Kotnot Or (Genesis 3:21): Skin, Leather, Light, or Blind?

And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them (JPS, 1917).

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them (King James Version - KJV).

God made leather garments for Adam and his wife and He clothed them (Aryeh Kaplan).¹

Introduction

In chapter three of Genesis, we are witness to Adam and Eve’s sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge and their subsequent banishment from the Garden of Eden. Realizing that they are naked, they sewed fig-leaves together (Gen. 3:7). God announces punishments for the three guilty offenders (the serpent, the woman/Eve and Adam), and banishes them from the Garden of Eden: Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:23). Before they were expelled from the Garden, God fashioned for them garments of skins (JPS, 1917), or leather garments (Kaplan), or coats of skins (KJV). Were these garments to be worn on top of the fig-leaves (Gen. 3:7), or in place of them? What were these garments made from: were they actually leather skins, as the simple meaning of the text indicates, or were they perhaps made of some other material? These questions will need to be addressed in our understanding of the meaning of kotnot or. In addition, we will look at the various possible meanings of the word or (spelled ayin-vav-resh); there is even a version that spells the word with an aleph (aleph-vav-resh) instead of an ayin as it appears in the Masoretic Text. Finally, we would like to propose another way of understanding or (ayin-vav-resh); not as ‘skin’ but as ‘blind’ (iver).

The classical commentators interpret the phrase kotnot or by utilizing rabbinic extrapolations. The Aramaic translation (targum) of Onkelos explains: “garments of glory on their skin.”² Rashi, based on midrashic sources,³ remarks that these clothes were smooth like a fingernail or scale, and shone like a jewel. That explains kotnot. Or is explained by Rashi as something that derives from skin, like the fur of rabbits, which is warm and soft. The skin for these garments is variously understood as coming from the skin shed by the sly serpent who seduced Eve (Aramaic Targum of Yonatan Ben Uziel), or from the Leviathan⁴ that God slaughtered, salted, and left for the righteous in the World to Come (Hizkuni).⁵

Ibn Ezra has an interesting formulation that blends several ideas. He writes that some explain that in the beginning man was made of bone and flesh, and now God made for them a covering of skin. Ibn Ezra continues, “Some explain ‘clothes for their skin.’ Others explain that there is an animal that has the physiognomy of man and God commanded to flay its skin. We can’t question this. We just need to believe that God fashioned for Adam and his wife kotnot or.” Ibn Ezra implies that it was an act of God that we cannot question or understand.

Semitic cognates follow similar lines. The Syriac translation of the Bible, the Peshitta,⁶ translates kotnot or as kutinita de-meshkha (coats of skin/leather). Gesenius, in his Lexicon, defines or as cutis hominis (human skin) or pellis animalium (animal skin).⁷

There are hints to another possible understanding of the word or. In another entry for ayin-vav-resh, but vocalized avar, Gesenius translates obcaecavit (blind).⁸ Brown, Driver and Briggs,⁹ following upon Gesenius, note the following possible vocalizations of ayin-vav-resh: or = skin, blindness (cataract),¹⁰ ur = exposed, bare,¹¹ and avar = blind.

It is clear that something cataclysmic occurred to Adam and Eve after the sin. It is our thinking that the text conveys this in the word or.

Before and After the Sin and Banishment

After eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and his wife, now realizing they were naked, made some type of clothing to cover themselves: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves girdles (Gen. 3:7). If they were now clothed, why did God make for them garments of skins (Gen. 3:21) before they were cast out of the Garden of Eden?¹²

There is another complication. There is a midrashic source which claims that Adam was not created naked. “What was the clothing of Adam: scaly skin and the Cloud of Glory¹³ covering him. When he [Adam] ate from the fruits of the Tree [of Knowledge], the scaly skin came off and he saw himself naked, and the Cloud of Glory disappeared.”¹⁴ So the verse: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked (Gen. 3:7), means that they were denuded of the clothing that was already upon them.¹⁵

The Jewish mystical tradition provides a reason for the necessity of new garments after the sin. A dramatic shift occurred in the relationship between God and Adam after the eating from the Tree of Knowledge. According to this understanding, the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge and man’s subsequent banishment from the Garden of Eden changed the original “game-plan” of God. Eternal life without illness and death would now be replaced by a different type of life for Adam and his progeny. The Zohar,¹⁶ commenting on the verse: And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen. 3:7), states the following: “Opened to perceive the evil of the world, unknown to them until now . . . they had lost the supernal radiance enveloping them, which disappeared, leaving them naked … they sewed fig-leaves together (Gen. 3:7) . . . The blessed Holy One clothed them in garments soothing to the skin, as it is written: kotnot or (garments of skin) [ayin-vav-resh]. At first they wore kotnot or (garments of light) [aleph-vav-resh] . . . Now that they had sinned, kotnot or (garments of skin) [ayin-vav-resh], soothing only the skin, not the soul.”¹⁷

Sinning by eating from the Tree of Knowledge caused Adam and Eve to lose their original aura. Before the sin, they were clothed in light from God’s supernal radiance. After the sin, they were clothed in simple, physical skins. The great kabbalist, R. Isaac Luria, remarked: “Before Adam sinned, he had a supernal light, which was a spiritual set of clothes, which was light . . . After the sin, the supernal light left him…and he was naked from these clothes of light . . . After Adam sinned, his clothes changed from light [aleph-vav-resh] to leather [ayin-vav-resh].”¹⁸ This change in clothing is reflective of a change that took place throughout the world. Because of this sin the entire world was cursed, shifting from a more spiritual state, symbolized by light, to a more physical one, symbolized by skin.¹⁹

