Unclothed and Unashamed

Sorry it's been a few days since my last post.   I just finished chapter 2 of Genesis.   There was a little revelation in the last verse, verse 25.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (NIV)
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.(KJV)
Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.(NLT)

Why did I show you three translations?  I could have done more but there is something interesting in how this verse was translated.  The last word is what's critical.

The Hebrew word for ashamed is:

 Literally translated this would be "he was ashamed".

Now, let's add another word in here:

The second word (have I mentioned you read Hebrew right to left?) is NO or NOT.  So this would be translated "He was not ashamed"

If you wanted to say  "They were not ashamed" you would do this:

That final character is called a VAV and the little dot is called a dagesh.  Those turn "He was not ashamed" into "They were not ashamed".

Well, here's what is written in verse 25:

This is NOT the same as the previous word.  This verb style is called Hitpael.  This particular verb style is known as either reflexive or reciprocal.  In this case, it's reciprocal.  In other words, this should be translated as "They were not ashamed before each other".

You may ask why this might be important.  Well, I can't speak for male readers but to a woman reading this (and I am a woman) I think this is a critical piece of information.  So many women are embarrassed to be unclothed in front of their husbands.  I truly believe that this one single word in Hebrew speaks volumes to those women.  Saying "They were not ashamed" has one meaning but "They were not ashamed before each other" says a whole lot more.  It's one thing to be unashamed by yourself while unclothed.  It's a whole other aspect to feel that way in front of someone else, specifically your spouse.  I believe that God, through the writer here, was saying that we have no reason to be ashamed in front of our spouses.

The following is totally from a woman's point of view since I can't speak for guys.  Maybe some men will pipe up in the comments on this post.

The enemy has done so much over the centuries to counter that.  In the last several decades, one way he does that is to inundate us with so many images of what the female body should look like.   Sadly for our self-esteem, only a small percentage of women fit that image.  The good news is that God has made us all individuals and he designed each of us to appeal to the man he wants for our husband.  Some guys like skinny, some like chubby.  Some like blonde, some like brunette and some like redheads.   The important thing is that our husbands have chosen us and love us as we are.  We should NOT be ashamed before them.   That includes with our love handles, wrinkles and all else that we women see when we look in the mirror.

Isn't that great news?  Whenever you might doubt that, check out this verse.  You might want to write something in the margin to remind you that you don't need to feel shame in front of your spouse.