Think Wink.

I read an interesting article summarizing J.J. Niehaus’ translation of Genesis 3:8. Niehaus offers a rather different translation of this verse and the theophany it reveals to the reader. Genesis 3:8 in the ESV reads,

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

The key phrase that is retranslated by Niehaus retranslates in his 1995 work entitled God at Sinai is “the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” I find the new translation interesting and I want to ponder it in this post after briefly summarizing his arguments that are found on pages 155-159 in the book.

The phrase in Hebrew reads leruha hayyom, “in the wind of the day.” The reading of “in the cool of the day” follows Genesis 3:8 LXX, and Niehaus argues a misunderstanding of the language. The word ruha does mean “wind” and that isn’t really that disputed. The problem that he has is with hayyom being translated as “the day.” He notes from studying Akkadian that its cognate to the Hebrew term yom is uma. There is much to learn about Biblical Hebrew from studying other ancient Semitic languages, such as Akadian. In Akkadian, uma also means storm. He argues that Biblical Hebrew attests that yom (as II Guttural with compensatory lengthening) attests to a usage as “storm.” Holladay attests to this usage in A Concise Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) on page 131. Thus he concludes that the phrase should be translated as “the wind of the storm.”

This idea of theophany in the garden is supported in other places. God’s “voice” would be a thunderous voice and that is attested in Psalm 29:3 and Exodus 19:16 and Psalm 77:18 NET. The participle “walking” (mitehallek) becomes “going back and forth” in a lightning metaphor as in Psalm 77:17-19. So the idea of a storm theophany does make sense linguistically–you’ll have to read the book to see the full argumentation and decide for yourself.

But what this does to the narrative is now we no longer have God strolling around the garden but rather God coming in judgment of Adam and Eve’s sin. This can be attested by Daniel 7 and Mark 14:62 (cf. Matthew 26:64; Luke 22:69). All through the Scriptures God is seen to come to judge in a storm theophany.

Thus we can see that the idea of Yahweh’s hatred of sin and him coming to judge sin is as old as Adam and Eve themselves. It appears over and over in the Old Testament, the wilderness wandering during the Exodus, the various enslavements of Israel during the period of the judges, Israel split into two kingdoms, Samaria/Israel falling in 722 BC, Jerusalem/Judah falling in 587/6 BC, and Jerusalem falling in 70 AD. Over and over the prophets predicted “the day of Yahweh” in which Yahweh will call his creation into account. I am reminded of the sermon Pastor Tim preached last Wednesday on the fear of God in David’s life. We must fear God. It is not natural to us but we must do it. It is the beginning of wisdom. One reason that Adam and Eve succumbed to the serpent so easily was a lack of the fear of God. One of the reasons why time and time again we see such abysmal failure in the Scripture is the lack of the fear of God. Solomon pleads with his sons in Proverbs 1:7 NET (see the footnote on “moral knowledge) (as well as many other places in the book) that one must fear Yahweh if he or she is to start down the path of wisdom. We would do well to realize the reality of Revelation 14 and that those who do not fear God will have the smoke of their torture rise up forever and ever.

But what really blows me away is Matthew 10:28 NET, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” This is an encouragement in evangelism. Fear of God enables and frees to herald of the Jesus Christ Gospel to preach the good news with out fear of man because the evangelist fears a greater, more terrifying power, the sovereign creator of the universe!

The wrath of God and fear of him is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Fear of a God who judges sin keeps one from sin, is the starting place for wisdom, and is one of the greatest liberating forces in missions to a hostile world like China or the Islamic Middle East and North Africa. It keeps our doctrines pure. We need to embrace the fear of God as a good thing, as horrible as it is (Revelation 14:11!). I hope that all who read this blog post will examine their hearts and see if the God they love causes fear to rise up in their souls as well. He is a God of love, but he is a holy God who will not leave sin unpunished. Ask Uzza and David in 2 Samuel 6:5-11.

A Thunderous, Roaring, Crushing Voice?

Dr. Jerry Falwell

What to do?