The First Hunter

Excerpt from "A Glorious Arrangement: Christian thoughts on hunting, fishing, and creation" by Joel Detlefsen

Adam and Eve had just fallen into sin by eating fruit from the forbidden tree.  They could eat any other fruit on the planet, except for that one tree.  But following their own wisdom and pride, they disobeyed God’s command and ate the fruit.  This one action changed the world as we know it. 

God knows what has happened, yet he calls out to Adam and asks where he is, because Adam has taken intentional effort to try to hide himself from God.  In this, God gives Adam a chance to come clean and confess his sin, but Adam refuses the offer and stays hidden.  He’s ashamed of what he’s done, and he’s trying to run away from that shame.  But Adam does admit that he was trying to hide from God.  He says, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Genesis 3.10).  Note that Adam does not confess that he has sinned, but simply acknowledges the state of his nakedness.  Sin brings shame, and there’s no escaping it.  You can’t run from it or hide from it because God sees it (see Proverbs 15.3 and 2 Chronicles 16.9). 

For Adam and Eve, the shame of their sin was a self-realization of their nakedness.  For us it is probably something different, like a feeling of despair, a broken relationship, or feelings of unworthiness that linger for a period of time. Regardless, sin brings shame. 

What do you do with that shame?  We all probably have our own coping mechanisms when it comes to shame, but for Adam and Eve, their solution was to try to cover it up.  They realized that they were naked, and they knew that wouldn’t do, so they sewed fig leaves together to attempt to hide their nakedness, to hide the shame associated with their sin.  But sewn-together fig leaves weren’t enough.  That wouldn’t do.  Something more had to be done to cover their shame. 

Enter the Hunter.  “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Genesis 3.21, emphasis added). 

Do you know what this means?  It means that the first blood shed in the entire Bible is by the hand of God.  God is the one who kills the animals and uses their skins to create clothes for Adam and Eve that will more sufficiently cover their shame. 

When I consider this, three thoughts come to my mind.  First, God himself is the first hunter mentioned in the Bible.  How did he hunt?  Did he bait the animals?  Did he sit in a tree stand?  Did he stalk them?  Did he simply call them to himself by name?  We don’t know, but what we do know is that God is the first one in the history of the world to take an animal’s life.  This reality should not be lost on us.  God uses his creation so that human beings might be cared for. 

Second, and from a more practical standpoint, fashioning garments from animal hides is not easy.  As my son and I have continued to trap predators, we have also become amateur hide tanners, and can speak personally about the difficulty and care that comes with the hide tanning process.  It’s certainly no difficult task for the Creator of the universe, but the point is that there is a significant amount of time and effort that goes into preparing animal hides to the point that they are usable as garments.  There are many days-worth of labor and time that go into preparing an animal skin so that it is preserved and usable. 

This is particularly true when tanning hides for use as garments.  The tanning process leaves the hide in a very stiff condition, similar to that of cardboard.  In order for the pelt to be softened (and thereby fit for use as a garment) it must be stretched and worked over for long periods of time over a series of several days.  Additionally, the suede side of the leather must be softened and rubbed out so that it doesn’t scratch and irritate the skin of the one wearing it.  This is to say that, although the creation of garments for Adam and Eve takes place in a single verse of the Bible, it was no small undertaking. 

Third, and perhaps most importantly, we should also note that the reason these animals had to die was because of sin.  If Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned, they wouldn’t have known they were naked; and if they didn’t know they were naked, they wouldn’t have needed garments of skin to cover them up.  In order to cover their sin and live at peace with God, something had to die.  This should point us toward the sacrificial system that God instituted in order to live in fellowship with his people.  In order for him to live with them, they had to constantly sacrifice animals to shed the blood that would temporarily atone for their sin.  “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9.22). 

If you, as a sinful person, want to live with God, then something has to die.  Blood must be shed to atone for your sin.  In order for Israel to live at peace with God, they had to continually sacrifice animals.  This was also true of Adam and Eve: they sinned, their sin brought shame, and in order for that shame to be covered, something had to die, and it was God himself who did the killing to cover that sin.