Genesis

Lesson 5 Chapter 4

READ GENESIS 4:9 - end

It is so very important for us to get this: the very first humans, and their very first children, at the very beginning of the World, were shown by God Himself that sin has a high price. And, that price is death. And, in His great Mercy, God decided to allow, for a time, the blood of innocent animals to cover….that is, atone… for man’s sins. Note I said cover; because the sin was still going to be there….just covered up…..like Adam and Havah’s nakedness was covered up. You know, our clothing is simply a covering over our nakedness. Under that covering the nakedness, like our sin, is still there. For centuries and centuries, God would provide a covering over the sin of those who trusted Him, in the form of the blood of animals. But, in the course of time, Christ would change all that. Because unlike the blood of animals, His shed blood didn’t cover the sin, it removed it and sent it far away.

Kayin has angry words with Hevel, and then kills him some time later. This is not necessarily the world’s first murder, but it may have been; there were a lot of people in the world by now. Certainly, it’s the first RECORDED murder. Now, this first family was, at this time, still living in Eden….the Land, not the Garden. Eden was a special place, made for God’s people. God decided to banish Cain from Eden for the shedding of his brother’s blood, and sends him to the EAST, to a land called Nod…..Nod translates to “wandering”, and it incorporates the sense of “unrest” or “restlessness” in its meaning. Kayin marries, has children, and many descendants follow over the years. He even builds a city.

By the way, concerning the sign that God put on Kayin to indicate “no one” was to harm him, there is some interesting commentary from the ancient Sages: 1st, the word usually translated as “no one” or “anyone” in the Hebrew is Kol. Kol CAN mean anyone, but it just as often can mean whatsoever, anything, or all things. So, what exactly Kayin was being protected from is not necessarily men. Some of the commentaries say that the animals might have been his greatest worry……but it is primarily those commentators who say that other than for Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, and probably an unmentioned sister or two, there WERE no other people yet. That is a pretty big stretch. There is little doubt that there were many people by now. You’ll notice that we go quite a time before there is mention of another female other than Havah. This is simply because of the patriarchal nature of the Bible…..it is male oriented. And, because ALL genealogy and family ties were according to their relation to the father, the listing of generations only rarely includes a female name. But, then, as now, there were undoubtedly more women than men.

Another interesting take by some of the ancient Rabbis concerning this verse is that it wasn’t that a sign was put onto Kayin, it was that HE was a sign; he was a sign for all to see that anyone who committed “blood” (in this case murder) would be banished from the land and forced to go away to sanctuary. In fact, this concept that the Israelites adopted when they entered Canaan, of providing a place of sanctuary for the person who killed someone…..usually the result of a justifiable or accidental killing……is said to have been modeled after what happened to Kayin.

What we see, though, is that from here on, Cain, Kayin, will be associated with evil and wickedness.  The symbolism is so thick here we could cut it with a knife: for in verse 16 it says: “So Cain left the presence of Adonai, and lived in the land of Nod (wandering)…”  Here is one those examples I told you I’d identify when we came across it; an example of a statement in the Bible being both literal AND symbolic simultaneously. For indeed, Cain was literally sent away from Eden and lived in a land called “wandering” or “restlessness”; sent away from the presence of God.  And, is it not true from a symbolic sense that when we are away from the presence of God, when we are SEPARATED from God, we are indeed in a state of wandering and unrest? We live a hopeless and meaningless existence, in a constant, directionless state, when we live apart from God.

So, Cain is the start of the line of wicked people who turned their backs on God. Thus we are introduced to the fifth generation from Cain, headed by a fellow named Lamech. Lamech is far removed from God. And, Lamech (as had Kayin and many others) breaks God’s instruction about the institution of marriage; of a man and woman being joined as one flesh: he gets greedy and takes TWO wives. And, then, listen to the proud, rebellious Lamech who boasts to his wives: READ Verse 23,24. He even admits to murder. The line of Kayin, Cain, was thoroughly wicked, godless and corrupted, in a mere 5 generations after the first man was created, and from living in the Garden of Eden. We’ll see this same pattern emerge many years later, after the Great Flood, when Noah, the 2nd Adam, repopulates the earth, but almost immediately wickedness reappears. Interestingly, that won’t be the last time history repeats itself in that way. When Christ comes the 2nd time….I believe in the VERY near future…..and cleanses the whole world and sets up His perfect Kingdom for a 1000 years……. toward the end of that millennium people will once again display wickedness, and rebel against Christ. And they will be destroyed completely, along with Satan, all the evil spiritual world, and evil itself. Only then will that pattern, that cycle of evil, finally be broken once and forever.

