Genesis 2:25

Summary

Genesis 2:25 states that both the man and his wife were naked, and that they did not experience shame because of this condition. The verse closes the second creation narrative before the introduction of the serpent in chapter 3.

Key words

• va-yih.yu ("and they were", H1961) — narrative vav plus qal imperfect (used with past narrative sense), placing the clause in sequence with what precedes.
• she.nei.hem ("both of them", H8147) — construct form of the number "two" plus 3rd person masculine plural suffix, functioning as "the two of them" and anticipating the explicit identification that follows.
• 'a.ru.Mim ("naked", H6174) — masculine plural adjective, agreeing with the plural subject "both of them"; describes the shared physical state.
• 'ish.T-o ("his wife", H0802H + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, literally "wife-of-him," linking the woman to the man syntactically.
• yit.bo.Sha.shu ("they were ashamed", H0954) — hithpael (reflexive/middle voice) imperfect, denoting an internal, reflexive experience of shame, negated by lo' ("not", H3808).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative verb va-yih.yu ("and they were," H1961), which continues the sequence of narrative actions from the preceding verses using the vav-consecutive construction typical of Biblical Hebrew storytelling. The subject is introduced first in summary form — she.nei.hem ("both of them," H8147) — before being specified by apposition: ha-'a.dam ("the man," H0120H) ve-'ish.t-o ("and his wife," H0802H). This order (general term, then specific identification) is a feature of Hebrew narrative style not always preserved in translation, where "the man and his wife" may appear before the number.

The adjective 'a.ru.Mim ("naked," H6174) is masculine plural, agreeing grammatically with the collective dual subject rather than with each noun individually. The final clause uses the hithpael stem of bosh (H0954), which carries a reflexive or internalized nuance — literally "they made themselves ashamed" or "they experienced shame in themselves" — rather than a simple passive "were shamed by another." The imperfect aspect of yit.bo.Sha.shu indicates an ongoing or habitual state within the narrative moment, not a single completed event.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (erat autem uterque nudus) uses a singular verb erat ("was") with uterque ("each of the two"), differing in number agreement from the Hebrew plural yih.yu ("they were"). The Hebrew she.nei.hem ("both of them") is rendered by the Vulgate as uterque, and by BSB as "both," while SBLIBRE reformulates the phrase as "tanto...como" ("as much...as"), a structural rather than lexical shift.