Genesis 3:8-10

The Judgment Oracles of God at the Fall

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.”

Deuteronomy 4:33-36

4:33 Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it? 4:34 Or has God ⁸  ever before tried to deliver ⁹  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ¹⁰  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ¹¹  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? 4:35 You have been taught that the Lord alone is God – there is no other besides him. 4:36 From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words. ¹² 

Ezekiel 1:24

1:24 When they moved, I heard the sound of their wings – it was like the sound of rushing waters, or the voice of the Almighty, ¹³  or the tumult ¹⁴  of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.

Ezekiel 10:5

10:5 The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard from the outer court, like the sound of the sovereign God ¹⁵  when he speaks.

Acts 28:25-28

28:25 So they began to leave, ¹⁶  unable to agree among themselves, after Paul made one last statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly to your ancestors ¹⁷  through the prophet Isaiah 28:26 when he said,

‘Go to this people and say,

“You will keep on hearing, ¹⁸  but will never understand,

and you will keep on looking, ¹⁹  but will never perceive.

28:27 For the heart of this people has become dull, ²⁰ 

and their ears are hard of hearing, ²¹ 

and they have closed their eyes,

so that they would not see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their heart

and turn, ²²  and I would heal them.”’ ²³ 

28:28 “Therefore be advised ²⁴  that this salvation from God ²⁵  has been sent to the Gentiles; ²⁶  they ²⁷  will listen!”

[3:8]  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 Lord God in a human form. This is more than the text asserts.

[3:8]  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 Lord”) may refer to God’s thunderous roar, which typically accompanies his appearance in the storm to do battle or render judgment (e.g., see Ps 29).

[3:8]  ³ tn The verb used here is the Hitpael, giving the reflexive idea (“they hid themselves”). In v. 10, when Adam answers the Lord, the Niphal form is used with the same sense: “I hid.”

[3:9]  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.”

[3:9]  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?”

[3:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he said.”

[3:10]  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.”

[4:34]  ⁸ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

[4:34]  ⁹ tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

[4:34]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

[4:34]  ¹¹ tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

[4:36]  ¹² tn Heb “and his words you heard from the midst of the fire.”

[1:24]  ¹³ tn Heb “Shaddai” (probably meaning “one of the mountain”), a title that depicts God as the sovereign ruler of the world who dispenses justice. The Old Greek translation omitted the phrase “voice of the Almighty.”

[1:24]  ¹⁴ tn The only other occurrence of the Hebrew word translated “tumult” is in Jer 11:16. It indicates a noise like that of the turmoil of a military camp or the sound of an army on the march.

[10:5]  ¹⁵ tn The name (“El Shaddai”) has often been translated “God Almighty,” primarily because Jerome translated it omnipotens (“all powerful”) in the Latin Vulgate. There has been much debate over the meaning of the name. For discussion see W. F. Albright, “The Names Shaddai and Abram,” JBL 54 (1935): 173-210; R. Gordis, “The Biblical Root sdy-sd,” JTS 41 (1940): 34-43; and especially T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 69-72.

[28:25]  ¹⁶ tn The imperfect verb ἀπελύοντο (apeluonto) has been translated as an ingressive imperfect.

[28:25]  ¹⁷ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[28:26]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “you will hear with hearing” (an idiom).

[28:26]  ¹⁹ tn Or “seeing”; Grk “you will look by looking” (an idiom).

[28:27]  ²⁰ tn Or “insensitive.”

[28:27]  ²¹ tn Grk “they hear heavily with their ears” (an idiom for slow comprehension).

[28:27]  ²² sn Note how the failure to respond to the message of the gospel is seen as a failure to turn.

[28:27]  ²³ sn A quotation from Isa 6:9-10.

[28:28]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Therefore let it be known to you.”

[28:28]  ²⁵ tn Or “of God.”

[28:28]  ²⁶ sn The term Gentiles is in emphatic position in the Greek text of this clause. Once again there is the pattern: Jewish rejection of the gospel leads to an emphasis on Gentile inclusion (Acts 13:44-47).

[28:28]  ²⁷ tn Grk “they also.”