The all-merciful God then gives Eve another child, in her view, as a replacement for the now dead Abel. This new child is named is Shet, Hebrew for Seth. Shet, in Hebrew, means “compensation, or granted”…..as in a wish granted.  As we move along, we will see that Shet is regarded as the line of good; as opposed to his banished brother, Kayin, the line of evil. Whereas Cain and his descendants wandered further away from God, we are told in verse 26 that through Seth “that is when people began to call on Adonai”…..Adonai means “Lord”. In other words, those people who looked to God for direction and offered Him praise and worship. So, the dynamic is now established: the descendants of Shet, Seth, are the line of good; and the descendants of Kayin are the line of evil.

READ GEN: 5 all

I just want to point out of couple of things here, about the genealogy we just had recited to us: first, this was the genealogy of Shet, Seth. This is the line of good, of people of faith.  Adam was 130 years old when Shet was born. Now, we don’t know how old he was when Kayin was born……but likely he was quite young. Remember, Adam and Havah were created as physically mature humans. They could have procreated almost immediately, and likely did. In fact, even though Kayin is mentioned first, it’s not necessarily so that he was Adam and Eve’s very first child, but probably was the firstborn. Biblically, the firstborn is ALWAYS male. A family could have 10 children, the first 9 being girls; but if the 10th child was the 1st male to be born to the family, HE was called “the firstborn”. So, Adam and Eve could have had some number of girl children before Kayin, and it is likely they did. We need to stand back and be realistic, here. Anyone who is a farmer or a rancher knows that the way to increase your flocks and herds is to have a large number of females to each male. Since one male can impregnate many females, and it is the female who bears each offspring, it is of little help to have a large number of males and a small number of females. So, I think it is quite logical and reasonable to consider that the number of female humans was many times that of male humans……especially early on.  God was intent on man rapidly populating the earth; and since He was no longer creating humans from the dust, but instead allowing the reproductive capabilities of mankind to do the job, many females was the answer.

So, it is certain that Eve was a baby-mill. And, her daughters were baby-mills, and their daughters were baby-mills and so on. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that the age of sexual maturity in women, puberty, occurred any earlier than it does today; but there is every indication that for hundreds of years the age at which women were still giving birth was much greater than today. Biblically, it would appear that it was quite normal for a 15 year old girl to be married and having her first child, even in Yeshua’s day. So, a new generation was starting about every 15 years in a family. When we realize that Adam was 130 years old when Shet was born, it is probable that at least 7or 8 generations of people already existed. That said, by the time of Abraham, things had leveled out and the age and span of reproduction was much the same as it is in modern times.

And, notice that Noach was in Shet’s line. Notice also that Noach’s father’s name was Lamech. This is NOT the same Lamech that was the fifth in line from Cain. Just like today when there are thousands, if not millions, of people who have the same name: Fred, Rebecca, Kathy, Elizabeth…..so it was then. Lots of people had the same name, so we have to be careful as we read the Bible not to mix up people simply because they had the same name. 

Last point: people lived a really long time back then. I have heard many fascinating scientific reasons why that was possible, or why it was impossible and therefore a fairytale, but it doesn’t matter. These were real people being talked about, and they actually lived that many hundreds of years. This is not symbolism, it is literal. Now, there may well be significance in the precise number of years that some people lived….that is, in the number itself. For instance, Enoch lived 365 years….the same number as days in a year. And, Noah’s father lived 777 years, seven being the number of completeness. OR, it may just be coincidence. As we go along we will see that there are several numbers that have special significance, many of which we are already familiar: the number 7, the number 12, and of course the infamous 6-6-6.

