Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Coats of skins. The Hebrew х kaatªnowt (H3801) `owr (H5785)], coverings of skin, because the latter word is singular, not plural: one skin was sufficient for both. There are some, says Kennicott, who will have the word х `owr (H5785), skin] in this passage to refer to the skin of Adam and his wife, and the meaning to be, "The Lord God made for the first pair coats or coverings of their skin." But the Hebrew word would in that case have been in the plural, with the pronoun suffixed to it, "their skins." Besides, it has been proved that the Hebrew word is nowhere found with any other meaning than signifying the skin of the lower animals. There is indeed one place where the word SEEMS to denote the skin of man (Exodus 22:27). I say seems, because all the versions are not agreed to give it that meaning here, the Samaritan text referring the word to the skin of a beast. Yet, if we understand the word to signify human skin in that place, it is used so differently from what it is in this passage of Genesis, that, but little service can arise from the observation.'
There can be no doubt that the skin of a beast is referred to, a portion of which would be fastened as belts around their bodies, which was all that was needed; but since they could not have dreamed of such a mode of covering themselves, unless an express order or permission had been given them by God-for they had not been invested with the right over the lives of the inferior animals-so it is distinctly said that "the Lord God made them the coats of skin," and in all probability showed them how these were to be prepared for a covering. The mention of an occurrence so apparently trivial in the midst of a solemn history must have arisen from its association with some other transaction of higher importance, and that was none else than the institution of animal sacrifices-an institution undoubtedly of divine appointment, adapted to the capabilities of men in early ages, and designed to transmit the instruction given as to the only acceptable mode of worship for sinful creatures, by faith in a Redeemer, through the medium of a symbolical rite, which impressively reminded them of that fundamental truth.
The intertwining of a few leaves, or the plaiting of some small branches, might have helped to hide the conscious shame of the first transgressors for a time. But these were of no use either as an adequate or a permanent covering; and, besides, they stirred no recollections, nor suggested any needful cheering thoughts. Whereas the skin of a lamb or a kid, besides being more durable, could not be procured without the death of the animal; and as its slaughter, if effected by the hands of the first man, must have been as a substitutionary victim, to be offered according to the divine directions, the blood-stained hide of the slain beast, since it was worn on the persons of the fallen pair, would be a constant painful reminder of the death which their guilt deserved. The mention of "the coats of skin," then, which the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, is eminently worthy, considering their origin and their use, of the place it holds among the momentous details of this tragic narrative. They are associated with the institution of a sacred rite of deep symbolical import; and certainly no time could have been more seasonable-rather, none could have been so appropriate-for the appointment of that rite, and the supply of that clothing, as when the announcement of the Redeemer was first made-when the need of his propitiatory death began to be felt, and the benefits of being clad in the robes of his righteousness were held out to man.
There was a subordinate object served by the furnishing of those skins. 'By this clothing,' says Kiel, 'God imparted to the feeling of shame the visible sign of an awakened conscience, and to the consequent necessity for a covering to the bodily nakedness, the higher work of a suitable discipline for the sinner. By selecting the skins of beasts for the clothing of the first pair, and therefore causing the death or slaughter of beasts for that purpose, He showed them how they might use the sovereignty that they possessed over the animals for their own good, and even sacrifice animal life for the preservation of human; so that this act of God laid the foundation for the sacrifices, even if the first clothing did not prefigure our ultimate "clothing upon" (2 Corinthians 5:4), nor the coats of skin prefigure the robe of righteousness.'
It seems that these transactions took place within the precincts of Eden, for the first pair were not instantly expelled from the garden; some time was probably allowed to elapse, in order to furnish them with clear and adequate instruction in the religion suited to fallen creatures, as well, perhaps, as to train them to the use of the new symbolic rites of worship. Nor would that be attained either soon or easily. What a shock must the feelings of the parents of our race have received-what an overwhelmingly painful impression must have been made on their hearts, when the first sacrifice was offered-when they were ordered to sprinkle the blood of the victim on the rude altar-when, with the recent memory of their guilty fall, they stood in mute astonishment at the spectacle of the immolated carcass, and beheld in it the effects of that death to which it was consigned as their substitute! Then for the first time, it may be, they had realized the actual idea of DEATH; their minds had been filled with a threatening of it, but of the nature and effects of it they could form none but vague conceptions. 'Such a deficiency and obscurity of view,' says Dr. Pye Smith, 'may very well be supposed to have existed in the minds of our first parents, notwithstanding the unquestionable facts that the animal creation, in all previous states of the earth, had been often devoured by other animals, and that the creatures contemporary with Adam were also formed to be the subjects of death. Those first human beings might not have continued long enough in the state of sinlessness to have had opportunities of becoming extensively acquainted with the phenomena of death. But undoubtedly they had been more than obscurely aware of what would be the consequences of violating the command of their Maker, though the image of death, in its terrible reality, was brought home to their bosoms for the first time by the slaughter of an appointed sacrifice.'