon it before, and not blush or feel any sinful emotions in them, now they could not behold it without shame, and without finding evil concupiscence arising in them; and it being now the cool of the day, and their spirits also seized with fear of the divine displeasure, they might feel a shivering all over them, and wanted something to cover them: but more especially this may respect the nakedness of their souls they were now conscious of, being stripped of that honour and glory, privileges and power, they were vested with; and having lost the image of God that was upon them, and that robe of purity, innocence, and righteousness, the rectitude of their nature, with which they were arrayed, and finding themselves naked and defenceless, and unable to screen themselves from the curses of a righteous law, and the fury of vindictive justice:
and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons; not to cover their whole bodies, but only those parts which, ever since, mankind have been ashamed to expose to public view, and which they studiously conceal from sight: the reason of which perhaps is, because by those members the original corruption of human nature has been from the beginning, and still is propagated from parents to children. The leaves of the fig tree were pitched upon because of the largeness of them; the leaves of the common fig tree are very large, as everyone knows; and perhaps those in the eastern countries, and especially in paradise, were much larger than ours. Pliny m says of the fig tree, that its leaf is the largest, and the most shady. Some think the Indian fig tree is meant; so John Temporarius, as Drusius relates; and so our Milton n; and according to Pliny o, the breadth of the leaves of this tree has the shape of an Amazonian shield. And when they are said to sew these together, it is not to be supposed that they sewed them as tailors sew their garments together, since they cannot be thought to be furnished with proper instruments, or that they tacked them together with some sort of thorns, or made use of them instead of needles; but they took the tender branches of the fig tree with leaves on them, as the word signifies, see Ne 8:15 and twisted them round their waists; which served for “girdles”, as some render the word p, and the broad leaves hanging down served for aprons; but these, whatever covering they may be thought to have been to their bodies, which yet seem to be but a slender one, they could be none to their souls, or be of any service to hide their sin and shame from the all seeing eye of God; and of as little use are the poor and mean services of men, or their best works of righteousness, to shelter them from the wrath of God, and the vengeance of divine justice.
m Nat. Hist. l. 16. c. 26. n —-There soon they chose The fig tree; not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as at this day in India known. Paradise Lost, B. 9. l. 1100, c. o Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 5. p , , Sept. “perizomata”, V. L. “cinctoria”, Tigurine version, Fagius “cingulos”, Pagninus, Montanus; so the Targums; “subligacula”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Vatablus, Drusius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“ Then the eyes of them both were opened ” (as the serpent had foretold: but what did they see?), “ and they knew that they were naked.” They had lost “that blessed blindness, the ignorance of innocence, which knows nothing of nakedness” ( Ziegler). The discovery of their nakedness excited shame, which they sought to conceal by an outward covering. “ They sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” The word always denotes the fig-tree, not the pisang ( Musa paradisiaca ), nor the Indian banana, whose leaves are twelve feet long and two feet broad, for there would have been no necessity to sew them together at all. , , are aprons, worn round the hips. It was here that the consciousness of nakedness first suggested the need of covering, not because the fruit had poisoned the fountain of human life, and through some inherent quality had immediately corrupted the reproductive powers of the body (as Hoffmann and Baumgarten suppose), nor because any physical change ensued in consequence of the fall; but because, with the destruction of the normal connection between soul and body through sin, the body ceased to be the pure abode of a spirit in fellowship with God, and in the purely natural state of the body the consciousness was produced not merely of the distinction of the sexes, but still more of the worthlessness of the flesh; so that the man and woman stood ashamed in each other’s presence, and endeavoured to hide the disgrace of their spiritual nakedness, by covering those parts of the body through which the impurities of nature are removed. That the natural feeling of shame, the origin of which is recorded here, had its root, not in sensuality or any physical corruption, but in the consciousness of guilt or shame before God, and consequently that it was the conscience which was really at work, is evident from the fact that the man and his wife hid themselves from Jehovah God among the trees of the garden, as soon as they heard the sound of His footsteps. (the voice of Jehovah, Gen 3:8) is not the voice of God speaking or calling, but the sound of God walking, as in 2Sa 5:24; 1Ki 14:6, etc. – In the cool of the day (lit., in the wind of the day), i.e., towards the evening, when a cooling wind generally blows. The men have broken away from God, but God will not and cannot leave them alone. He