Here the conscience of Adam is pierced with the true sting of the law. It is as if God had said, Thou knowest that thou art naked, then and therefore thou hidest thyself from me. But nakedness is my creature. Dost thou condemn that creature then as vile and base. It is not thy nakedness therefore that hath confounded thee, nor is it my voice that hath terrified thee. It is thy conscience that accuseth thee of sin, because thou hast eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree. This is the cause of thy flight from my presence. Here Adam being thus pressed by the law and by his conscience is in the midst of death; yea, in the midst of hell. For he is compelled to confess that there was no evil in his nakedness, because it was so created of God. But he was forced to acknowledge that the mighty evil was that he now had a guilty conscience concerning his nakedness, in which before he had gloried as in a beautiful adornment; and that he now dreaded that same voice of God, which before he had heard with supreme delight. It is to this state of mind, which the Lord now perceives in Adam, that the words of this passage expressly speak. As if Jehovah had said, Since thou hast an evil conscience and art filled with dread, most assuredly thou hast eaten of the forbidden tree. For thou receivedst no command from me that thou shouldst not commit murder nor that thou shouldst not commit adultery, but that thou shouldst not eat of the fruit of this tree. As therefore thou art filled with terror, thou thereby makest it manifest that thou hast sinned against that commandment. Thus those very things which were Adam's thoughts, those same things he now hears from the mouth of the Lord. Adam was thinking thus: I have eaten the fruit, but I will not say that I have fled from God on that account. I will say nothing about my sin. I will say that I was afraid, because I was naked, and that I was terrified into flight by his voice. But while he is saying these things to himself he is compelled to condemn himself, and he hears his conscience within convicting him of a lie and condemning his sin. In addition to this accusation of his own conscience, the Lord himself now accuses him of his sin openly, and in the plainest words. But not even now can Adam be brought to the honest acknowledgment of his sin. For now follows, V. 12. _And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat._