Genesis 2:25: Garments of Light and Glory

Ellen White describes Adam and Eve when they were created as clothed in “garments of light and glory.” ^{13White, Patriarchs and Prophets, 45.} Is this insight only in Ellen White’s writings, or is it already implicit in Scripture? In Genesis 2:25 Moses depicts Adam and Eve at creation as “naked.” The word for “naked” in this verse is ‘arom, which elsewhere in Scripture frequently refers to someone not fully clothed or not clothed in the normal manner. ^{14For instance, in 1 Samuel 19:24 the term is “used of one, having taken off his mantle, goes only clad in his tunic” (Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, trans. Samuel P. Tregelles, 1857 ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949], 653). Again, in Isaiah 20:2, the reference is to one “dressed with aq only” (KBL, 735; cf. John 21:7). Other passages employ the term in the sense of “ragged, badly clad” (Job 22:6; 24:7, 10; Isa. 58:7; Gesenius, 653). The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2001), 883, identifies numerous Old Testament passages where ‘arom denotes “lightly dressed” (Isa. 20:2, 4; 58:7; Mic. 1:8; Job 22:6; 24:6, 7, 10) and one passage where the term refers to a man without armor (Amos 2:16).} Genesis 2:25 does not explicitly indicate in what way Adam and Eve were without clothes in the normal sense (“normal” from the post-Fall perspective).GOP 158.1

But such further detail may be deduced from another major Creation account in the Bible: Psalm 104. This psalm moves through the seven days of Creation in the exact same order as in Genesis 1, except that it fills in many details not mentioned in Genesis 1. ^{15Richard M. Davidson, “Creation in the Psalms: Psalm 104,” in He Spoke and It Was: Divine Creation in the Old Testament, ed. Gerald A. Klingbeil (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press®, 2015), 85-105. Cf. Jacques Doukhan’s published dissertation The Literary Structure of the Genesis Creation Story, Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series, vol. 5 (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1978), 81-88, which shows how Psalm 104 follows exactly the same order as the Genesis creation account, and which analyzes the point-by-point parallels between the two passages.} Psalm 104 provides a poetic description of God’s creative work, and also gives at least one indication of His appearance, or rather, His “clothing.” Note verses 1 and 2, which parallel the creation of light in Genesis 1: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; O Lord, my God, You are very great; You are clothed in glory and majesty, wrapped in a robe of light.” If God is portrayed as clothed with light and glory at Creation, we may reasonably deduce that the first human beings, who were created in the image and likeness of God both in outward resemblance and in character (as discussed above), are similarly clothed. They were not clothed in the “normal manner” from a post-Fall perspective, but were rather clothed like the One in whose image/likeness they were made. Ellen White’s description of the clothing of Adam and Eve before the Fall thus may be logically deduced from the biblical data alone, when one examines the Hebrew terminology for nakedness and the intertextual connection between the Genesis creation narrative and Psalm 104.GOP 158.2