comes to them as one man to another. This was the earliest form of divine revelation. God conversed with the first man in a visible shape, as the Father and Instructor of His children. He did not adopt this mode for the first time after the fall, but employed it as far back as the period when He brought the beasts to Adam, and gave him the woman to be his wife (Gen 2:19, Gen 2:22). This human mode of intercourse between man and God is not a mere figure of speech, but a reality, having its foundation in the nature of humanity, or rather in the fact that man was created in the image of God, but not in the sense supposed by Jakobi, that “God theomorphised when creating man, and man therefore necessarily anthropomorphises when he thinks of God.” The anthropomorphies of God have their real foundation in the divine condescension which culminated in the incarnation of God in Christ. They are to be understood, however, as implying, not that corporeality, or a bodily shape, is an essential characteristic of God, but that God having given man a bodily shape, when He created him in His own image, revealed Himself in a manner suited to his bodily senses, that He might thus preserve him in living communion with Himself.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
7. And the eyes of them both were opened. It was necessary that the eyes of Eve should be veiled till her husband also was deceived; but now both, being alike bound by the chain of an unhappy consent, begin to be sensible of their wretchedness although they are not yet affected with a deep knowledge of their fault. They are ashamed of their nakedness, yet, though convinced, they do not humble themselves before God, nor fear his judgements as they ought; they even do not cease to resort to evasions. Some progress, however, is made; for whereas recently they would, like giants, assault heaven by storm; now, confounded with a sense of their own ignominy, they flee to hiding-places. And truly this opening of the eyes in our first parents to discern their baseness, clearly proves them to have been condemned by their own judgment. They are not yet summoned to the tribunal of God; there is none who accuses them; is not then the sense of shame, which rises spontaneously, a sure token of guilt? The eloquence, therefore, of the whole world will avail nothing to deliver those from condemnation, whose own conscience has become the judge to compel them to confess their fault. It rather becomes us all to open our eyes, that, being confounded at our own disgrace, we may give to God the glory which is his due. God created man flexible; and not only permitted, but willed that he should be tempted. For he both adapted the tongue of the serpent beyond the ordinary use of nature, to the devil’s purpose, just as if any one should furnish another with a sword and armor; and then, though the unhappy event was foreknown by him, he did not apply the remedy, which he had the power to do. On the other hand, when we come to speak of man, he will be found to have sinned voluntarily, and to have departed from God, his Maker, by a movement of the mind not less free than perverse. Nor ought we to call that a light fault, which, refusing credit to the word of God, exalted itself against him by impious and sacrilegious emulation, which would not be subject to his authority, and which, finally, both proudly and perfidiously revolted from him. Therefore, whatever sin and fault there is in the fall of our first parents remains with themselves; but there is sufficient reason why the eternal counsel of God preceded it, though that reason is concealed from us. We see, indeed, some good fruit daily springing from a ruin so dreadful, inasmuch as God instructs us in humility by our miseries and then more clearly illustrates his own goodness; for his grace is more abundantly poured forth, through Christ, upon the world, than it was imparted to Adam in the beginning. Now, if the reason why this is so lies beyond our reach, it is not wonderful that the secret counsel of God should be to us like a labyrinth. (175)
And they sewed fig – leaves together. What I lately said, that they had not been brought either by true shame or by serious fear to repentance, is now more manifest. They sew together for themselves girdles of leaves. (176) For what end? That they may keep God at a distance, as by an invincible barrier! Their sense of evil, therefore, was only confused, and combined with dulness, as is wont to be the case in unquiet sleep. There is none of us who does not smile at their folly, since, certainly, it was ridiculous to place such a covering before the eyes of God. In the meanwhile, we are all infected with the same disease; for, indeed, we tremble, and are covered with shame at the first compunctions of conscience; but self-indulgence soon steals in, and induces us to resort to vain trifles, as if it were an easy thing to delude God. Therefore unless conscience be more closely pressed there is no shadow of excuse too faint and fleeting to obtain our acquiescence; and even if there be no pretext whatever, we still make pleasures for ourselves, and, by an oblivion of three days’ duration, we imagine that we are well covered. (177) In short, the cold and faint (178) knowledge of sin, which is inherent in the minds of men, is here described by Moses, in order that they may be rendered inexcusable. (179) Then (as we have already said) Adam and his wife were yet ignorant of their own vileness, since with a covering so light they attempted to hide themselves from the presence of God.