Chapter 5 ends with the birth of the 3 sons of Noach, who will repopulate the earth after the Great Flood.  We must comprehend that even though we’re told that Noach was 500 years old when he fathered these sons, that he was probably not PRECISELY 500 years old; because unless these boys were triplets, or came from 3 different mothers, they would have been space apart at least 3 years. Right? But, more important, Noach didn’t get his first children only on his 500th birthday. He must have contributed GREATLY to the world population by then; his own offspring accounted for a pretty fair share of those people who the Lord would call thoroughly wicked. Yet, as God does, these 3 sons were set-apart…..divided, elected, and separated…….from all of Noah’s other offspring to become the surviving gene pool for all post-flood humanity; including us. 

READ GEN: 6 all

The first few verses of this chapter contain some information that is among the most mysterious and troubling in all the OT. It concerns the statement that the “sons of God” saw that the “daughters of men” were attractive, they took them as wives, and the children born of those unions were different, as were their fathers different…..these “sons of God”. In fact, the Bible gives us a special name for these people, and at least some of their offspring: and that name is N’filim (nee-fee-leem).

The KJV, and many other Bibles, have translated N’filim to mean “giants”……you know, fee-fie-foe-fum giants. It was the Greek Septuagint, developed in 250BC, that took the Hebrew word N’filim and translated it to the Greek word “gigante”. In Hebrew, N’filim is a play on the word “nephal”, which means “fallen” or “to fall upon”. It certainly, in the Hebrew, has no sense of “giant”. Rather, the sense of the word is cease, or die….to cast down….it was even used to describe an abortion, and something that was rotting. Martin Luther described the nature of the N’filim as men of violence, tyrants. For lack of a better way to put it, the N’filim were a race of something different, and it was an evil difference. It is as though the N’filim were some type of mutants or aberration that became endowed with much power.

Now, who are these verses referring to when it talks of these “sons of God”?  Well, many bible scholars have taken this to mean “fallen angels”. It’s easy to see how that conclusion could be arrived at, when “fallen” or “cast down” is one sense of the word N’filim. Add to that the heavenly or spiritual sense of “sons of God”, and the idea is formed that some fallen angels took on human male form (complete with reproductive organs), mated with human women, with the result being a race of giants called N’filim. The ancient Hebrews certainly never even dreamed of this meaning. Rather, they saw it that the sons of God was simply a designation for the line of Seth……the line of faithful, godly men.  Conversely, the women (called daughters of men) were representatives of the line of Cain, the line of those who fell away from God.

According to the ancient Hebrew sages, up to this time, the faithful line of Seth had stayed separate from the wicked line of Cain. But, eventually, some men from the line of Seth lusted after these beautiful women of Cain, and…….there went the neighborhood! Now, the whole human race was fouled and polluted with evil.

This separation and division of the line of Cain from the line of Seth, is seen as a “type”. In other words, it’s another of these underlying fundamental principles we see played out over and over again in the Bible. A long time into the future, when God would take the Israelites out of Egypt, and give them the Torah (which we are in the midst of studying) He did so with the instruction to “be ye separated”. For He separated Israel away from all other peoples of the world to be a nation of High Priests to Him, to be a faithful people to God. All the other peoples of the world…..everyone other than Israelites…..were given a title: goyim. Gentiles. The Israelites were a people holy to God, everyone else wasn’t. And, this is how it was for the line of Cain, versus the line of Seth, long before the Israelites ever existed. 

In any case, the result of all this was that a race of people called N’filim bedeviled everybody, and were able at times to dominate. Apparently they were bigger, stronger, smarter, and probably were the subjects of the ancient pagan myths and legends of great and fierce warriors and leaders, with superhuman qualities. Were they actually giants, like in the movies? Only by the most vague suggestion. So, what were the N’filim in reality? We really don’t know for sure. But, more and more scholars are coming to the conclusion that likely these were a people who turned themselves over to Satan, and gained great power in the doing. When we read in the Scriptures descriptions of the anti-Christ, and how this person will be incredibly charismatic, perhaps the most intelligent man ever to live, cunning and one step ahead of everybody…….then we find out it is Satan who is the source of his power. I have no doubt that Satan has been the source of power for many a world dictator. Hitler convinced an entire nation that it was their duty to rule the world, and to rid it of Jews. He confounded the world with his abilities and battle strategies, and we were within an eyelash of seeing him realize his evil dream. I have a feeling that Hitler could well be categorized as a type of modern-day  N’filim.

