Genesis 3:8,  “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.”

Maybe it is just me but when I read this passage of Scripture I sense that somehow in this tense and dramatic moment the words in the cool of the day seemed woefully out of place.  Sitting here in my cabin in the Catskills I decided to step out in the cool of the day.  It is early morning, the sun has just risen and there is a cool gentle breeze, I hear the birds chirping their morning song and everything is so pleasant and peaceful. Perhaps I am really influenced by the academy award winning song by Hoagie Carmichael and Johnny Mercer In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening.  The song is joyful and happy.  When I walked out into the Catskills in the cool of the day I experienced a sense of peace and joy.  We associate the cool of the day with something pleasant and yet in this passage it is thrown into the midst of something that is shameful, dreadful and sad. Any book editor worth his salt would scratch that phrase right out of the passage, yet there it is and it is part of God’s Word.  I happen to believe that every word and every phrase in Scripture has meaning and purpose. God did not throw that phrase in there to create some poetic mood.  It is in there for a purpose, it is there to convey some deeper understanding of the situation.

First we should note that the passage says that Adam and Eve heard the voice of God.  The word for hear is shama which is more than just hearing, it is hearing with understanding, attention, and/or with a response.  Sometimes the word shama is used  in a judicial case.  We say the judge will hear the case.  He is not just listening to rambling words, he is listening with intent, listening to every detail so he may make a decision or ruling.  When used in a Piel form it would mean to summon or call like my neighbor calling for Sparky to stop barking at me. But this is not used here in a Piel form. So God is not calling out to them to come out of hiding. I mean, surely God knows where they are at. He is not playing a game of hide and seek and I doubt that voice is saying “Olly olly oxen free.”  God knows where they are at and Adam and Eve are fully aware that He knows where they are at.

They heard the voice of God before they hid themselves. According to Adam, he and Eve hid themselves when they heard the voice of God. It doesn’t necessarily mean God was calling out for them, in fact the very next verse tells us that after they hid themselves God asked “where are  you.”

Actually, the word that is rendered for “where are you.” is simply the word ‘oy.  You might be familiar with the Yiddish expression “oy vey” which is loosely interpreted as oh woe.  It is believed that the oy here is derived from the German or Dutch au which means ouch or oh.  Although there are many orthodox rabbis believe this expression really does stem from Biblical Hebrew and is a common expression in Semitic languages. If fact in Aramaic the word oy means how.  It is a common word in Hebrew used to express the idea of how, where, who when and other such adverbs.

What I find interesting is that within the Semitic culture it is sometimes used for an idiomatic expression of  where is he?  This is most likely why translators render this as Where are you? But this is really a Semitic idiomatic expression meaning he is nowhere.  In other words if we render this ‘oy, as the idiomatic expression  where are you then we must realize that what God is really saying is “Adam you are nowhere.“

I believe in that little word ‘oy God was saying, “Adam, you are nowhere in my heart.”  If the orthodox Jews are right about the origin of the word ‘oy then it is a lament. The voice of God in the garden was a lament, God was saying “Woe is me, Adam is nowhere in my heart.”

Indeed God was walking through His garden in the cool of the day.  The word cool is really the word rauch which is the word for spirit. It is also a word used for a wind, or the mind or an emotion.  Take your pick. The word day is simply yom which could mean a 24 hour day, but it could mean a year, a period of time or even a moment of time. Perhaps God was walking in the garden to capture the emotion of the moment. Now God does not have legs to actually walk. The word walk is halak.  This is where we get the word halaka which is a righteous walk.  Halak can also mean a manner of life. There are a variety of applications for this word.  It is most Semitic root it has the idea of going or moving as opposed to just sitting there.

I like to look at this way. This morning as I set out to drive through the Catskills, I first realized I had to shave before leaving.  Yet, I felt God was in the car waiting for our drive through the mountain and He was calling out, “Come on, let’s get started, you can shave later, I am the only one who will see you and I don’t care if you have a beard or not. Let’s move in the cool of the day.”   Or let’s capture and enjoy the moment of this emotional experience.  Or let’s enjoy the move of my Spirit in this moment.”  I shout back and say, “Oh, but I have to write up this little study first, I have to clean up a little or I have to…”   And God is saying, “’oy.”  In other words where are  you, what are you doing, it is nothing, it is of no value.

God was ready to move forward and enjoy the moment with Adam and Eve, but because of their sin they could not face God, they could not enjoy the moment with God and God started to lament.

I believe the words  cool of the day were inserted in this narrative to tell us that God is always ready to enjoy a moment, to enjoy the move of His Spirit with us but sometimes there is some sin we cling to or we are too pre-occupied with the cares of this world to join with God in that moment.  He is ready to forgive that sin, He is willing to overlook a four day old beard, He only wants us to spend a moment in the Spirit with Him and if we find something more important than spending a moment with Him to enjoy the gentle breeze of His Spirit while it is still blowing we may miss a real blessing for the Spirit only moves when He wants to not when we are ready or want Him to move as in  John 3:8, “The wind bloweth where it wills, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”  We regulated God or try to program God to move in that one hour on Sunday morning in our church worship service when we are ready. We go to church and say, “Ok, Lord,  this is it, this is the time we want you to move, so now move, now fill us with your presence for this our set time and hour in our worship service.“  Yet, there are so many other times during the week that God is ready to move but we are just too busy, to wrapped up with the cares of his world to walk with Him in the cool of the day.  God simply says “‘Oy, why do we become intimate only when you are ready?“  What if some Sunday morning we are ready to worship and God says, “’Oy, I was ready last night, but you were not, now today I have a headache.” It is best that when the breeze of the Spirit is blowing you do not have some sin or some other activity occupying yourself lest you miss a special and precious moment with God.

Which by the way, I need to end this little study as God is in my car right now honking the horn and if I don’t  close  this out He will leave without me.