2 Corinthians 5:3

If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) If so be that being clothed . . .—The Greek particles express rather more than the English phrase does, the truth of what follows. “If, as I believe . . .,” though not a translation, would be a fair paraphrase. The confident expectation thus expressed is that in the resurrection state the spirit will not be “naked,” will have, i.e., its appropriate garment, a body—clothing it with the attributes of distinct individuality. To the Greek, Hades was a world of shadows. Of Hades, as an intermediate state, St. Paul does not here speak, but he is sure that, in the state of glory which seemed to him so near, there will be nothing shadowy and unreal. The conviction is identical with that expressed in 1Corinthians 15:35-49, against those who, admitting the immortality of the spirit, denied the resurrection of the body.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-8 The believer not only is well assured by faith that there is another and a happy life after this is ended, but he has good hope, through grace, of heaven as a dwelling-place, a resting-place, a hiding-place. In our Father's house there are many mansions, whose Builder and Maker is God. The happiness of the future state is what God has prepared for those that love him: everlasting habitations, not like the earthly tabernacles, the poor cottages of clay, in which our souls now dwell; that are mouldering and decaying, whose foundations are in the dust. The body of flesh is a heavy burden, the calamities of life are a heavy load. But believers groan, being burdened with a body of sin, and because of the many corruptions remaining and raging within them. Death will strip us of the clothing of flesh, and all the comforts of life, as well as end all our troubles here below. But believing souls shall be clothed with garments of praise, with robes of righteousness and glory. The present graces and comforts of the Spirit are earnests of everlasting grace and comfort. And though God is with us here, by his Spirit, and in his ordinances, yet we are not with him as we hope to be. Faith is for this world, and sight is for the other world. It is our duty, and it will be our interest, to walk by faith, till we live by sight. This shows clearly the happiness to be enjoyed by the souls of believers when absent from the body, and where Jesus makes known his glorious presence. We are related to the body and to the Lord; each claims a part in us. But how much more powerfully the Lord pleads for having the soul of the believer closely united with himself! Thou art one of the souls I have loved and chosen; one of those given to me. What is death, as an object of fear, compared with being absent from the Lord!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

If so be that being clothed - This passage has been interpreted in a great many different ways. The view of Locke is given above. Rosenmuller renders it, "For in the other life we shall not be wholly destitute of a body, but we shall have a body." Tyndale renders it, "If it happen that we be found clothed, and not naked." Doddridge supposes it to mean, "since being so clothed upon, we shall not be found naked, and exposed to any evil and inconvenience, how entirely soever we may be stripped of everything we can call our own here below." Hammond explains it to mean, "If, indeed, we shall, happily, be among the number of those faithful Christians, who will be found clothed upon, not naked." Various other expositions may be seen in the larger commentaries. The meaning is probably this:

(1) The word "clothed" refers to the future spiritual body of believers; the eternal habitation in which they shall reside.

(2) the expression implies an earnest desire of Paul to be thus invested with that body.

(3) it is the language of humility and of deep solicitude, as if it were possible that they might fail, and as if it demanded their utmost care and anxiety that they might thus be clothed with the spiritual body in heaven.

(4) it means that in that future state, the soul will not be naked; that is, destitute of any body, or covering. The present body will be laid aside. It will return to corruption, and the disembodied Spirit will ascend to God and to heaven. It will be disencumbered of the body with which it has been so long clothed. But we are not thence to infer that it will be destitute of a body; that it will remain a naked soul. It will be clothed there in its appropriate glorified body; and will have an appropriate habitation there. This does not imply, as Bloomfield supposes, that the souls of the wicked will be destitute of any such habitation as the glorified body of the saints; which may be true - but it means simply that the soul shall not be destitute of an appropriate body in heaven, but that the union of body and soul there shall be known as well as on earth.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. If so be, &c.—Our "desire" holds good, should the Lord's coming find us alive. Translate, "If so be that having ourselves clothed (with our natural body, compare 2Co 5:4) we shall not be found naked (stripped of our present body)."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Some make the clothing here spoken of different from the clothing before mentioned; and make this verse restrictive of what the apostle had before said, of the certainty which some have of being clothed upon with a glorious body.

