Genesis 3:7a Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
Not all of Satan’ promises are false. In v5 he promised Adam and Eve two things if they ate the forbidden fruit:
- “Your eyes will be opened”
- “You will be like God, knowing good and evil”
Both of these promises came true. They weren’t lies; they were cherry-flavored poison, appealing destroyers.
Genesis 3:7b and they knew that they were naked;
Notice what happened next. The first thing the text says they “knew” after eating the fruit of the knowledge was “that they were naked.”
They were naked in 2:25 too but they didn’t know it – that is, they weren’t aware of it.
Now they know it. The Hebrew word translated “knew” here is the one the KJV translates as “Adam knew Eve” Genesis 4:1 and 4:25 and as “Cain knew his wife” in 4:17.
It refers to intimate knowledge. That was the result of eating the fruit. Not nakedness itself, but *awareness* of their nakedness. The good and evil knowledge they didn’t have before they ate was self-awareness.
You might remember that self-awareness was present at the beginning of their temptation. Now as their eyes opened they became even more self-conscious. Sin intensified its focus.
God Himself will draw the connection between self-awareness and sin in v.11 when He says “who told you that you were naked [self-awareness]. Did you eat that fruit I commanded you not to eat [sin]?”
Self-consciousness is sin’s birthmark. If we could see only God and not see ourselves, we would be perfected creatures. As it is, though, we are distracted by the shiny things of the world and lose our focus.
This is also the conundrum of the Law – remember that this began with a command from God, a Law. Sin takes advantage of the self-awareness that the Law imparts to bring death to us (Rom 7:7-13). The law lets us know what is righteous, but sin abuses that knowledge to cause us to recognize our own failures (i.e., it makes us aware of ourselves).
So now that Adam and Eve knew good and evil by experience and realized they were naked, they scurried to get dressed. Shame (which can’t exist without self-consciousness) made them want to cover their sin.
Of course, we know that God will always see our sin plainly. We may be able to hide it from other people but not from Him.
Genesis 3:7c and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. 8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." 11 And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
Notice how the story shifts from looking at them as a unit in vv.7-8…
- Both of THEIR eyes were opened and THEY knew they were naked (3:7)
- THEY sewed fig leaves together to make loin coverings (3:7)
- THEY heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden (3:8)
… to treating them as individuals in v.9:
- And then God called “to the man” and asked “where are you” (3:9).
Adam becomes the focus of the story again. Adam was the accountable one. Eve was created to be a helper for him, not to be his leader. They were not interchangeable –God addressed the man when things went wrong.
It’s interesting to note that God is directly quoted only one other time in the story. That was in
2:16-18, when He told Adam the one thing he wasn’t allowed to do: “
From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
In other words, up to this point God’s speech has only been to Adam and focused upon Himself. That changes here.
Adam, self-conscious and in God’s presence, said he was afraid and “
I was naked so
I hid *myself*” (3:10).
The point I’m trying to make, though I’m not sure how effectively, is that there is no “we” here. Adam was worried about himself, not about Eve. God asked “
who told you that you were naked” because the only way a non-self-conscious being could even know that is if someone told him.
The obvious answer was that he ate from the tree. That’s what caused him to be conscious of himself.
