3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about 1 in the orchard at the breezy time 2 of the day, and they hid 3 from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 3:9 But the Lord God called to 4 the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 5 3:10 The man replied, 6 “I heard you moving about 7 in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
139:12 even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, 8
and the night is as bright as 9 day;
darkness and light are the same to you. 10
1 tn The Hitpael participle of הָלָךְ (halakh, “to walk, to go”) here has an iterative sense, “moving” or “going about.” While a translation of “walking about” is possible, it assumes a theophany, the presence of the
2 tn The expression is traditionally rendered “cool of the day,” because the Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruakh) can mean “wind.” U. Cassuto (Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 152-54) concludes after lengthy discussion that the expression refers to afternoon when it became hot and the sun was beginning to decline. J. J. Niehaus (God at Sinai [SOTBT], 155-57) offers a different interpretation of the phrase, relating יוֹם (yom, usually understood as “day”) to an Akkadian cognate umu (“storm”) and translates the phrase “in the wind of the storm.” If Niehaus is correct, then God is not pictured as taking an afternoon stroll through the orchard, but as coming in a powerful windstorm to confront the man and woman with their rebellion. In this case קוֹל יְהוָה (qol yÿhvah, “sound of the
3 tn The verb used here is the Hitpael, giving the reflexive idea (“they hid themselves”). In v. 10, when Adam answers the
4 tn The Hebrew verb קָרָא (qara’, “to call”) followed by the preposition אֶל־ or לְ (’el- or lÿ, “to, unto”) often carries the connotation of “summon.”
5 sn Where are you? The question is probably rhetorical (a figure of speech called erotesis) rather than literal, because it was spoken to the man, who answers it with an explanation of why he was hiding rather than a location. The question has more the force of “Why are you hiding?”
6 tn Heb “and he said.”
7 tn Heb “your sound.” If one sees a storm theophany here (see the note on the word “time” in v. 8), then one could translate, “your powerful voice.”
8 tn The words “to see” are supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.
9 tn Heb “shines like.”
10 tn Heb “like darkness, like light.”
11 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.
12 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated; nor is it translated before each of the following categories, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.
13 tn Grk “chiliarchs.” A chiliarch was normally a military officer commanding a thousand soldiers, but here probably used of higher-ranking commanders like generals (see L&N 55.15; cf. Rev 6:15).
14 tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.
15 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
16 tn It is difficult to say where this quotation ends. The translation ends it after “withstand it” at the end of v. 17, but it is possible that it should end here, after “Lamb” at the end of v. 16. If it ends after “Lamb,” v. 17 is a parenthetical explanation by the author.