If so be (saith the apostle) we shall not be found naked, but clothed, i.e. with the wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness; for concerning those that do not die in the Lord, that do not watch, and keep their garments, it is said, Revelation 16:15, they shall walk naked, and men shall see their shame. But considering the clothing before mentioned was not this clothing, but the superinducing of an immortal, incorruptible, glorious state of body, upon our mortal, corruptible state, some judicious interpreters think, that the clothing here mentioned is the clothing of the soul with the body. It is manifest that the apostles apprehended Christ’s second coming much nearer than it hath proved. Therefore he saith, 1 Thessalonians 4:15: We that are alive (supposing that generation might live) to Christ’s second coming; and 1 Corinthians 15:51: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. This some think (and that not improbably) is the cause of this passage; the sense of which they judge to be this: If so be that we be, at the resurrection, found in the flesh, clothed still with our bodies, and shall not be found naked, that is, stripped of our flesh, and dead before that time.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

If so be that being clothed,.... This supposition is made with respect to the saints who shall be alive at Christ's second coming, who will not be stripped of their bodies, and so will "not be found naked", or disembodied, and shall have a glory at once put upon them, both soul and body; or these words are an inference from the saints' present clothing, to their future clothing, thus; "seeing we are clothed", have not only put on the new man, and are clothed and adorned with the graces of the Spirit, but are arrayed with the best robe, the wedding garment, the robe of Christ's righteousness,

we shall not be found naked; but shall be clothed upon with the heavenly glory, as soon as we are dismissed from hence. Some read these words as a wish, "O that we were clothed, that we might not be found naked!" and so is expressive of one of the sighs, and groans, and earnest desires of the saints in their present situation after the glories of another world.

Geneva Study Bible

{2} If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

(2) An exposition of the former saying: we do not without reason desire to be clad with the heavenly house, that is, with that everlasting and immortal glory, as with a garment. For when we depart from here we will not remain naked, having cast off the covering of this body, but we will take our bodies again, which will put on as it were another garment besides. And therefore we do not sigh because of the weariness of this life, but because of the desire of a better life. Neither is this desire in vain, for we are made to that life, the pledge of which we have, even the Spirit of adoption.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

2 Corinthians 5:3. After 2 Corinthians 5:2 a comma only is to be placed, for 2 Corinthians 5:3 contains a supplementary definition to what precedes (comp. Hartung, Partikell. I. pp. 391, 395 f.), inasmuch as the presupposition is stated under which the ἐπενδύσασθαι ἐπιποθοῦμεν takes place: in the presupposition, namely, that we shall be found also clothed, not naked, i.e. that we shall be met with at the Parousia really clothed with a body, and not bodiless. The apostle’s view is that, while Christ at the Parousia descends from heaven, the Christians already dead first rise, then those still alive are transformed, whereupon both are then caught away into the higher region of the air (εἰς ἀέρα) to meet the Lord, so that they thus at their meeting with the Lord shall be found not bodiless (οὐ γυμνοί), but clothed with a corporeal covering[211] (ἐνδυσάμενοι). See 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, and Lünemann’s note thereon. This belief is here laid down as certainty by εἴγε κ.τ.λ., and as such it conditions and justifies the longing desire expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:2, which, on the contrary, would be vain and empty dreaming, if that belief were erroneous, i.e. if we at the Parousia should be found as mere spirits without corporeality; so that thus those still living, instead of being transformed, would have to die, in order to appear as spirits before the descending Christ. We cannot fail to see in the words an incidental reference to those of the Corinthians who denied the resurrection, and without the thought of them Paul would have had no occasion for adding 2 Corinthians 5:3; but the reference is such, as takes for granted that the deniers are set aside and the denied fact is certain. As the whole of this explanation is quite in keeping with the context and the conceptions of the apostle, so is it with the words, regarding which, however, it is to be observed that the certainty of what is posited by εἴγε, if namely, is not implied in this particle by itself (in opposition to Hermann’s canon, ad Viger. p. 834), but in the connection of the conception and discourse. Comp. on Ephesians 3:2, Galatians 3:4, and Baeumlein, Partik. p. 64 f. On καί, also, in the sense of really, see Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 132; and on εἴ γε καί, comp. Xen. Mem. iii. 6. 13. The participle ἐνδυσάμενοι refers, however, to the act of clothing previous to the εὑρεθησόμεθα, so that the aorist is quite in its right place (in opposition to Hofmann’s objection, that the perfect is required); and finally, the asyndeton ἐνδυσάμ., οὐ γυμνοί makes the contrasts come into more vivid prominence, like γάλα, οὐ βρῶμα, 1 Corinthians 3:2; Romans 2:29; 1 Thessalonians 2:17, and often; comp. 2 Corinthians 5:7. See Kühner, II. p. 461; Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 31; Hermann, ad Viger. p. 887.