Another passage from the Zohar states that they had garments of skin [ayin-vav-resh] before they sinned, and were privy to God’s radiance [aleph-vav-resh]. “Until now they only had leather garments, and they were very valuable clothes . . . They were no longer worthy even of kotnot or (garments of skins), since they sinned with the Tree of Knowledge . . . And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen. 3:7), as they now perceived this world…which they couldn’t discern before, when they were looking at the lower world from above.”²⁰

The rabbinic scholar Louis Ginzberg attempted to put together a composite picture based on midrashic sources. “Before, their bodies had been overlaid with a horny skin, and enveloped with the cloud of glory. No sooner had they violated the command given them than the cloud of glory and the horny skin dropped from them, and they stood there in their nakedness, and ashamed” (pp. 74-75). “They had enjoyed the splendors of Paradise but for a brief span of time – a few hours. It was in the first hour of the sixth day of creation that God conceived the idea of creating man . . . in the fourth [hour] He formed Adam; in the fifth [hour] He clothed him with skin . . . and in the twelfth hour of the day, he was cast out of Paradise” (p. 82).²¹ There is another version of the fifth hour of the sixth day of creation: “in the fifth [hour], his orifices were opened.”²² One can thus imagine that Adam was created at first even without vision, his orifices, which can include eyes, were shut. These were opened in the fifth hour of the sixth day of creation. Possibly this is an allusion to And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen. 3:7).

Switching of Letters: Ayin and Aleph

We have seen how, according to the mystical tradition, kotnot or could be garments of skin (ayin-vav-resh) or garments of light (aleph-vav-resh). We know from the Kabbalah that it is possible to “exchange” letters (temurah) in order to arrive at a more esoteric understanding and to create a new meaning for a biblical word or phrase.²³ Let us look at the letters aleph and ayin, in order to understand the hidden meaning behind each of them.

The Zohar notes that when God wished to create the world, each letter came forth endeavoring to prove why it should be the first letter that God would use to do so. “The letter aleph stood and did not enter. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her, ‘Aleph, aleph, why do you not enter My presence like all the other letters?’ She replied . . . ‘Because I saw all the letters leaving Your presence fruitlessly. What could I do there?’ . . . The Holy One, blessed be He, then said, ‘Aleph, aleph. Although I will create the world with the letter bet, you will be the first of all the letters. Only through you do I become One.’”²⁴ Thus the aleph “denotes God’s Oneness, Sovereignty, and Infiniteness.”²⁵

Regarding the letter ayin, the Zohar states: “Ayin stands for avon, iniquity. Although she [the letter ayin] said, ‘I imply anavah, humility,’ the Holy One replied that He would not create the world by her.”²⁶ Another passage confirms the negativity of the letter ayin: “When Adam and Eve became aware of their sin, the eyes of them both were opened (Gen. 3:7) . . . Their eyes . . . become agents of evil impulses . . . The [letter] ayin, like man, has two eyes on its top, figuratively.”²⁷

Blind

We have also observed that the word or (ayin-vav-resh) has many possible interpretations. The one that is most unusual is “blind.” We would like to pursue this direction to show that this is indeed a possible interpretation. If Adam was born with scaly skin that fell away after he sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, then kotnot or might possibly be read as kotnot avar/iver. In this understanding, Adam’s scaly skin also included a covering over his eyes, something akin to the nictitating membrane, which only opened after eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen. 3:7). The nictitating membrane is a transparent or translucent additional eyelid that is present in some animals. It is used for protection and self-lubrication. In humans, a vestigial remnant of the nictitating membrane is the plica semilunaris on the inside corner of the eye. The verse is thus referring to an opening of the eyes in a physical sense.

Maimonides disputes this approach. He explains that since the Torah wrote, And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked (Gen. 3:7), the emphasis is on the words “and they knew.” The Torah did not write “‘and they saw’, because what they saw in the beginning was what they saw at the end. And there was no cloudy vision – it was clear.”²⁸ The Zohar similarly states that the narrative does not refer to actual vision, but rather to understanding, eyes “opened to perceive the evil of the world, unknown to them till now.”²⁹

However, Avraham Sebba (15th century), a kabbalist and Bible commentator, makes a dramatic point that seems to accept both physical and metaphorical blindness: “Immediately upon their sinning, they died. When they opened their eyes [And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen. 3:7)], they were like a dead person who may have his eyes opened, but cannot see.³⁰ Until the sin, their eyes were closed . . . After the sin their eyes were opened.”³¹ Were their eyes closed physically, unable to see, or were they able to see, but unaware of what they saw?³² According to this, both ideas are probably correct. Their eyes were covered with scaly skin and they were awed by the aura of God’s supernal light. After the sin, their chance for immortality ended and they “died.” Their eyes were opened to the reality of a different world from the one unto which they were created. They were now able to perceive what God enabled them to “see” – the imperfect world, with sickness and death. Kotnot or is the term applied to their new status, blinded to the supernal light and munificence that God had earlier bestowed upon them, before the sin.³³

Conclusion

In this paper we have shown the different cognate permutations that are possible with the phrase kotnot or. We feel that there is a strong case to be made for viewing or in many different ways, including the unusual way of seeing ayin-vav-resh as a variation of the verb for “blind.” The biblical text, supported by rabbinic sources, has once again shown its specificity as well as elasticity – within the limits of traditional biblical exegesis.