(175) To the question, ‘Why God did not create man without a possibility of sinning’, Peter Martyr replies: “Because such a state could not be suitable to the nature of any rational creature; since the creature, as a creature, remains infirm and feeble; whereas, also, he is not entirely one with the rule by which he is to be directed, (otherwise he would be God, the chief good, and chief rectitude,) it follows, that his nature may diverge from that rule. It was, however, possible for grace to confirm him so that he should not sin, which is believed to be the state of angels and of saints in heaven. But that dignity or reward would not be so highly esteemed, if this fallible and inconstant state of man had not preceded it.” — Peter Martyr, in Gen., fol. 14. Tiguri, 1579. — Ed.
(176) “ Ex foliis perizomata.”
(177) “ Imo si nullus fucus suppetat, facimus tamen nobis delicias, et tridui oblivione putamus nos bene esse tectos.”
(178) “ Semimortua.”
(179) What immediately follows is here given in the original: “ Quaeritamen potest, si tota natura peccati sordibus infecta est, cur tantum una in parte corporis deformitas appareat. Neque enim faciem vel pectus operiunt Adam et Heva: sed tantum pudenda quae vocamus. Hac occasione factum esse arbitror ut vulgo non aliam vitae corruptelam agnoscerent quam in libidine venerea. Atqui expendere debebant, non minorem fuisse in oculis et auribus verecundiae causam, quam in parte genitali, quae peccato nondum foedata erat: quum aures et oculi inquinassent Adam et Heva, et diabolo quasi arma praebuissent. Sed Deo fuit satis, extare in corpore humano aliquam pudendam notam, quae nos peccati commonefaciat.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(7) The eyes of them both were opened.This consciousness of guilt came upon them as soon as they had broken Gods commandment by eating of the forbidden fruit; and it is evident from the narrative that they ate together; for otherwise Eve would have been guilty of leading Adam into sin after her understanding had been enlightened to perceive the consequences of her act. But manifestly her deed was not without his cognisance and approval, and he had shared, in his own way, her ambition of attaining to the God like. But how miserably was this proud desire dis appointed! Their increased knowledge brought only shame. Their minds were awakened and enlarged, but the price they paid for it was their innocence and peace.
They sewed fig leaves together.There is no reason for supposing that the leaves were those of the pisang (Musa paradisiaca), which grow ten feet long. Everywhere else the word signifies the common fig-tree (Ficus carica), one of the earliest plants subjected to mans use. More remarkable is the word sewed. The Syriac translator felt the difficulty of supposing Eve acquainted with the art of needlework, and renders it, they stuck leaves together. But the word certainly implies something more elaborate than this. Probably some time elapsed between their sin and its punishment; and thus there was not merely that first hasty covering of themselves which has made commentators look about for a leaf large enough to encircle their bodies, but respite sufficient to allow of something more careful and ingenious; and Eve may have used her first advance in intellect for the adornment of her person. During this delay they would have time for reflection, and begin to understand the nature of the change that had taken place in their condition.