The most current exposition on the part of others is: “Si nos iste dies deprehendet cum corpore, non exutos a corpore, si erimus inter mutandos, non inter mortuos,” Grotius. So, following Tertullian (de Resurr. 41, though he reads ἐκδυσ.), Cajetanus, Castalio, Estius, Wolf, Bengel, Mosheim, Emmerling, Schrader, Rinck, and others, and, in the main, Billroth also, who, however, decides in favour of the reading εἴπερ, and deletes the comma after ἐνδυσάμ.: “which (i.e. the being clothed upon) takes place, if we shall be found (on the day of the Lord) otherwise than already once clothed (with the earthly body), not naked (like the souls of the dead),” so that ἐνδυσάμ. οὐ γυμνοὶ εὑρ. together would be: utpote jam semel induti non nudi inveniemur. Against that common explanation, which J. Müller, von der Sünde, II. p. 422 f., ed. 5, also follows with the reading εἴπερ, the aorist participle is decisive (it must have been ἐνδεδυμένοι).[212] Billroth, however, quite arbitrarily imports the already once, and, what could be more unnecessary, nay, vapid, than to give a reason for οὐ γυμνοί by means of ἐνδυσάμ. in the assumed sense: since we indeed have already once received a body! which would mean nothing else than: since we indeed are not born bodiless. Against Billroth, besides, see Reiche, p. 357 f. According to Fritzsche, Diss. I. p. 55 ff., ἐνδυσάμ. is held to be in essential meaning equivalent to ἐπενδυσάμ.: “Superinduere (immortale corpus vivi ad nos recipere) volumus, quandoquidem (quod certo scimus et satis constat, εἴγε) etiam superinduti (immortali corpore) non nudi sc. hoc immortali corpore, sumus futuri h. e. quandoquidem vel sic ad regni Mess. ἀφθαρσίαν perveniemus.” But while the ἐπενδυσάμενοι may be included as a species among the ἐνδυσάμενοι, as opposed to the γυμνοί, they cannot be meant exclusively. Besides, the thought: “since we too clothed upon will not be without the immortal body,” would be without logical import, because the superinduere is just the assumption of the future body, with which we attain to the ἀφθαρσία of the Messianic kingdom. According to de Wette, Paul says: “if, namely, also (in reality) clothed, we shall be found not naked (bodiless), i.e. as we then certainly presuppose that that heavenly habitation will be also a body.” So, in the main, Lechler, Apost. u. nachapost. Zeitalt. p. 138 f., Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, I. p. 118, the latter taking εἴγε καί as although indeed. But the whole explanation is absurd, since the ἔνδυσις could not at all be conceived as at the same time its opposite, as γυμνότης; and had Paul wished to lay emphasis on the fact that the clothing would be none other than with a body (which, however, was quite obvious of itself), he must have used not the simple γυμνοί (not the simple opposite of ἐνδυσάμ.), but along with it the more precise definition with which he was concerned, something, therefore, like οὐ σώματος γυμνοί (Plato, Crat. p. 403 B, and the passages in Wetstein and Loesner). According to Delitzsch, l.c. p. 436, εἰ καί is taken as although, and ἐνδυσάμ. as contrast of ἐπενδυσάμ., so that there results as the meaning: though, indeed, we too, having acquired the heavenly body by means of clothing (not clothing over), shall be found not naked. As if this were not quite obvious of itself! When clothed, one certainly is not naked! no matter whether we have drawn the robe on or o2Co 5:Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Oecumenius take ἐνδυσάμ. as equivalent to σῶμα ἄφθαρτον λαβόντες, but γυμνοί as equivalent to γυμνοὶ δόξης, for the resurrection is common to all, but not the δόξα. So also Usteri, Lehrbegr. p. 392 f.: “We long after being clothed upon, which event, however, is desirable for us only under the condition or presupposition that we, though clothed, shall not be found naked in another sense,” namely, denuded of the garland which we should have gained. Here also we may place Olshausen (comp. Pelagius, Anselm, Calvin, Calovius, and others), who takes οὐ γυμνοί as epexegetical of ἐνδυσάμ., and interprets the two thus: if we, namely, are found also clothed with the robe of righteousness, not denuded of it. Comp. also Osiander, who thinks of the spiritual ornament of justification and sanctification; further, Hofmann on the passage and in his Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 473, who, putting a comma after εἴγε (“if we, namely, in consequence of the fact that we also have put on, shall be found not naked”), understands ἐνδυσάμενοι as a designation of the Christian status (the having put on Christ), which one must have in order not to stand forth naked and, therefore, unfitted for being clothed o2Co 5:But where in the text is there any suggestion of a garland, a robe, an ornament of righteousness, a putting on of Christ (Galatians 3:27; Romans 13:14), or of the Christian status (1 Thessalonians 5:8; Ephesians 6:14; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10), or anything else, which does not mean simply the clothing with the future body? Olshausen, indeed, is of opinion that there lies in καί a hint of a transition to another figure; but without reason, as is at once shown by what follows; and with equal justice any change in the figure at our pleasure might be admitted! This also in opposition to Ewald’s interpretation: “if we at least being also clothed (after we have had ourselves clothed, i.e. raised again) be found not naked, namely, guilty, like Adam and Eve, Genesis 3:11.” This would point to the resurrection of the wicked, Revelation 20:12-15; if we belonged to these, we should certainly not have the putting on of glorification to hope for. But such a reference was just as remote from the mind of the apostle, who is speaking of himself and those like him, as the idea of Adam and Eve, of whom Beza also thinks in γυμνοί, must, in the absence of more precise indication, have remained utterly remote from the mind of the reader.

