Chuck Larsen

After the judgments were pronounced on Eve with “hard labor” in child bearing and on Adam with “hard labor” in working the fields, God, in his wonderful grace, made provision for them. He replaced the flimsy leaf covering that they made for themselves with a covering made of skin. Genesis 3:21 says, “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” In ancient Jewish tradition there are some weird commentaries regarding this verse. Rashi says, “Some midrashim say that garments as smoother as one’s fingernails were attached to their own skin. Rashbam says that the text simply means that God made clothes that were to cover their “skin.” Ibn Ezra suggests that man consisted of just flesh and bone, but now God covered them with skin. Kimhi says that some think God made their garments from the skin of the serpent. One argued it was the soft, smooth skin of rabbits. Although he acknowledges that the clothes were indeed garments of “skin”, Ephrem (An ancient Syrian commentator) suggests, “The garments of skin were probably created by God, and no animal was killed in the presence of Adam and Eve to provide them with clothes.”^[1] Gregory of Nyssa thinks that the practice of circumcision is related to this idea of “skin.” He says, “Circumcision means the casting off of the dead skins which we put on when we had been stripped of the supernatural life after the transgression.”^[2] I believe God killed an animal. The whole sacrificial system which Moses will introduce involves animal being sacrificed to make “atonement” for sin. That word “atonement” means “covering.” Regardless of what animal was used, we must remember that Adam had named them all. He knew the animal by name that God slaughtered, skinned, tanned, and clothed them with. This, in itself, must have been traumatic. Death, for the first time, has come to paradise! It came just as God said it would!

The text doesn’t tell us specifically what animal or animals were used to make clothes for them, but traditionally it has been believed that it was a lamb according to Christian history. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and called him the “Lamb of God” which will make atonement for the sins of the whole world. Niehaus affirms this in his commentary. He writes, “The church has long understood the skins to anticipate the Mosaic sacrificial system and, ultimately, the sacrifice of Christ, because ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins,’ and blood had to be shed for the skin garments to be prepared. Surely, this understanding has merit.”^[3]

We try to “cover” our sins with fig leaves. We think that we can make up for our weaknesses, sins and failures by making some kind of sacrifice ourselves or by doing some kind of good work. We revert to some religious observation thinking that God will forgive us based on our actions. But Kissling has this right: “The material used to meet that desire, fig leaves, is pitifully inadequate. When we as men and women try to fix our problems by ourselves which our sins against God have brought upon us, our remedies are just as pitiful. Fig leaves will serve as clothing no better than our own self-help strategies. ^[4] Boice explains this well. He writes, “But the glory of the gospel is that God deals with the guilt. He deals with it in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, which is what the killing of the animals and the clothing of the man and the woman with their skins anticipate. Sin is real. But the atonement is also real. There has been a true restitution. The penalty accruing to sin has been paid. Now God clothes those who believe in Christ with Christ’s righteousness.”^[5]

^[1] Louth, Andrew, and Marco Conti, eds. 2001. Genesis 1–11. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

^[2] Gregory of Nyssa. 1978. Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses. Edited by Richard J. Payne. Translated by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson. The Classics of Western Spirituality. New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

^[3] Niehaus, Jeffrey J. 2014. Biblical Theology: The Common Grace Covenants. Vol. 1. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

^[4] Kissling, Paul J. 2004–. Genesis. The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co.

^[5] Boice, James Montgomery. 1998. Genesis: An Expositional Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Because of the thorns and thistles that will come up amongst the edible crops of the world, it will require hard work to produce and gather what we need to eat. Genesis 3:19 begins with this idea of strenuous labor. It reads, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…” Nothing will be easy for the man. A Jewish commentator, Ben Ezra, wrote, “They will have to slave at winnowing and grinding and kneading and cooking—unlike the way the animals eat.” Another one, Hizkuni said, “Adam’s curse applies only to farmworkers, but Eve’s greater curse applies to all women; she not only sinned, but caused Adam to sin.”^[1] Well, that’s wrong! It doesn’t matter what work you do; it will become difficult and take effort because our nature will oppose it to some extent. The big issue is that man will have to do what he doesn’t want to do to stay alive. I would add that it’s true also for just staying healthy.

My Dad was a very hard laborer. He did plaster patching in the winters in order to stay out of the weather. He did external stonework whenever the weather permitted. Neither me nor my brother wanted to work for him. My cousins did better but they didn’t like it either. It required carrying 94 pound sacks of Portland cement, mixing cement in a mortar box, carrying 5 gallon buckets of water and sand and carrying the finished product to him so he could apply it. He would yell, “Mud! Mud!” That meant he was running out and we needed to hurry up. You were supposed to keep up with him. We all found that was nearly impossible! I did not want to “sweat” like that for a living so I got into office work. I wanted to do anything but “carry mud!” In the Navy I became a chief administrator and later a recruiter. When I retired, I became a pastor and preached for my living. But it didn’t take long to figure out that I needed to “sweat.” McCalip has it right when he writes, “God said that man would have to sweat for a living, and those who have cushy office jobs are recognizing that sweat is just what we need to be healthier.”^[2] You either lift buckets of mud, bales of hay, bags of cement or weights in the early morning or late evening. It doesn’t matter. God said you have to sweat! So, if you want to stay healthy, you better do some sweating.

But the curse is more than physical. There’s a social and psychological dimension to work. There is, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, “vanity of vanities.” It’s all useless outside of a connection with God. David Helm writes, “Man’s attempt to live outside the rule of God results not in his becoming like God, as the serpent promised; rather, it results in a never-ending struggle for survival. Without God, there is little more than futility in our work. The twentieth-century mystic Simone Weil put it this way: ‘He exhausts himself in order that he may eat, and he eats in order that he may have the strength to work, and after a year of toil, everything is as it was when he began.” Helm goes on to quote Studs Terkel’s book, “Working.” He says, “This book, being about work, is by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents. About shouting matches as well as fist fights. About nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all) about daily humiliations.’”^[3] Is the only relief from such a fate death? No! Swindoll says, “The perspiration that dripped from his skin came because of his quest for independence, and it provided an ongoing reminder of the need to live in faithful dependence on God. That lesson may lie behind Luke’s reference to sweat in another garden, Gethsemane. In His most excruciating moment of submission to the will of the Father, Jesus’ sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). He was identifying with fallen humanity…”^[4]

^[1] Carasik, Michael, ed. 2018. Genesis: Introduction and Commentary. Translated by Michael Carasik. The Commentators’ Bible. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

^[2] McCalip, Steven Melvin. 2002. Where’d That Come From?. Chattanoga: AMG Publishers.

^[3] Helm, David R., and Jon M. Dennis. 2001. The Genesis Factor: Probing Life’s Big Questions. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

^[4] Swindoll, Charles R., and Roy B. Zuck. 2003. Understanding Christian Theology. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.