Naked

When the Bible says a person is naked, it can mean being either fully unclothed or partially unclothed, and the context is usually the only clue as to which of the two is meant. To understand the cultural connotations associated with nakedness, we need to begin where it all started—in the Garden of Eden. The very last thing we are told about Adam and Eve before the temptation is that they were fully naked and yet felt no shame (Gen. 2:25). This vividly indicates just how different their living circumstances were from our own. Once the fall occurred, their nakedness became the reason for hiding from God and the starting point for divine interrogation (Gen. 3:7, 10–11). Eventually the puny efforts of these humans to solve their problem with fig leaves was addressed more adequately by God, who provided them with clothing (Gen. 3:21). From this point on, wearing clothing in public became the norm and imposed nakedness became a mark of shame and an indicator of troubled times (2 Sam. 10:4–5).

Being naked does not take one back to a prefall world of innocence but firmly places one in the sin-filled world where nakedness connotes trouble. It is linked with those who abuse alcohol, beginning with Noah (Gen. 9:20–23; Hab. 2:15–16). The art of the ancient Near East as well as the descriptions in the Bible pictured those captured in war being marched into captivity without clothing as a way of further humiliating them.[152] “So the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt’s shame” (Isa. 20:4; see also 2 Chron. 28:15; Amos 2:16). The poor are often described as unclothed or underclothed (Job 22:6; 24:7, 10; Rev. 3:17). Thus one attribute of godly believers is that they provide clothing for the naked (Isa. 58:7; Matt. 25:44–45). Paul included being underdressed in a list of challenges he had faced, but he trumpeted the fact that not even poverty and its associated nakedness would be able to separate him or any other believer from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35; see also 2 Cor. 11:27).

In ancient art, prisoners and exiles are often distinguished from free people by being depicted without clothing.

In the ancient Near East the image of a naked man could have positive connotations, but an image of a naked woman was often of a sexualized woman in trouble.[153] This is also the case in the Bible when the women who were stripped naked were either prostitutes or wives who had been unfaithful to their husbands (Isa. 47:2–3; Hosea 2:3; Nah. 3:5).[154] Pagan fertility worship involved naked figurines, thus linking nudity with the worship of false gods. For this and other reasons, great care was taken to make sure Israel’s clergy covered themselves with undergarments when ascending the steps to the altar (Exod. 20:26; 28:42–43). And to these we can add many more examples of individuals in the Bible whose lack of clothing indicated a more troubled time, such as the partially naked King Saul or the prophet Micah, the demon-possessed man who had gone without clothing for some time, and the young man who “fled naked, leaving his garment behind” as Judas led an armed crowd to arrest Jesus (1 Sam. 19:24; Mic. 1:8; Mark 14:51–52; Luke 8:27).

The negative connotations of nakedness can be used rhetorically as a form of criticism. On the day the ark of the covenant was carried back to Jerusalem, King David set aside his royal garments and joined the crowd in celebrating the special day (2 Sam. 6:14). By contrast, his wife Michal, the daughter of Saul, criticized David for “going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!” (2 Sam. 6:20). The prophetic books use the image of nakedness in a more sustained way to criticize the sin of God’s people. As early as the book of Deuteronomy, the Lord warned Israel that one of the penalties for covenant unfaithfulness would be the humiliating nakedness imposed by those who led them into exile (Deut. 28:48). The prophets seized on the image of Israel as God’s straying bride stripped naked to emphasize the penalty for her covenant violation and as a call for this wayward woman to repent (Isa. 57:8; Lam. 1:8; Hosea 2:3, 9). This image appears repeatedly in the verses of Ezekiel. Israel is the young, naked child over whom the Lord unfurls his garment to cover her nakedness. But she quickly unleashes her sexuality in the presence of other men, even becoming a prostitute who uses her nakedness to entice lovers into her bed. Consequently, she will be punished and treated as a wayward wife or prostitute rather than honored as a bride (Ezek. 16:7–8, 22, 35–39; 23:10, 18, 29).

Two other figurative uses of nakedness merit special mention. First, fortified cities of the ancient world were carefully designed to protect those within, but they never could be designed without potential points of weakness. Joseph accused his brothers of coming as spies to inquire into the nakedness of his land (Gen. 42:9, 12; NIV “see where our land is unprotected”). The Edomites called for the foundations of Jerusalem to be made naked (Ps. 137:7; NIV “tear it down”; see also Isa. 23:13). Second, we have the image of the naked newborn who participates in delivering the message that humans never truly own anything they can carry with them into eternity. Job succinctly sums up the situation by bracketing his life with nakedness: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart” (Job 1:21; see also Eccles. 5:15).

The efforts of Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness with fig leaves did nothing to solve the larger problem of sin that had entered their lives.