Aprons.More correctly, girdles.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. Knew that they were naked Here is a stinging irony . Literally, Opened were the eyes of both of them, and they knew that naked were they! Their eyes were opened, indeed, as the serpent had predicted, but his word was like the lying oracles of the heathen world, which contained a delusive double sense . What were their eyes opened to know? That they were like God? No; but that they were naked! Here is a standing type of the vanity, vexation, shame, and confusion of face into which the glowing assurances of the old serpent always lead.
Aprons Or girdles, of fig leaves, fastened about the hips.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they joined fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.’
What a dreadful moment. Having eaten they suddenly became aware of their puniness, and their inadequacy, and that they could no longer face God because they were defiled. ‘They knew that they were naked’. It was true that they had indeed received a form of knowledge, but it was a knowledge of what they had lost, a knowledge that they could no longer be His representatives, a knowledge that they no longer enjoyed the approval of God, a knowledge that they lay bare before Him, a knowledge that they could no longer face Him. They had become aware that they had forfeited their position totally, aware that all that awaited them was death.
Their response to their nakedness is not said to have had anything to do with sexual awareness, and the fig leaves were not said to be placed delicately over their private parts. Rather what they wanted to do was to hide themselves, to cover themselves totally, for they were afraid of God. ‘They joined fig leaves together’. They had never had clothes and now they had to make a pathetic attempt to find something which would cover them. They could not, of course, sew. All they could do was take the feeble fig leaves and try somehow to join them together into coverings, something for which the fig leaves were really not suitable.
What a pass this couple have now come to. From proudly walking with God and having dominion over their world, they have come to scrabbling around trying pathetically to tie fig leaves together to make some kind of covering so that they could hide themselves from God. Truly they have received knowledge, the knowledge of what good was, and what evil is, the knowledge of the consequences of sin and disobedience. And what has it produced? Panic and fear.
The idea of nakedness here is that of inadequacy before God, of being seen for what they are. ‘All things are naked and open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do’ (Heb 4:13). We can compare with this how Paul does not want to be found ‘naked’ before God when he goes to meet Him (2Co 5:3). Nakedness was now a thing of shame (compare Isa 20:2-4; Eze 16:7; Rev 3:17). There is no reason at this stage to equate it with sexual awareness. That will come later.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Investigation of God
v. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. v. 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
The manner in which God dealt with the transgressors of His commandment is now shown.
v. 9. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? v. 10. And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself. v. 11. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? v. 12. And the man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. v. 13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Gen 3:7. And the eyes of them both were opened, &c. They found what the serpent had asserted to be true, Gen 3:5 but in a manner far different from expectation. Their eyes were opened, but not to a view of higher happiness: they were opened only to a sense of their sin, and consequently of their guilty shame. The phrase of their eyes being opened, in scripture, not only refers to the actual opening of the eyes, but also to men’s observing or knowing any thing of which they before were ignorant. See Isa 42:7 comp. Act 26:18. The eyes of them both were opened, i.e.. light and knowledge came into their minds, discovering to them what they were utter strangers to before. Le Clerc observes, that it is an elegance no less in the sacred than in profane writings, to make use of the figure, which rhetoricians call antonaclasis, whereby they continue the same word or phrase which went before, though in a quite different sense: and for this reason he supposes that Moses repeats that their eyes were opened, words which the serpent had used before, though he meant them in a sense quite different from the former.
They knew that they were naked See note on Act 26:25. of chap. 2: Shame followed hard upon sin: without the latter, the former could never have had being in the human mind. But no sooner were their minds opened to a consciousness of their guilt, than they felt all that uneasy anxiety which naturally attends this knowledge. Though this nakedness more peculiarly concerns the guilt and shame of their minds, yet as the body is the seat of the mind, and the index of its affections, therefore the shame is transferred to the body also, which, while the mind was pure, was unaffected by any natural appearances; but which, as soon as the mind became sinful and subject to the dominion of criminal affections, gave, by its nakedness, a continual admonition of guilt; and therefore, no wonder our first parents were immediately incited to cover it.
