Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together… 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" (ver. 7); and a dread of judgment — "Adam and his wife hid themselves," through fear, as Adam afterwards admits — "I was afraid" (ver. 8, 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 woman's pain in child-bearing; (2) Her subjection to the man; (3) The man's 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" (ver. 21). (R. S. Candlish, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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