Genesis 3:7

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7 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.


Commentary on this verse  

By Brian David

Understanding their guilt, Adam and Eve cover themselves with fig leaves in 'Original Sin,' a 10th-century Spanish painting in the collection of El Escorial Monastery, Spain.

When the people of the Most Ancient Church began using the evidence of their senses and their rational thinking to investigate the Lord, the Lord "opened their eyes" to the real truth, which is that without love and goodness from Him they would be, of themselves, evil and insane.

This is represent by nakedness because clothing represents true ideas about external things. At the end of Chapter Two the man and woman were naked and not ashamed because they were in a state of love to the Lord and perceived what was true from that love; they had no need of external truth, and the love represented by their bodies were good ones. Now, however, the love represented by their bodies is the love of self; they had put themselves above the Lord. Seeing this evil, they were ashamed.

So they grabbed what they could to cover themselves. Figs represent natural good, or the desire for good on an external level. Leaves represent individual true ideas in external form. Fig leaves, then, represent basic, external ideas about how to be good in an external way.