To blend into the pre-Creation wilderness and hope nobody noticed.

But no. They hid "in the middle of the trees of the Paradise" (Genesis 3:9). In the very place they committed the act.

Why?

Philo, a Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, writing in the first century CE, grapples with this very question. He sees in their baffling choice a deeper truth about human nature, particularly the nature of sin. He offers us a powerful insight – one that resonates even today.

Philo suggests that sinners aren't exactly criminal masterminds. They don't operate with flawless logic or strategic brilliance. He paints this vivid picture: thieves so focused on their immediate prize, on the act of stealing, that they completely forget there's a power, a "Deity who presides over the world," watching over them. They are so consumed by the act, they are blind to the bigger picture.

And that blindness, according to Philo, is what traps Adam and Eve. They should have fled. They should have sought refuge far from the scene of their transgression. But their sin, their act of defiance, had a kind of gravitational pull. It held them captive, right there in the Gan Eden (Garden of Eden).

"They still were arrested in the middle of the Paradise itself," Philo writes, "in order that they might be convicted of their sin too clearly to find any refuge even in flight itself."

It's a striking image, isn't it?

Philo isn’t just talking about Adam and Eve, of course. He's using their story as an allegory. He sees their actions as a microcosm of the human condition. He's suggesting that wickedness itself becomes a refuge for the wicked. That those consumed by their passions actually flee to those passions for safety.

Think about it. How often do we see people doubling down on their mistakes, clinging to destructive behaviors, not because they’re unaware of the consequences, but because, on some level, those behaviors offer a twisted sense of comfort, of familiarity? It is a dark sort of shelter, a place to hide from the light of accountability and change.

Philo’s commentary invites us to ask ourselves: Where are we hiding? What “trees” in our own personal “paradise” are we clinging to, even though they offer no real protection?

And perhaps, most importantly, what would it take to step out of the shadows and into the open?