What Does Genesis 3:7 Mean in the King James?
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The nakedness of the humans echoes the serpent’s craftiness in Hebrew: their opened sight exposes them, and their first answer is to cover.
THE MEANING
When your sight opens to what feels exposed in you, awareness can turn at once into an attempt to cover it. The verse holds both movements together: they recognize their nakedness, and their hands begin stitching a covering from what is at hand. Their first new knowledge is vulnerability.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that seeing clearly automatically makes you free: here, opened eyes first expose nakedness and lead straight to self-covering.
THE ROOT
עֵירֻמִּם
ʿērummim
GROWS FROM
ע־ר־ם
ʿ-r-m
Uncovered or naked; the same consonants also form a near-identical word for crafty.
The naked form sounds almost like the preceding description of the serpent as crafty. That echo connects the humans’ exposure to the cunning that has just shaped the scene, while each word keeps its own meaning.
ALSO GROWS
ʿērummim: Naked, uncovered.
עֵירֻמִּם
This is the form the humans recognize in themselves when their eyes are opened.
ʿārûm: Crafty, shrewd.
עָרוּם
This near-identical form describes the serpent in Genesis 3:1, making the sound-link between craft and exposure audible.
וַתִּפָּקַחְנָה
vattippāqaḥnāh
GROWS FROM
פ־ק־ח
p-q-ḥ
To open, especially the eyes, bringing sight into operation.
“opened” in this verse is vattippāqaḥnāh. The verb marks an opening, not the arrival of something new: their eyes make visible what is already true of their bodies. The shift is from unseen to seen, not from being clothed to being naked.
ALSO GROWS
pāqaḥ: To open, especially the eyes.
פָּקַח
This verb form preserves the concrete opening beneath the verse’s phrase “were opened.”
piqqēaḥ: Seeing, clear-sighted.
פִּקֵּחַ
The related word describes sight that is open, keeping the root’s movement tied to seeing.
וַיֵּדְעוּ
vayyēdʿu
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
y-d-ʿ
To know or recognize through encounter.
“knew” in this verse is vayyēdʿu. This is knowing by encounter, and the same root appears in the “knowledge” named by the tree. Here that knowing arrives as an embodied recognition of exposure, then immediately shapes the hands’ response.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know, recognize, or perceive through encounter.
יָדַע
This is the root verb behind their recognition of their nakedness.
daʿat: Knowledge, awareness.
דַּעַת
The tree’s name uses this same root, linking the verse’s new knowing to the knowledge at the center of the scene.
THE PATTERN
When nakedness becomes visible, scripture makes the source of its covering matter.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.THE THREAD
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.The same Hebrew word for nakedness appears here and in Genesis 3:7. In this verse nakedness carries no shame; in the next chapter’s scene, recognizing that same condition leads the humans to sew a covering.
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