The Day of the Lord in Genesis 3:8
"And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day..."
Biblical eschatology is grounded in protology; the latter things recall the former things. This is certainly true with regard to the eschatological theme of the Day of the Lord.
In the ESV, Genesis 3:8 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.” When we read this in English, it’s easy for us to assume that Adam and Eve heard God’s footsteps in the garden as he took his usual afternoon stroll, and perhaps this was something they were used to hearing. In all honesty, our English translations lead us to this interpretation. However, two things stand out in the original Hebrew of this text.
First, the emphasis in Genesis 3:8 is on the sound of YHWH not the sound of walking. What is the “sound of YHWH?” At the very least, it is the sound of God’s divine presence, the sound of his arrival, and it almost certainly includes the sound of his voice. The word for “sound” and word for “voice” are the same; that word is qōl. We get a glimpse of God’s voice-sound in Psalm 29:3–5.
“The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.”
In this passage, the sound of YHWH is a powerful thunder, full of majesty and weight. It has the power to break the cedars of Lebanon like a twig; God’s voice can snap a California Redwood like a toothpick. In verse 9, it strips the forest bare. In verses 7-8, this sound causes outbreaks of raging fire and earthquakes. Consequently, we have good reason to conclude that in the garden of Eden, this is not a gentle sound that Adam hears. It is not a still, small voice. It is not the sound of footsteps. It suggests the frightening reverberation of tremendous sound. It is a terrifying, destructive demonstration of God’s holiness. It calls to mind what the Israelites encountered when God descended on Mt. Sinai.
This brings us to the second matter of note. Not only does the “sound of the Lord God” not refer to footsteps, “in the cool of the day” does not refer to the afternoon. Once more, it’s reasonable for us to have this understanding, since that’s the way the English reads. However, the Hebrew reads more literally “in the wind of the day” or “in the Spirit of the Day.” Verse 8 uses the same word for the Holy Spirit’s presence that we see in Genesis 1:2, where “the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.” That word is ruah. It is almost certain that Genesis 3:8 is referring once more to the powerful, wind-like presence of the Holy Spirit.
Why would Moses describe the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of the Day”? In context, God has warned Adam and Eve, “in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (2:17). Adam and Eve have been specifically warned about a coming day of wrath if they should disobey, and now that day has come. When the sound of YHWH comes to the garden in the Spirit-Wind of the Day, it means that judgment day has come. Meredith Kline writes,
“The key phrase describing God’s approach through the garden, traditionally translated ‘in the cool of the day,’ should be rendered ‘as the Spirit of the day.’ ‘Spirit’ here denotes the theophanic Glory, as it does in Genesis 1:2 and elsewhere in Scripture. And ‘the day’ has the connotation it often has in the prophets’ forecasts of the great coming judgment. Here in Genesis 3:8 is the original day of the Lord, which served as the prototypal mold in which subsequent pictures of other days of the Lord were cast. Such a day is one of divine epiphany. The final such day is preeminently the day of our Lord’s parousia…” (Kingdom Prologue, p. 129)
Consequently, Genesis 3:8 depicts God’s presence come to the Garden like a deafening, earth-shaking hurricane that threatened to pick Adam and Eve up and toss them out in a terrible and fiery fury. They experienced YHWH like Israel experienced his presence at Mt. Sinai: in a whirlwind of flame, as sinners standing before a holy God. God had warned them about this day. God had warned them about the consequences of disobedience. And they had bought the Devil’s line that God’s judgment was not something to be feared. But here, experiencing God’s Spirit in all his fury with eyes that could see their own guilt and shame—it was much worse than they imagined. So will God’s judgment appear to all those who minimize the danger of sin.
Sin must be punished, and it will ultimately be punished by the terrifying appearance of God himself. This is what the judgment day of Genesis 3 teaches us. Set in the framework of Genesis 1–3, this protological day of the Lord brings Adam’s service and status under the Covenant of Works to an end. He can no longer serve as the Priest-King of the Garden-Temple. He is cast out from the Holy of Holies.
Nevertheless, immediately after this judgment event, God established a new redemptive-historical era in the first administration of the Covenant of Grace. This new (and surprising) era of grace is signified by the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, God’s covering Adam and Eve’s nakedness with sacrificial animal skins, and Adam’s hopeful naming of his wife “Eve” (the mother of the “living”: not something you would name a woman who just helped you bring death into the world). Space does not permit us to fully develop these matters, but it must be observed that the protological day of judgment immediately leads into a new redemptive-historical era marked by a new administration of God’s covenant dealings with man. The protological Day of the Lord does not close down creation, but opens up a new experience of it, one defined by the promise of a Redeemer.