They sewed fig-leaves, &c. This might be rendered, with more propriety, “and they joined or folded together the leaves or branches of the fig-tree, and made themselves girdles; chegoroth.” Some think the Indian fig-tree is here meant, whose leaves are exceedingly large.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Observe the immediate effect of sin. Shame, guilt and fear, filled the mind of Adam. Observe also on the part of the Lord, how immediately grace manifested itself: Adam, where art thou? which, though implying the solemnity of enquiry concerning what Adam had done, yet no less implied, that pre-venient mercy had pardon in store. 1Jn 1:9 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Gen 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Ver. 7. They knew that they were naked. ] Bereft of God’s blessed image; no more of it left than, as of one of Job’s messengers, to bear witness of our great loss. I call it ours, because we were all in Adam, as Levi was in Abraham, or as the whole country is in a Parliament man. tie was our head; and if the head plot treason, all the body is guilty. Hence the prophet Hosea: “O Israel, one hath destroyed thee; but in me is thy help”. Hos 13:9 So some read it. Had we been by when this wretched “one” destroyed us all; had we seen him stand staggering betwixt God’s commandment and Eve’s allurement, not yet resolved which way to incline, and could have foreseen the danger hanging over him and ourselves, we would surely have cried out to him, Take heed, thou wretch. Cave miser And why do we not the same to ourselves, when solicited to sin?, Alterius perditio tua sit cautio saith Isidore; and, cavebis si pavebis saith another. a There is a practical judgment still practised in our hearts. On the one side is propounded the commodity of sin; on the other, the offence whereby we provoke God. So that in the one end of the balance is laid God, in the other sin, and man stands in the midst, rejecting the comnland of God, and accepting of the pleasure of sin. What is this but to prefer Paris before Paradise with Cardinal Bourbon, Barabbas before Christ, a thing of nought before heaven’s happiness? Our first parents were born with the royal robe of righteousness, as those Porphyrogeniti in Constantinople; but the devil soon stripped them of it (the same day, as some think), b and so they became sore ashamed of their bodily nakedness, which therefore they sought to cover by making themselves aprons to cover their privities.
Quest . But why did they, and do we still, so studiously hide those parts, rather than their eyes and ears, which they had abused to sin with?
Ans . Because sin has become natural, and derived by generation. Psa 51:7 Gen 5:3 Therefore circumcision was also on that part of man’s body; to show that that which was begotten thereby, deserved in like manner, as execrable and accursed, to be cut off and thrown away, by God. Here some ground their opinion, that it is a sin against nature to look on the nakedness of another. A foul shame it was for old Noah to lie so uncovered in the midst of his tent, but far fouler for those worshippers of Priapus, which Jerome and Isidore make to be that Baal-peor, Num 25:5 that shamed not to say, Nos, pudore pulso, stamus sub dove, coleis apertis & c. c But in man’s soul is now a , the seed of all sin, though never so heinous or hideous. Neither by nature is there ever a better of us; “but as in water face answereth to face, so doth the heart of a man to a man”. Pro 27:19 And as there were many Marii in one Caesar, so are there many Caius and Caiaphases in the best of us all. Totus homo est iuversus decalogus The whole man is in evil, and whole evil is in man. As the Chaos had the seeds of all creatures, and wanted only the Spirit’s motion to produce them; so our corrupt nature hath all sins in it, and wants but the warmth of Satan’s temptation to bring them into act, if God restrain not. Sure it is, we can stay no more from sinning, than the heart can from punting, and the pulse from beating. The first man defiled the nature; and ever since, the nature defiles the man. As poison put into a cup of wine disperseth itself, and makes it deadly; so original sin polluteth and poisoneth our whole man. And as the whitest ivory turns with the fire into the deepest black, the sweetest wine becomes the sourest vinegar; so here. The more unnatural any quality is, the more extreme will it be, as a cold wind from the south is intolerable, &c. So Adam, “being in honour, was without understanding,” and is now in worse case than the very “beasts that perish”:, Psa 49:20 Pecoribus morticinis saith Treme]; the beasts that die of the murrain, and so become carrion, and are good for nothing.
