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Standing Naked Before God: Eve

  • Eva Marie Everson Featured Writer
  • Updated May 12, 2021
Standing Naked Before God: Eve

The following article is part of a continuing series on "Ah-Ha! Moments" in the Bible.

I love ah-ha moments. I expect them literally every time I read from the Word. You see, God is not like man when it comes to what He says. Or, I should say, not like me. He doesn’t waste His words. So every book, every chapter, every verse, every word of His Word has been spoken and then written for a purpose.

Would you like to explore one of those ah-ha moments with me now?

Quiet Moments with God
While raising my children — when they were little things — I often had to steal away for time alone with God. I prayed in the oddest places, one of them being the shower. It was one of the few spaces I could actually carve out a little time for myself without someone wanting my attention (though I do recall a handful of incidences of little hands jerking back the shower curtain to tell me something that — by golly — could have waited a few more minutes).

I also remember clearly telling God, as I rinsed conditioner from my hair, that I felt ridiculous standing there completely naked before Him, talking as though I were fully clothed and kneeling before the altar at our church. But then God reminded me that I was fully naked at the moment of my conception, all during the nine months my mother had carried me in her womb, and on the day I was born…that it hadn’t bothered Him then and it certainly didn’t bother Him now.

I had to laugh. After all, I wasn’t the first to stand naked before Him and I certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Eve: The First Woman, Naked or Not
No, I wasn’t the first. In fact, the first was a woman we know as Eve, created from man’s rib and, like him, in God’s image. Lovely, no doubt to look upon and perfect in form. No need for Nutri-system or Weight Watchers or any other form of dieting we have now devised as we attempt the body beautiful.

And naked (as my mother used to say) “as a jaybird.”

We all know the story. Not only was she naked, she was unashamed of that nakedness.

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.[1]

It wouldn’t always be that way. A momentary lapse in judgment over a piece of fruit (wouldn’t you know food would be a part of all this) and Eve went from naked and not caring to naked and ashamed.

In the South, where I’m from, we have two ways of saying “naked.” The first way is pronounced in the common language: na·ked. But the second way is better pronounced “neck-id.”

One Word, Two Definitions
Same word, two different meanings. The first one means you are undressed. The second one means you are undressed and you are up to something.

Check this out: In verse 25 of Genesis 2 (above) the word naked is (in Hebrew) arowm. This is the only time in the book of Genesis that this particular word is used. (It is, actually, used only 15 times in the entire Old Testament.) It means, quite simply: bare (naked).

After the sinful choice of Adam and Eve (the eating of the fruit), we read: Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked…[2]

At first glance, it appears the words “naked” and “naked” mean the same thing. But, no. In Hebrew, they are not even the same word. This “naked” is `eyrom, which is remarkably similar to the word by which it came (its origin), `aram, meaning “to be subtle, be shrewd, be crafty, beware, take crafty counsel, be prudent.”[3]

The Ah-ha Moment
Genesis 3 begins with these fateful words:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.

“Crafty” is, in Hebrew, `aruwm. Guess what word this one has root in? If you answered, `aram, then you are absolutely correct.

Eve was more than just “unclothed and aware of it” after that significant bite of the forbidden fruit. She was draped in craftiness and shrewdness. Nothing about her or, for that matter, mankind would ever be the same.

Eve was forced to stand naked before God, not only naked in her skin, but naked in her sin.

God, because of His remarkable grace and mercy, killed an innocent animal in order that she not be “naked in her skin” any longer.[4]

And He gave his Son as an innocent lamb to the slaughter so that she and her husband, and you and I would no longer be naked in our sin but rather clothed in righteousness.

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.[5]

 

Link to “Part Two of Standing Naked Before God: Sarah” and "Part Three: The Woman Caught in Adultery."


Award-winning national speaker Eva Marie Everson is a recent graduate of Andersonville Theological Seminary. Her work includes the just released Sex, Lies, and the Media (Cook) and The Potluck Club (Baker/Revell) She can be contacted for comments or for speaking engagement bookings at www.evamarieeverson.com


[4] Reference Genesis 3:21