Kejadian 3:8-11

The Judgment Oracles of God at the Fall

3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about ¹  in the orchard at the breezy time ²  of the day, and they hid ³  from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 3:9 But the Lord God called to ⁴  the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ⁵  3:10 The man replied, ⁶  “I heard you moving about ⁷  in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 3:11 And the Lord God ⁸  said, “Who told you that you were naked? ⁹  Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” ¹⁰ 

Kejadian 20:5

20:5 Did Abraham ¹¹  not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ¹²  ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this with a clear conscience ¹³  and with innocent hands!”

Kejadian 42:21-22

42:21 They said to one other, ¹⁴  “Surely we’re being punished ¹⁵  because of our brother, because we saw how distressed he was ¹⁶  when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen. That is why this distress ¹⁷  has come on us!” 42:22 Reuben said to them, “Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t sin against the boy,’ but you wouldn’t listen? So now we must pay for shedding his blood!” ¹⁸ 

[3:8]  ¹ tn The Hitpael participle of הָלָךְ (halakh, “to walk, to go”) here has an iterative sense, “moving” or “going about.” While a translation of “walking about” is possible, it assumes a theophany, the presence of the Lord God in a human form. This is more than the text asserts.

[3:8]  ² tn The expression is traditionally rendered “cool of the day,” because the Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruakh) can mean “wind.” U. Cassuto (Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 152-54) concludes after lengthy discussion that the expression refers to afternoon when it became hot and the sun was beginning to decline. J. J. Niehaus (God at Sinai [SOTBT], 155-57) offers a different interpretation of the phrase, relating יוֹם (yom, usually understood as “day”) to an Akkadian cognate umu (“storm”) and translates the phrase “in the wind of the storm.” If Niehaus is correct, then God is not pictured as taking an afternoon stroll through the orchard, but as coming in a powerful windstorm to confront the man and woman with their rebellion. In this case קוֹל יְהוָה (qol yÿhvah, “sound of the Lord”) may refer to God’s thunderous roar, which typically accompanies his appearance in the storm to do battle or render judgment (e.g., see Ps 29).

[3:8]  ³ tn The verb used here is the Hitpael, giving the reflexive idea (“they hid themselves”). In v. 10, when Adam answers the Lord, the Niphal form is used with the same sense: “I hid.”

[3:9]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew verb קָרָא (qara’, “to call”) followed by the preposition אֶל־ or לְ (’el- or lÿ, “to, unto”) often carries the connotation of “summon.”

[3:9]  ⁵ sn Where are you? The question is probably rhetorical (a figure of speech called erotesis) rather than literal, because it was spoken to the man, who answers it with an explanation of why he was hiding rather than a location. The question has more the force of “Why are you hiding?”

[3:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he said.”

[3:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “your sound.” If one sees a storm theophany here (see the note on the word “time” in v. 8), then one could translate, “your powerful voice.”

[3:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (the Lord God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:11]  ⁹ sn Who told you that you were naked? This is another rhetorical question, asking more than what it appears to ask. The second question in the verse reveals the Lord God’s real concern.

[3:11]  ¹⁰ sn The Hebrew word order (“Did you from the tree – which I commanded you not to eat from it – eat?”) is arranged to emphasize that the man’s and the woman’s eating of the fruit was an act of disobedience. The relative clause inserted immediately after the reference to the tree brings out this point very well.

[20:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:5]  ¹² tn Heb “and she, even she.”

[20:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “with the integrity of my heart.”

[42:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.”

[42:21]  ¹⁵ tn Or “we are guilty”; the Hebrew word can also refer to the effect of being guilty, i.e., “we are being punished for guilt.”

[42:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the distress of his soul.”

[42:21]  ¹⁷ sn The repetition of the Hebrew noun translated distress draws attention to the fact that they regard their present distress as appropriate punishment for their refusal to ignore their brother when he was in distress.

[42:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and also his blood, look, it is required.” God requires compensation, as it were, from those who shed innocent blood (see Gen 9:6). In other words, God exacts punishment for the crime of murder.