And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
What does 'walking' mean in reference to God, who is everywhere? In my opinion God may be said to walk wherever throughout Scripture the presence of God is implied, when we hear that He sees all things and ' the eyes of the Lord are upon the just.' [ Ps 33:16 ] We read, too, that Jesus knew their thoughts and we read: ' Why do you harbor evil thoughts in your hearts?' [ Luke 6:8: Matt 9:4 ] When we reflect, therefore, on these statements, we have a knowledge of God in the act of walking. The sinner, in fact, had tried to hide away from the sight of God. He wished to conceal himself in his thoughts and was unwilling that his works appear in the light of day.' [ Matt 5:16 ] The just man saw Him face to face, [ Deut 34:10; 1 Cor 13:12 ] because the mind of the just man is in the presence of God and even converses with Him, as it is written: ' Judge for the fatherless and defend the widow said the Lord.' [ Isa 1:17,18 ] When a sinner, therefore, reads these passages from Scripture, he hear...
Toward evening God was walking in paradise, that is, he was coming to judge them. He was still walking in paradise before their punishment, that is, the presence of God still moved among them, when they no longer stood firm in his command. It is fitting that he comes toward evening, that is, when the sun was already setting for them, that is, when the interior light of the truth was being taken from them. They heard his voice and hid from his sight. Who hides from the sight of God but he who has abandoned him and is now beginning to love what is his own? For they now were clothed with a lie, and he who speaks a lie speaks from what is his own. This is why they are said to hide near to the tree that was in the middle of paradise, that is, near themselves who were set in the middle rank of things beneath God and above bodies. Hence they became hidden to themselves so that they might be troubled by their wretched errors after they had left the light of truth that they were not. For the hu...
It was not only by the patience he exhibited that God wished to help them; he also wished to benefit them by the sound of his feet. God endowed his silent footsteps with sound so that Adam and Eve might be prepared, at that sound, to make supplication before him who made the sound. .
Afternoon air. God's presence has often been indicated by an unusual wind. (3 Kings xix. 12; Acts ii. 2.) The sovereign judge will not suffer the day to pass over, without bringing our first parents to a sense of their fault. They hid themselves, loving darkness now, because their works were evil.
Rather they discerned the approach of the Lord by a certain breeze. As soon, therefore, as they had sinned, God appeared to them, producing consciousness of their sin, and calling them to repentance.
We read in Genesis that when Adam transgressed, when he paid heed to the serpent rather than to God, when he hid himself from the face of God, then God came into the garden and was walking about in the cool of day. Now listen to what the Scripture says. God sought out Adam, not at midday but in the evening. Adam had already lost the sunlight, for his high noon was over.
See the Lord’s loving kindness and the surpassing degree of his longsuffering. I mean, though being in a position to begrudge such great sinners the right of reply and rather than to consign them at once to the punishment he had determined in anticipation of their transgression, he shows patience and withholds action. He asks a question, receives a reply and questions them further as if inviting them to excuse themselves so that he might seize the opportunity to display his characteristic love in regard to the sinners, even despite their fall.
What are you saying—God strolls? Are we assigning feet to him? Have we no exalted conception of him? No, God doesn’t stroll—perish the thought. How could he, present as he is everywhere and filling everything with his presence? Can he for whom heaven is throne and earth a footstool be confined to the garden? What rightminded person could say this? So what is the meaning of this statement, “They heard the sound of the Lord God as he strolled in the garden in the evening?” He wanted to provide them with such an experience as would induce in them a state of anguish, which in fact happened: they had so striking an experience that they tried to hide from the presence of God.
WE HAVE SAID ENOUGH, I would think, as far as our abilities lie, in giving our explanation lately of the tree, to teach you, dearly beloved, what was the reason why Sacred Scripture called it the knowledge of good and evil. So today I want to proceed to what follows, so that you may learn God's unspeakable love and the degree of considerateness he employs in his care for our race. Everything, you see, he made and arranged so that this rational being created by him had the good fortune to be of the greatest importance, and far from being in any way inferior to the life of the angels, enjoyed in the body their immunity from suffering.
When, however, he saw them both through negligence transgress the commands he had given them, despite the warnings he had conveyed by threatening them and putting them more on the alert, he did not stop loving them at that point. Instead, faithful to his own goodness, he is like a loving father who sees his own son through negligence committing things unwo...
