Commentary - Genesis 3:8-13

Bird's-eye view

This passage records the immediate aftermath of the fall, the first sin. Having disobeyed the clear command of God, Adam and Eve experience the initial consequences: fear, shame, and alienation from God. Their rebellion has shattered the open, face-to-face communion they previously enjoyed with their Creator. The scene is a tragic and foundational one, depicting the first covenantal lawsuit. God, the righteous judge, comes down to investigate the crime. He does not come in ignorance, but as a loving Father and King, calling His rebellious creatures out of hiding to confess their sin. What follows is a pathetic and telling display of human depravity in its infancy: fear-driven evasion, self-justification, and a cowardly shifting of blame. Adam blames the woman and, implicitly, God Himself. The woman blames the serpent. No one is willing to take responsibility. This is the headwaters of all human misery, the moment when the relational fabric of creation is torn, and it sets the stage for God's gracious promise of redemption that will follow.

In these few verses, we see the blueprint for how sin always operates. It drives us away from God, not toward Him. It replaces love with fear, and honesty with excuses. It severs fellowship both vertically with God and horizontally with one another. The interrogation by God is not for His information, but for their conviction. He is graciously giving them the opportunity to own their sin, to confess, and to cast themselves on His mercy. Their failure to do so demonstrates the depth of their fall and establishes humanity's desperate need for a Savior who will not hide, will not make excuses, and will take the blame for others.

Outline

Context In Genesis

Genesis 3 is the pivot point of the entire Bible. Chapters 1 and 2 describe God's "very good" creation, a world of order, beauty, and perfect fellowship between God and man. Man, created in God's image, is placed in the garden as a priest-king, tasked with serving and keeping it, with a single, clear prohibition: do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was the central stipulation of what theologians call the Covenant of Works. Obedience meant life; disobedience meant death. Our passage, verses 8-13, immediately follows the catastrophic breach of that covenant. The serpent has tempted Eve, Eve has eaten, and she has given the fruit to Adam, who was with her, and he ate. Their eyes were opened, and their first act was to try and cover their newfound shame with fig leaves. This section, then, is the formal confrontation between the Covenant Lord and His rebellious vice-regents. It is the beginning of the curse that will fall upon creation, but it is also the necessary prelude to the first promise of the gospel, the protoevangelium, in verse 15.

Key Issues

The First Hide-and-Seek

Before the fall, the sound of God approaching would have been the greatest delight of Adam and Eve's existence. It meant communion, fellowship, and blessing. But sin changes everything. Now, the same sound that once brought joy brings terror. Sin is fundamentally an anti-God principle; it cannot bear to be in His presence. The natural impulse of the sinner is not to run to God for mercy, but to run from God in fear. So Adam and Eve play the first, and most foolish, game of hide-and-seek in history. They attempt to conceal themselves from the presence of the Omnipresent One. They hide among the trees of the garden, the very creation they were meant to rule. It is a picture of utter futility. You cannot hide from God. You can no more hide from God in a forest than a fish can hide from water in the ocean. Their physical hiding is an external manifestation of their internal state. They are alienated, estranged, and terrified. This is the state of every natural man. Left to ourselves, we do not seek God; we flee from Him.

Verse by Verse Commentary

8 Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden.

The scene is set with a beautiful, almost gentle description. It is the "cool of the day," literally the "wind of the day," likely the evening breeze. This was the customary time for communion. Yahweh God is not pictured as a distant abstraction, but as one who walks in His garden. This is a profound anthropomorphism, depicting God's immanent and personal relationship with His creation. But the sound that once meant fellowship now triggers panic. Sin has turned delight into dread. Their reaction is immediate and instinctual: they hid themselves. Notice the text says "the man and his wife." Adam, the head, leads the way in this cowardly retreat. And where do they hide? "From the presence of Yahweh God." This is the essence of sin's effect. It is a flight from God's face. They try to use God's creation as a screen to block out the Creator. It is the first act of cosmic stupidity.

9 Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

God's first word to fallen man is a question. This is not a question of information. The omniscient God knew precisely where Adam was geographically. This is a question of relationship and accountability. It is the call of a seeking Father, a summons from a righteous Judge. The question is designed to pierce Adam's conscience. "Adam, what has happened to you? What is this new state you are in? Why are you not where you are supposed to be, walking in fellowship with me?" God addresses the man first. As the federal head of the human race and the one who received the command directly, Adam bears the primary responsibility. God is graciously drawing him out, giving him the first opportunity to confess.