No matter whether the N’filim’s existence came from fallen angels or fallen man, the true source of their power was evil, and even the coming flood would not be the end of it. I think we’re going to eventually see that while the N’filim were literal and real, they also eventually came to represent a “type”; that is, before the Flood they were likely a real race of people; but after the flood, when they were wiped out, N’filim and the other names for them might have been but other peoples that were thought to have similar attributes. We’ll see that later on in Genesis, after the Great Flood, and then in Numbers, and eventually even in Deuteronomy the N’filim (or N’fillim-like people) are again mentioned. These post-flood “types” of N’filim are given a number of names including the R’phaim, Emim, Anakim, Horim, and a few more. When we get to those biblical sections, I’ll point it out to you. By the way, it is likely that the giant, Goliath, who was slain by David, was of the Anakim; because Goliath was from Gath, reported to be a village where the Anakim ruled (we find this is Joshua 11). It is interesting that the Anakim AND the Philistines occupied the same territory.

Now, we must also understand that as happens with men, as time passes a reality can become distorted and turned into legend; the language of the Bible is not immune to that phenomenon, because even though the Bible is complete truth, it is still told through the life and events of real people……flaws, misconceptions, and all.  So, I suspect that in episodes we read in the Scriptures that took place hundreds of years after the original race of the N’filim died out, that the name for these strange beings was used as a general term to describe someone, or some group of people, who had certain characteristics that were deemed evil, or maybe they were physically larger than others and therefore menacing, or they were the fiercest of warriors, or some such thing. For example, even in Christ’s day….long after the Canaanites of old were gone……….the term Canaanite was still used; that is, while no living Israelite even knew a Canaanite, it was common memory among the Jewish people that the Canaanites were idol worshippers, child sacrificers……everything that Israel detested. So, Canaanite came to be used as a “cuss word”, so to speak, usually referring to a person you disapproved of. Maybe it was in reference to a merchant who cheated someone; or a man who didn’t practice his Judaism to the satisfaction of some of more pious folks. When I was a younger man, I can recall a person being called “a Communist” if you didn’t like them……but it was not really about them ACTUALLY belonging to the Communist Party; it was just kind of a politically correct 4-letter-word for the day.  Since Communism was public enemy number one all through the 50’s, 60’s, and well into the 70’s….what with McCarthyism and the Korean War and Vietnam, to call someone a “communist” was just a general derogatory term.

Now let me state emphatically, that many of the sages and Rabbis wove the legends of the N’fillim into their Tradition; particularly the traditions concerning angels and the world of evil spirits.  So, as far as they were concerned, these guys were not only real before the Flood, but after; so who and what they were was to ALWAYS be taken in the most literal and real sense…..not as types or epithets.

One other thing and we’ll move on. Verse 3 speaks about God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, not striving with man forever. All sorts of interesting theologies have come from this verse, but to the Sages, it was very simple: God is spirit, and He is simply speaking of Himself. It is that component, or person, or attribute of Him that we call Spirit…in Hebrew “ruach”……that deals with man. What this alludes to is that God decided to give man 120 more years to straighten up and fly right, before he destroyed them with the Great Flood. This was a warning.

Yet, in later times, many Hebrew and Christian scholars insist that the plain wording of these verses mean that men were going to be given an approximate maximum lifespan of 120 years. But, if they’re correct, the number of EXTREME exceptions to that rule was significant. For we’re told in the Scriptures that after the coming Flood, many generations of men (descendants of Noach) listed in the Bible lived to be several hundreds of years old, so certainly man’s life span was more than 120 years; and we know that life spans varied from century to century, and from culture to culture. And, since this remark about lifespan is a general statement that makes no distinction between righteous people and wicked people….or between His people and people that are not His, I think this statement about 120 years was not about how long the human body was designed to live, because it was originally designed to live eternally; it was about God pronouncing that the Flood would commence in 120 more years, wiping out all mankind ……all except Noach and his family.