a Augustine.
b Purchas’s Pilgrims .
c Empedoclis vocab. apud Arist.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
knew. Figure of speech Metonymy (of Subj.) App-6. They knew before, but their knowledge now received a new meaning. Adam becomes “naked” by losing something of Elohim’s glorious likeness. Rom 8:3 may refer to this.
fig leaves. The man-made covering contrasted, in the structure, with the God-made clothing (Gen 3:21).
aprons. Hebrew word occurs only here.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
And the: Gen 3:5, Deu 28:34, 2Ki 6:20, Luk 16:23
knew: Gen 3:10, Gen 3:11, Gen 2:25
and they: Job 9:29-31, Isa 28:20, Isa 59:6
aprons: or, things to gird about
Reciprocal: Gen 3:21 – make Jdg 3:2 – might know 1Ki 13:21 – Thus saith 2Ch 28:19 – made Judah Job 31:33 – covered Pro 20:17 – is sweet Ecc 7:29 – they Eze 16:36 – and thy 1Co 12:23 – bestow 2Co 5:3 – being Rev 3:17 – naked
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Gen 3:7. The eyes of them both Of their minds and consciences, which hitherto had been closed and blinded by the arts of the devil; were opened As Satan had promised them, although in a very different sense. Now, when it was too late, they saw the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they were fallen into. They saw God was provoked, his favour forfeited, and his image lost. They felt a disorder in their own spirits, of which they had never before been conscious. They saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds, and captivating them both to sin and wrath; they saw that they were naked That is, that they were stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their paradise state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God; laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven, and earth, and their own consciences. And they sewed, or platted fig leaves together And, to cover at least part of their shame one from another, made themselves aprons See here what is commonly the folly of those that have sinned: they are more solicitous to save their credit before men, than to obtain their pardon from God!
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they {g} knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
(g) They began to feel their misery, but they did not seek God for a remedy.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The separation that sin produces in man’s relationship with God stands out clearly in these verses. Their new knowledge that the serpent promised would make them as God actually taught them that they were no longer even like each other. They were ashamed of their nakedness and sewed fig leaves together to hide their differences from each other (Gen 3:7). [Note: Sailhamer, "Genesis," p. 52.] Perhaps they chose fig leaves because fig leaves are large and strong.
The "cool" of the day is literally the "wind" of the day. God came to Adam and Eve in this wind. He came in a wind earlier in Creation (Gen 1:2) and later to Job (Job 38:1), Israel (Exo 20:18-21; cf. Deu 5:25), and Elijah (1Ki 19:11).
"A more complete transformation could not be imagined. The trust of innocence is replaced by the fear of guilt. The trees that God created for man to look at (Gen 2:9) are now his hiding place to prevent God seeing him." [Note: Wenham, p. 76.]
Gen 3:7 marks the beginning of the second dispensation, the dispensation of conscience (or moral responsibility). Adam and Eve had failed in their responsibility under the dispensation of innocence; they were now sinners. They had rebelled against a specific command of God (Gen 2:16-17), and this rebellion marked a transition from theoretical to experiential knowledge of good and evil. Their new responsibility now became to do all known good, to abstain from all known evil, and to approach God through blood sacrifice, which anticipated the sacrifice of Christ. As a period of testing for humanity, the dispensation of conscience ended with the Flood. However people continued to be morally responsible to God as He added further revelation of Himself and His will in succeeding ages (cf. Act 14:14-16; Rom 2:15; 2Co 4:2).