[211] That is, with the new body, no longer with the old. See, in opposition to Klöpper, Hofmann, p. 130.

[212] Even Müller acknowledges that the aorist is anomalous, but makes an irrelevant appeal to Ephesians 6:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:8. In both passages, in fact, the having put on is longed for, and the aorist is therefore quite in order.

REMARK.

Whether the reading ἐχδυσ. or ἐνδυσ. be adopted, it is not to be explained of an interim body between death and resurrection (Flatt, p. 69; Schneckenburger, l.c. p. 130; Schott; Auberlen in the Stud. u. Krit. 1852, p. 709; Martensen, § 276; Nitzsch, Göschel, Rinck, and others, including Reiche,[213] l.c.), of which conception there is no trace in the New Testament;[214] but rather, since γυμνοί can only refer to the lack of a body: if we, namely, even in the case that we shall be unclothed (shall have died before the Parousia), shall be found not naked (bodiless), in which the idea would be implied: assuming, namely, that we in every case, even in the event of our having died before the Parousia, will not appear before Christ without a body; hence the wish of attaining the new body without previous death is all the better founded (ἐπενδύσασθαι). Similarly Rückert. Kling (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1839, p. 511) takes it inaccurately: “although we, even if an unclothing has ensued, will not be found bare,” by which Paul is held to say: “even if the severing process of death has ensued, yet the believers will not appear bodiless on the day of the Lord, since God gives them the resurrection-body.”[215] The error of this view lies in although. No doubt Kling, with Lachmann, reads εἴπερ. But even this never means quamvis (not even in 1 Corinthians 8:5), and the Homeric use of εἴπερ in the sense: if also nevertheless, if even ever so much (Odyss. i. 167; Il. i. 81, and Nägelsbach’s note thereon, p. 43, ed. 3), especially with a negative apodosis (see Hartung, I. p. 339; Kühner, II. p. 562), passed neither into the Attic writers nor into the N. T.

