Eve names Seth, but in Genesis 5, the text says Adam does, so the implication may be that they both did. And perhaps that’s the point. We are meant to work together.
Eve knows God will redeem the world through her children, but one is lost by murdering the other. All of her hope is destroyed.
She holds Seth.
How she must have trembled at his first cry. How she must have clung to him and pressed him close to her body, but also feared losing him, just like she lost the others.
Could she trust God with this child? She trusted him with the first two, and we know what happened.
I weep for Eve. For us.
How do we trust after we’ve been let down? How do we hope when everything we hoped for has been dashed?
The story of Eve and Seth is a story of God healing the broken hearted. It will require time. It will require God.
Eve assumes God will use Cain – she says as much when she first speaks. And we, seeing Abel’s sacrifice, assume God will use the younger son to fulfill the blessing of “be fruitful and multiply.” But our assumptions are dashed by murder. Cain leaves the scene, and Abel dies. What will God do to solve this problem?
Perhaps the right name of the story should be “Not Cain, not Abel, but through Seth.”
Seth’s name means “appointed.” As in, selected by God to be used for a specific purpose. God’s purpose.
This is the nature of things.
Cain means acquired
Abel means a breath; vanity
Seth means appointed
“By the work of my hands, I attempt to acquire a name for myself. But this, too, is vanity, a grasping for the wind.
But God appoints another way. God’s way.
But seven generations later, the seed of wickedness grows into mockery and even greater violence. Perhaps this is the way of Cain.
Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah,
Listen to my voice,
You wives of Lamech,
Pay attention to my words,
For I have killed a man for wounding me;
And a boy for striking me!
If Cain is avenged seven times,
Then Lamech seventy-seven times!”
Genesis 4:23-24 (NASB)
Perhaps the pattern starts with Genesis 4: we’re all Cain, and we all killed Abel.
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have obtained a male child with the help of the Lord.”
Genesis 4:1 (NASB)
Eve is the first to refer to God by the Name.
On the one hand, this points to intimacy. God is not merely “out there” to her, but close enough to call by name. God’s very own name.
On the other hand, is she using the Name in vain? Is Cain’s identity wrapped up in this vanity?
Cain may be cursed (like the serpent), or the ground is further cursed (like w/ Adam). It’s difficult to determine.
Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Genesis 4:11 (NIV)
from, out of, on account of, off, on the side of, since, above, than, so that not, more than
from (expressing separation), off, on the side of
H4480: מִן (min)
In Genesis 4, Cain is told that HE is cursed FROM the ground; the GROUND accepted Abel, but it REJECTS Cain.
Perhaps the ground is humanity, and Cain has cut himself off from it. A vagabond.
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
Genesis 3:17-19 (NIV)
Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Genesis 4:11 (NIV)
In Genesis 3, we have:
Adam: A tiller of the ground -> fruit -> broken relationship -> a curse of death -> God’s protection (covering) -> the man has a son.
In Genesis 4, we have:
Cain: A tiller of the ground, -> fruit -> broken relationship -> a curse of death -> God’s protection (a mark) -> he has a son.