God has now established another fundamental that we all need to be thrilled about: He does not destroy the faithful and the godly right along with the wicked and godless. Now, we should not confuse the concept of God pouring out His wrath on the one, but not the other, with the belief that God does not allow bad things to happen to good people…..  God most certainly DOES allow the harms of this natural world to affect both the godly and the godless. God most certainly DOES allow evil to befall the godly and the godless. Nor does God promise to shelter the godly from persecutions by the godless. But, you see, these things are not from HIM. They are from the Evil One, or from man’s evil inclination. What He DOES promise is not to shower His wrath….His divine judgment….. on the godly right along with the godless. Do you see the difference?

So that the righteous would survive the supernatural wrath God was about to wreak on the whole planet, God had Noach build an Ark: a God-designed safe haven for Noah and his family. This Ark would allow the righteous to live, while the wicked would perish. Now, I can only imagine how ridiculed Noach must have been for building this 450 foot-long monstrosity. To start with, there is no indication at all that Noach lived anywhere near a substantial body of water…..it was not unlike building an ocean liner behind your barn in the middle of the Nebraska wheat fields. But, here’s the deal, and it’s summed up so elegantly simple in verse 22: “This is what Noach did; he did all that God ordered him to do”. And, it saved his life…that, and all his family.

Now, in verse 9, were told that we are going to get Noah’s story. And, the first thing we’re told about him is that he was tzaddik……..Hebrew for righteous. But, even more, he was tammim…..which is usually translated as blameless or whole-hearted. Nothing wrong with that translation; but it obscures something that is learned in a progressive way throughout the Torah. Particularly when we get to Leviticus, we’re going to find out that much of what the Torah is teaching Israel about is “holiness”. And, one of the chief attributes of holiness is “whole-ness”. Completeness. Nothing lacking. So, I would prefer to read this verse as Noah being tzaddik, righteous, and tammim, whole. Now, of Noah’s 3 sons…..Ham, Yefet, and Shem….it would be Shem that will soon be identified to us a special line. It is interesting that Shem means “name”. One of God’s titles that is commonly used by Jews is “HaShem”…..the Name. It is also interesting that Hebrew Tradition is that that mysterious biblical King and Priest of Shalem, called Melchizedek, who Abraham would bow down to and give tithes, was actually Shem. And, the timing is such that it most certainly could have been……because Shem was still alive then. We’ll talk about that a little more when we get to that point in Genesis.

Verse 12 is among the saddest in the entire Bible: it says that God looked upon all He had made, and it had gone to ruin. The Hebrew word used here is shachath; and while corrupt is a good translation, the word corrupt in our modern vocabulary means dishonest; as though the point of God’s concern was that men were not dealing fairly with each other, and they lied, and they stole. That is NOT the sense of this word: rather, polluted to the point of ruin better catches the sense of shachath.  Contrast this with what God said but a few chapters earlier, in the last verse of Chapter one: “Now God saw all that He had made, and here: it was exceedingly good!”  From perfection to utter ruin in but a few generations.

Now, something rather interesting is said…..and something even MORE interesting is omitted…..in verse 13. God says that the causes of the problem are the living beings He created. Now, often the word Hebrew word used here, “basar,” is translated as “flesh”, which is a perfectly good translation. But, here’s the thing: basar, and flesh, doesn’t just mean man……although at times it DOES mean man. Rather, it can, and just as often does, refer to animals. Adam means man or mankind, and that is not used here. So, the idea at play is more speaking about all living flesh; everything to which God gave life, is at fault. Man and animals. Even more interesting is what God DOESN’T blame: He doesn’t blame Satan.

Now, we need to take notice of that. Because it once again brings us back to the concept of the source of Evil. And, while I don’t agree fully with all aspects of the Hebrew view on evil, I have to say that more and more I cannot refute the bulk of it. And, the Hebrews say a couple of important things about evil that I think matches what Scripture says far more than some Christian denominational doctrines on sin.

First: it is that man was created with both a good and an evil inclination. That is, he had the capability of choosing one or the other.
Second: Is that God created evil and good.

Next time, we’ll explore these Hebrew concepts of good and evil at a little more depth