[213] Reiche, p 364: “Quo certior nobis est gloriosae immortalitatis spes (γάρ, c. 2), eo impensiore quidem desiderio, ut morte non intercedente propediem ad summum beatitudinis fastigium evehamur, flagramus; attamen vero etiam corpore hoc per mortem exuti sentiendi agendique instrumento non carebimus.” εἴγε καί is, in his view, concessive, moderating the desire to assume the heavenly body without previously dying (ἐπενδύσασθαι, ver. 2): “Si igitur Deus votis (ver. 2) non annuerit, animum haud despondemus anxiive futura anhelamus, persuasi scilicet, et post mortem illico mentem nostram immortalem in statum beatissimum evectum iri,” etc. It is true that Reiche himself declares against the view that Paul here speaks of a body intermediate between death and resurrection; but his own view amounts to much the same thing, since Paul, according to it, is supposed to grant that we, unclothed of the earthly body by death, will yet “post mortem illico” be found not naked,

[214] The manner also in which the origin of this corporeality has been conceived, namely, as the soul’s self-embodiment by putting on the elements of the higher world (see, especially, Güder, Ersch. Chr. unt. d. Todten, p. 336, also West. in the Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 280), has nowhere in Scripture any basis whatever. See, in opposition to it, Delitzsch, p. 438; Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, III. 2, p. 436, who, however (p. 74 f.), for his part, answers in the affirmative the question, whether we are to think of “a change of clothing and clothing over of the new man out of the transfigured corporeality of the Lord, whose communion is the blessed bread and the blessed cup.” In any case, γυμνοί the negation of corporeality. But the question remains untouched (comp. the cautious remarks of J. Müller, p. 425), what organ of its activity the soul retains in death, when it is divested of the body. On this point we have no instruction in Scripture, and conjectures (like Weisse’s conception of the nerve-spirit) lead to nothing. The opinion that the Lord’s Supper has a transfiguring power over the body goes partly against Scripture (because it presupposes the participation of the transfigured body of Christ) and partly beyond Scripture (because the latter contains nothing regarding any power of the Lord’s Supper over the body). Ultra quod scriptum est is also the conception in Delitzsch of the body-like appearance of the bodiless soul itself, or of an outline of the same resembling in form its true inward state. Such theories bring us into the realm of phantasmagoric hypotheses.

[215] So in the main did Chrysostom interpret the reading ἐκδυσάμινοι (for so we are to read in the explanation first quoted by him, comp. Matthaei in loc.): κἂν ἀποθώμεθα τὸ σῶμα, οὐ χωρὶς σώματος ἐκεῖ παραστησόμεθα, ἀλλὰ καὶ μετὰ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀφθάρτου γενομένου.

Expositor's Greek Testament

2 Corinthians 5:3. εἴ γε καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι κ.τ.λ.: if so be that (εἴ γε = siquidem; cf. Ephesians 3:2; Ephesians 4:21, Colossians 1:23) we shall be found also clothed, sc., with the heavenly body (note ἐνδυς., not ἐπενδυς., which would only be appropriate of the body to be “superindued” in the case of one surviving to the Second Advent), not naked, sc., disembodied spirits at the Day of His Appearing, a condition from the thought of which he shrinks. γυμνός was commonly used in this sense in Greek philosophy; Alford quotes Plato, Cratyl., p. 277 c., ἡ ψυχὴ γυμνὴ τοῦ σώματος (see 1 Corinthians 15:37); cf. also Philo de Hum., 4, τῆς ψυχῆς ἀπογυμνουμένης.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked] Rather, with Tyndale, whom Cranmer follows, yet if (some recent editors, following another reading, would render seeing) that we shall be found clothed, not naked. This passage has been variously explained. Some regard it (1) as asserting that at the last day we are certain to receive a Resurrection-body, and not to be left as disembodied spirits. Others, as Bp Wordsworth, remembering that γυμνός does not mean literally naked, but (John 21:7; cf. Xen. Anab. iv. iv. 12) destitute of the upper garment, interpret it (2) ‘if we shall be found in the Resurrection-body at the last day,’ not in the frail mortal tenement which we must otherwise resume. The chief objection to these interpretations is that the word ‘found’ applies rather to the condition in which we are, than to that in which we are to be when Christ comes. It will therefore be best to follow the interpretation which regards the passage as referring to the possibility of St Paul and those to whom he is speaking being alive at the coming of Christ (see 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and note on 1 Corinthians 15:51), and to translate if (in that day) we shall be found clothed (with the body), not naked (i.e. disembodied). The various readings which are found in this passage increase the difficulty of explaining it. For (1) the word translated if so be is found in two different forms in the early Greek copies of this Epistle, the one expressing a greater, the other a less degree of uncertainty. Then (2) some copies read ‘unclothed’ for ‘clothed,’ so that the passage then runs if when unclothed (of the body) we shall not be found naked. But this reading was probably introduced by some copyist who could not comprehend the passage as it stood.