10 And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

Adam's answer is a masterclass in evasion, a half-truth that functions as a whole lie. He answers factually, but not truthfully. He says he was afraid because he was naked. Fear is now a new and controlling emotion in the human heart. And the cause he gives is nakedness. But he was naked before and was not ashamed. The fig leaves had already failed to cover his real problem. His physical nakedness is just a symbol for his spiritual state: he is exposed, guilty, and stripped of his original righteousness. He confesses the symptom (fear) and the symbol (nakedness), but he avoids the disease (disobedience). He tells God what he did ("I hid"), but he will not yet say why he truly did it.

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?”

God presses the case. He will not let Adam get away with his superficial answer. The first question, "Who told you that you were naked?" is brilliant. It exposes the fact that Adam has a new source of information. His knowledge of shame did not come from God. It came from an illicit source. God is forcing him to confront the root of his new consciousness. Then God moves from circumstantial evidence to the direct charge. He puts His finger on the precise point of disobedience: "Have you eaten from the tree...?" This is the heart of the matter. The issue is not nakedness; the issue is rebellion against a clear command from the sovereign Creator. God is cornering him, leaving no room for further evasion. The time for confession has come.

12 And the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave to me from the tree, and I ate.”

Here we have it. The first sin is followed immediately by the second and third: cowardice and blame-shifting. Adam's response is utterly pathetic. He does not say, "I have sinned." Instead, he constructs a chain of blame that begins with the woman and ends with God Himself. First, he refers to Eve not by her name, but impersonally as "the woman." The one who was "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" is now a liability to be distanced. Second, he reminds God, "whom You gave to be with me." The implication is poisonous: "This is Your fault, God. You gave me this woman. If it weren't for Your bright idea, I wouldn't be in this mess." He tries to make God an accessory to the crime. Only after implicating both the woman and God does he get to the truth: "she gave to me... and I ate." He admits the action, but only after wrapping it in layers of excuse. He abdicates his headship, presents himself as a passive victim, and maligns the goodness of God. This is the grammar of sin.

13 Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

God then turns to the woman. His question to her is direct and sharp: "What is this you have done?" It calls for an accounting of her actions. Like Adam, she too evades direct responsibility. She points down the chain of command. "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Now, her statement is factually correct. The serpent did deceive her (2 Cor 11:3). But it is not a justification. Being deceived does not remove culpability. She chose to listen to the serpent's lies over God's clear truth. She, like her husband, presents herself as a victim. He was victimized by the woman; she was victimized by the serpent. The one thing they have in common is that neither will simply say, "I have sinned against You." The fall is complete. Not only have they broken God's law, but their hearts are now so corrupted that they are incapable of honest confession.

Application

This ancient story is our story. We are all the children of Adam, and his pathetic, blame-shifting, God-fleeing DNA runs through our veins. When confronted with our sin, what is our first instinct? Is it not to hide, to minimize, to excuse, to point the finger? We blame our spouse, our upbringing, our circumstances, our society. And if we are sophisticated enough, we might even subtly blame God for the way He wired us or the situation He put us in. We are experts at saying, "The person whom you gave me..." This passage forces us to look in the mirror and see the ugly truth about our fallen nature.

But the great glory of the gospel is that God did not leave us hiding in the trees. In the fullness of time, He sent the second Adam, Jesus Christ. When the Father called out in the garden of Gethsemane, "Where are you?" Jesus did not hide. He stepped forward and said, "I am he." When confronted with the sin of the world, He did not make excuses or shift blame. He who knew no sin took full responsibility for our sin. He took the blame that Adam tried to evade. He was stripped naked on the cross, bearing not just the symbol of our shame but the full weight of it. He did this so that we, who by nature hide from God, could be brought near to Him, clothed in a righteousness that is not our own. The answer to Adam's fear is the Son's love. The answer to Adam's hiding is the Son's open arms. The answer to Adam's blame-shifting is the Son's substitutionary death. Therefore, when God's word confronts our sin, we must not act like the first Adam. We must run to the second Adam, confessing freely, knowing that "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."