Commentary on the Hebrew words for nakedness

           1692b      עֶרְוָה (ʿerwâ) nakedness, shame.
           1692c      עֶרְיָה (ʿeryâ) nakedness.
           1692d      מַעַר (maʿar) nakedness.
           1692e      תַּעַר (taʿar) razor, sheath; cf. Ugaritic tʿrt “sheath, scabbard” (that which makes bare).

The verb ʿrh does not occur in the Qal stem. In the intensive and causative stems it is employed meaning: (1) “to lay bare, uncover, expose nakedness,” and (2) to lay bare in the sense “to empty, to pour out.” This latter sense may be used as a figure of death in the expression given in Ps 141:8 and Isa 53:12, “to pour out the soul/ life” (nepeš, q.v.). Hebrew ʿārâ has cognates in Arabic (ʿariya “to be naked”), Phoenician (ʿrh “to lay bare”), Akkadian (ūru “nakedness, desert waste”), and Ugaritic (ʿry “naked” [Ais-WUS, no. 2097]).

After the fall (or “plunge”) of man, nakedness in the OT was a matter of shame. This is not because sex is evil, but because of sin-burdened minds (see J. B. Payne, Theology of the Older Testament, p. 218). As D. Kidner writes, “Man saw the familiar world and spoilt it now in the seeing, projecting evil on the innocence (cf. Tit 1:15) and reacting to the good with shame and flight.” He adds, “The fig leaves were pathetic enough, as human expedients tend to be, but the instinct was sound and God confirmed it, for sin’s proper fruit is shame. The couple, now ill at ease together, expressed a foretaste of fallen human relations in general” (Genesis, InterVarsity, 1967, p. 69).

Hence, nakedness in the OT after Gen 3:7 is a symbol of human shame, the evil fruit of sin. It is quite impossible to build a case biblically for nudity. Nakedness cannot be tolerated outside proper sexual relationships (see the prohibitions of incest in Lev 18 and 20), nor may it occur in worship (Ex 20:26; cf. 28:42).

Conversely, nakedness, the exposure of shame, is a marked feature of judgment on evildoers (see Isa 3:17; Hab 3:13; Zeph 2:14 Lam 4:21; and the extensive employment of the vocabulary for nakedness by Ezk in chapters 16, 22, 23).

In Ps 137:7 Edom’s taunt of Jerusalem is an example of paronomasia. Edom’s words, “raze it, raze it, down to its foundations,” by double entendre signify, “strip her, strip her, down to her buttocks” (Jerusalem pictured as a woman being ravaged; see Dahood, Psalms, III, in AB p. 273).

Ronald B. Allen, “1692 עָרָה,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 695.