Eve did not die at once physically, but she did die at once spiritually. She experienced alienation in her relationship with God. Death means separation in the Bible, never annihilation. Sin always results in alienation: theologically (between God and man), sociologically (between man and man), psychologically (between man and himself), and ecologically (between man and nature). We might also add, sexually (between men and women) and maritally (between husbands and wives).
Three kinds of death appear in Scripture: physical-separation of the body and soul (the material and immaterial parts of the person), spiritual-separation of the person and God, and eternal-permanent separation of the person and God.
The Apostle Paul wrote that Eve was deceived (1Ti 2:14). This does not mean that women are by nature more easily subject to deception than men.
"There is nothing in Scripture to suggest that the woman was inferior to the man in any way or more susceptible to temptation than he was." [Note: Susan Foh, Women and the Word of God, p. 63.]
"The tempter addresses himself to the woman, probably not because she is more open to temptation and prone to sin, for that is hardly the conception of the Old Testament elsewhere. The reason may have lain in this, that the woman had not personally received the prohibition from God, as Adam had." [Note: Gerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology, p. 45.]
She may have received God’s word through Adam. Perhaps Satan appealed to Eve because she was not only under God’s authority but also under her husband’s authority and, therefore, more inclined to think God was withholding something from her.
"It is interesting to observe that when this sin is referred to throughout Scripture, it is not referred to as the sin of Eve-but rather as the sin of Adam! The phrase in Gen 3:6, ’with her,’ seems to suggest that Adam was at Eve’s side when she was tempted by Satan. As God’s theocratic administrator, and as the appointed head of the family, it was Adam’s responsibility to safeguard Eve and to assure that she remained in submission to the command of God. But Adam failed in his God-given responsibility and permitted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit." [Note: Pentecost, p. 37.]
Adam, however, was not deceived (1Ti 2:14). He sinned with his eyes wide open (Gen 3:6 b). Eve’s was a sin of initiative whereas Adam’s was one of acquiescence. [Note: Hamilton, p. 191.] Too much aggressiveness by a woman and too much passivity by a man still are tendencies of the respective sexes. Death "passed unto all men" (Rom 5:12) when Adam sinned because Adam, not Eve, was the head of the human race under God’s administration (cf. Gen 3:18-23). [Note: See Jimmy A. Milliken, "The Origin of Death," Mid-American Theological Journal 7:2 (Winter 1983):17-22.]
Some commentators have interpreted eating the forbidden fruit as a euphemism for having sexual intercourse. [Note: E.g., E. A. Speiser, Genesis, p. 26.] They say that the original sin was a sexual sin. However the text makes such an interpretation impossible. Eve sinned first (Gen 3:6), she sinned alone (Gen 3:6), and God had previously approved sex (Gen 1:28).
"Adam and Eve’s nakedness (Gen 2:25) does not idealize nudity but shows why human beings must wear clothes. With the Fall came a tragic loss of innocence (together with resulting shame). When people’s minds are enlightened by the gospel, they understand their moral frailty and practice customs of dress that shield them against sexual temptation." [Note: Waltke, Genesis, p. 103.]
The timeless lesson of these verses is that victory over temptation to violate God’s good will depends on a thorough knowledge of God’s word and unwavering confidence in God’s goodness. As Israel faced temptations to depart from God’s revealed will from the pagans she encountered, this record would have provided a resource for remaining faithful, as it does for us today. Often these temptations attract because they promise superior blessing and fulfillment, even divinity. Therefore, knowing God’s word is extremely important (cf. Deu 6:5-9; Deu 6:13-25; Psa 119:9-16). Satan tempted Jesus similarly to the way he tempted Eve. However, Jesus overcame victoriously by accurately using the word of God to remain faithful to the will of God. True wisdom comes by obeying, not disobeying, God’s word.