...Walking In The Garden To The Wind Of The Day... (Part 4)

מְעוּ אֶת־קוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִתְהַלֵּךְ בַּגָּן לְרוּחַ הַיּ֑וֹם וַיִּתְחַבֵּא הָֽאָדָם

וְאִשְׁתּוֹ מִפְּנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים בְּתוֹךְ עֵץ הַגָּֽן

Then they heard the sound of Yahweh-God walking in the garden to the wind of the day and they hid...

Genesis 3:8

You can never assume that what you think you understand about another culture is how they understand themselves unless you work to set aside your own cultural background, place yourself in their shoes, and try to understand theirs from their perspective.

• The Hebrew in Genesis 3:8 makes it exceptionally clear that it is Yahweh-God - real and relational God - who is immanent and present. Simply in light of the nature of God being what it is, it warrants our attention.

• God is quantified in this verse, just as any other creature we encounter on earth; God moves. God is also given a quality. God is walking, which is an average manner of movement, but which is neither too slow nor too hurried.

The real question in this verse is not whether God is immanent, nor whether God is real, but the manner in which this occurs. The story anwers this with the word sound (קוֹל (qol) ). It is the sound of God walking that alerts the garden’s residents to God’s presence.

Most translations at this point are incorrect. Most translations translateלְרוּחַ הַיּ֑וֹם (ləruach hayyom) as, in the cool of the day, but there is simply no precedent for this. The phrase literally refers to the daily wind. It never ever refers to temperature. It is certainly understandable that the wind has a cooling effect on humans in a hot climate. But there is nothing in these words themselves, or in this verse, or in its larger context that would indicate that it should be translated as referring to either temperature or the cooling effects of wind. What we have instead is a stunning insight not just into the thought process and world view of proto-Israelites living 3,500 years ago, but of how these people actually encountered God, namely, that the wind itself represented God’s presence and arrival.

It is tempting for us as modern, post-Enlightenment people, to dismiss this story as it presents itself. After all, today we understand wind scientifically as the attempt of regions of relatively high and low atmouspheric air pressure to stabilize themselves and nothing more. We want to reinterpret these words to try and make it fit our own rationalisms.

But what if we do not?