Bengel's Gnomen

2 Corinthians 5:3. Εἴγε καὶ, if indeed even [if so be]) That, which is wished for, 2 Corinthians 5:2, has place [holds good] should the last day find us alive.—ἐνδυσάμενοι, being clothed) We are clothed with the body, 2 Corinthians 5:4, in the beginning.—οὐ γυμνοὶ) not naked, in respect to [not stripped of] this body, i.e. dead.—εὐρεθησόμεθα, we shall be found) by the day of the Lord.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - If so be that. The verse may be rendered, "If, that is, being clothed, we shall not be found naked." The word "naked" must then mean "bodiless," and the reference will be to those whom, at his coming, Christ shall find clothed in these mortal bodies, and not separated from them, i.e. quick and not dead (1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:51). This seems to be the simplest and most natural of the multitude of strange interpretations with which the pages of commentators are filled. It is true that the aorist endusamenoi, means literally, "having clothed ourselves," and that, in taking this meaning, we should have expected the perfect participle endedumenoi, having been clothed. If this be thought an insuperable difficulty, we must suppose the verse to mean "If, that is, in reality we shall be found [at Christ's coming] after having put on some intermediate body, and therefore not as mere disembodied spirits." But there is no allusion in Scripture to any intermediate body, nor is any gleam of light shed on the mode of life among the dead between death and resurrection, though the Church rejects the dream of Psychopannychia, or an interval of unconscious sleep. The uncertainty of the meaning is increased by two various readings, ei per instead of ei ge, which latter expresses greater doubt about the matter; and ekdusamenoi (D, F, G), which would mean "if in reality, after unclothing ourselves [i.e. after 'shuffling off this mortal coil'], we shall not be found naked." This seems to be the conjecture of some puzzled copyists, who did not see that a contrast, and not a coincidence, between the two expressions is intended. If this reading were correct, it would mean, as Chrysostom says, "Even if we would lay aside the body. we shall not there be presented without a body, but with the same body which has then become incorruptible." It is quite untenable to make "clothed" mean "clothed with righteousness," as Olshausen does. In the Talmud, 'Shabbath' (f. 152, 2), the righteous are compared to men who keep from stain the robes given them by a king (i.e. their bodies), which robes the king deposits in his treasury and sends the wearers away (bodiless) in peace; but foolish servants stain these robes, and the king sends the robes to the wash, and the wearers in prison. 2 Corinthians 5:3

Vincent's Word Studies

If so be (εἴ γε)

Assuming that.

Being clothed

Compare Job 10:11.

Naked (γυμνοὶ)

Without a body. The word was used by Greek writers of disembodied spirits. See the quotation from Plato's "Gorgias" in note on Luke 12:20; also "Cratylus," 403, where, speaking of Pluto, Socrates says: "The foolish fears which people have of him, such as the fear of being always with him after death, and of the soul denuded (γυμνὴ) of the body going to him." Stanley cites Herodotus' story of Melissa, the Corinthian queen, who appeared to her husband after death, entreating him to burn dresses for her as a covering for her disembodied spirit (v., 92). The whole expression, being clothed - naked is equivalent to we shall not be found naked because we shall be clothed.