Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“They heard Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.”
Genesis 3:8

There is no evidence anywhere in scripture that God came to the garden every day. There is no evidence that the man or his wife walked with God in the garden. However, something was wrong and God came to them. God came to where they were. He met them where they were. That is CONSISTENT throughout scripture. God ALWAYS meets us where we are. There is no time at all where our efforts are required – or effective – in getting to God. It is always God who makes the first move. Our position is one of response. Do we respond to Him? Do we lean into Him? Or do we try to hide and run away?

I have come to believe (and there is no evidence for this in scripture either) that the man and his wife before the Fall were very much like Jesus is now. Jesus can travel to and from heaven in an instant. In Jesus, we SPIRITUALLY can do that (Hebrews 4:16; Psalm 100:4), but not PHYSICALLY. I think the man and his wife could physically do it. And I think they did it toward the end of their day. In the cool part of the day. They’d go to the Throne and check in with God. They were 100% righteous, so they COULD do it. I think they did. God of course knew the moment that they sinned. But He waited (they did nothing to repent). And when the time came that they went to Him, and could not because of Sin, He went to them.

Which ever it was, God made the first move toward reconcilliation.

“the man and his wife hid themselves” How can you hide from God? It’s impossible (Psalm 139:7-12; Hebrews 4:13; Romans 8:38-39). Yet they tried. I always picture this like little children (think 2-4 years old) hiding in almost plain sight from their parent during hide-and-go-seek. Feet sticking out from under a couch. Head under a pillow and the rest of the body showing. The man and his wife standing in front of a bush while dressed in leaves. God standing there (I believe it was pre-incarnate Jesus like with Abram and Moses – Genesis 18; Exodus 3, especially from verse 7 onward) while fake looking around saying loudly, ‘I wonder where the man and his wife are? I cannot see them anywhere.’ It’s the futility of hiding that makes me laugh. Yet we so often act like God can’t see us. We run from Him into behaviour or places and then get surprised when He is still beside us (Hebrews 13:5).

The sage Malbim writes: ‘They heard the voice. Before the sin they were able to communicate with Hashem directly, as Moshe did, without the assistance of the imagination. Therefore their prophecies were accompanied by no sensory perceptions, either audible or visual. That is why they experienced no fright, unlike later prophets. Now, however, their physical natures had become dominant and their prophecies were cloaked in more tangible garb.’ Whereas before they sinned, they had joy in the Lord as obedient children, now they did not. Before they had nothing but trust. Now they had fear. They were having a FLESH response to God for the first time, instead of their usual SPIRIT response. Fear is the knowledge of the absence of righteousness.

The sage Radak writes: ‘He recognized at once that the voice belonged to G’d, and that G’d had come to speak to them about their sin. As a result, they hid among the trees of the garden out of shame over the fact that their genitals were exposed. Even though they had made these חגורות for themselves by sewing together the fig leaves, these were not enough to hide the areas of their bodies they felt ashamed of. They were perfectly aware, of course, that it is impossible to “hide” from G’d, else their entire intelligence would not have amounted to much. The Torah merely describes that they reacted in the time honoured human fashion when one is ashamed and wishes to hide the source of one’s shame. The reason why the Torah informs us that they heard G’d’s “voice” before they heard what He had to say, is that the Torah wishes to teach us something about good manners. 1) G’d wanted to give them an opportunity to hide; 2) one should not frighten people by addressing them suddenly without a person having had a chance to compose himself first in order to receive a visitor and to meet such a visitor after preparing for his visit. One should either knock on the door, or try and make voice contact by inquiring if the person is at home, etc. (Massechet Derech Eretz ) The reason why the Torah had to mention the expression רוח היום is that the wind carried the sound of the voice to them. עץ הגן, the word עץ here does not refer to a specific tree, but to the category of “trees,” as opposed to other, smaller plants. They took refuge due to their feeling of shame.’ I personally disagree on one point. I think God spoke not to give them the opportunity to hide, but to give them the opportunity to RESPOND. We have free will. We have choice. We are going to make mistakes. What we do after that is our choice and God gives us just enough space to make that choice (1 John 1:9).

The sage Steinsaltz writes: ‘It is difficult to appreciate the severity of the sin of the first man, who violated the sole command God had imposed upon him. From this point forward, humanity’s penchant for sinning would fall to the greatest depths. Perhaps the first man foresaw this and recoiled. It is possible that the man and woman were perplexed, even dazed and intoxicated, by the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They heard the voice of the Lord God as though it were moving in the garden with the day breeze. The Divine Presence was particularly manifest in the Garden of Eden. The man and his wife hid from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Before sinning, the man and his wife were like young children, who do only what they are supposed to do and are therefore not ashamed of their actions. For the first time, they sensed that they had acted improperly and felt ashamed and sought to hide.’