He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Genesis 3:10 (NIV)After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
Genesis 15:1 (NIV)
If you study it from the beginning, you’ll see that Genesis 15 is speaking directly to the things of Genesis 3.
These are the first two instances of this word “afraid” in scripture.
Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I have given everything to you, as I gave the green plant.
Genesis 9:3 (NASB)
Prior to Genesis 9, humanity wasn’t given meat to eat. The rabbis debate the reasoning and implications, but what stands out in my own reading is that Abel sacrificed a lamb to God in Genesis 4. I can only assume this was a burnt offering. A cooked offering.
But he didn’t eat it.
Have you ever roasted lamb before? Have you smelled it?
It’s hard to fathom the depth of self-control and restraint required to present something wholly to God like this, and not reach my hand out and take some for myself. But perhaps that’s part of the story of Abel. Maybe there’s a lesson in there about not reaching out your hand and taking what belongs to God. And this points us right back to a certain Tree in the Garden of Eden.
After the flood, all food is permissible, although the rabbis note that God prohibits some food later, so the permission granted here may not mean all animals. Regardless, what was previously withheld by God can now be enjoyed within the context of the Genesis 9 Covenant.
1. You can forgive them and teach them how to live rightly.
2. You can harm them, exacting vengeance on them so they experience your pain.
Which do you choose?
This is a story of Noah.
Here is the setup:
There are Four Characters
There is Deception
There is Nakedness
There is Shame
There is a telling (Who told you that you were naked?)
There is Curse and Covering / Covering and Curse
Genesis 3 and Genesis 9 include these same elements in almost the exact same order
In Genesis 3 we have FOUR CHARACTERS: God, Adam, Eve & the serpent. There is DECEPTION, causing disobedience which leads to seeing their NAKEDNESS. They are ASHAMED. There is a (TELLING OF NAKEDNESS: who told you?). God CURSES the serpent & the ground, and then COVERS Adam & Eve.
In Genesis 9, we have FOUR CHARACTERS: Noah, Shem, Japheth & Ham. There is DECEPTION (Proverbs 20:1 links deception to wine) which leads to seeing Noah’s NAKEDNESS. He is SHAMED by his son Ham to his brothers as there is a (TELLING OF NAKEDNESS). The brothers COVER Noah, and then Noah CURSES Ham’s son.
Rabbi Marty Solomon, quoting Rabbi Fohrman sees a clear link here. He suggests Noah was familiar with the story of Genesis 3, and he could have learned the lesson: God cursed a wicked thing and forgave the ones who disobeyed.
Instead, Noah curses the one who shamed him, even after the brothers cover him.
In this view, Noah is even reminded about the covering by his sons before he launches into vengeance. He had every opportunity to stop and remember God’s handling of Adam and Eve. He could have forgiven them and covered their shame.
But he choses violence instead.
I’m tempted to fault Noah here, but given the power to forgive, taking the pain on myself or the chance to exact vengeance where I can inflict my pain back on them (7-times? 77-times?), how often do I fail to forgive?
This is a story about all of us. And here, we are shown the consequence of what happens when we fail to forgive.
By cursing Canaan, an entire people are subjected and enslaved. This curse is so great that Israel’s suffering is largely because of the generations of Canaan that live in the Promised Land.
Perhaps generational curses are the result of unforgiveness.
Perhaps forgiveness changes the world.
However, this word “curse” here in Genesis 8 (kalal) is *not* the same as the one in Genesis 3 (arar).
The Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.
Genesis 8:21 (NIV)
The Genesis 8 kalal means to make light or to render insignificant. To treat as worthless or despised.
The Genesis 3 arar means cursed and suggests a binding, or a punishment.
So when we read that Adam was a worker of the ground before sin entered the world, and then told that he will toil and struggle with the ground after sin, we see a change – the ground is cursed. Bound up. Not fruitful like it was before.
In Genesis 4, when we read that Cain was a “tiller of the ground,” we are supposed to see it and go “uh oh…” because we already know that the ground is cursed. And Cain’s labor leads to murder.
So when we read Genesis 9 and we see that the curse of Genesis 3 is perhaps not abated by Genesis 8, we should be startled to see how Noah is described.
Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.
Genesis 9:20-21 (NIV)
We should expect things to go sideways. And they do.
You’re going to see yourself cast out of the garden.
Marked for death.
A random name in a list of names.
Left off the boat as the flood rises.
But that’s not the story.
He left the garden with you.
He shielded you from vengeance.
He knows your name.
He carries you in the boat.
It is your story. It is the story of His great love for you.
And [Lamech] named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.
Genesis 5:29 (NASB)
The last generation listed before Noah is born is through Lamech, who says this perplexing thing about comfort from the toil from the cursed ground.
If you follow the timing of the births and deaths of the line from Adam until Lamech, you’ll see that Adam has only recently died, so perhaps the whole world sees that the consequenced laid out in Genesis 2 and 3 has come to fruition. Maybe the world weeps. Death is reality.
So Lamech names his son “Noah,” which means comfort, and it points to a future where God provides a way out of death, symbolized by a certain boat that rises above the all-consuming flood.
And God does not break His promises.
We read that “their eyes were open” in Genesis 3, but perhaps “seeing” does not mean “knowing.” It requires something more.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.”
Genesis 4:1 (NKJV)
If you have followed me so far, you know that I’m quick to acknowledge my errors, and that my posts aren’t made from a boastful understanding of the Hebrew language, or tied to any claims of moral or theological superiority. I just have a lot of questions. I think we all do.
The question that Genesis 4 presents us with is this horrifying, theologically problematic, guilt-inducing, burden-laying rendering of Genesis 4:7.
Sin is crouching at your door; it’s desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
Almost all of them
Nearly every translation says it similarly (with the notable exception of Youngs Literal Translation (YLT), which is what started me on this journey!)
But let’s think about this statement that God is making to Cain, and how it applies.
SIN is CROUCHING at YOUR DOOR, and it DESIRES YOU, but you must MASTER it.
What is this saying? And why would this message be God’s instruction to Cain?
What doctrine is this?
Now, think about the sin in your life. Think about your own moral failings, and personify them for a second. It says sin desires us. Odd. I mean, I desire it more, but maybe God is telling me that sin is “alive” in some way. It is a thing that crouches and desires me.
So we are given this picture of a creepy, crouching thing that wants to… eat us? Is that what this “desire” is? Are we pointing back to the serpent, with an implied message that the serpent’s intent is to consume us?
Maybe? Sin is bad, so… sure.
But then…
“but you must master it.”
What the works-based-salvation messaging is this? We must MASTER it? Rule over it? I mean, this might point back to “dominion over all the earth,” and include the serpent, but what is this saying? That we must… save ourselves?
For anyone who has wrestled with true spiritual bondage in their own lives, being told “you just need to stop and master your sin” is a death blow. Because it is impossible.
Unfortunately, we KNOW people who defeated addiction and bad behavior. “I did it. Why can’t you?”
But this response from them doesn’t help. It makes it so much worse at times, and it’s often from this pit of despair that we finally cry out to God. We learn that only God can deliver us. And then we read the Exodus and see: only the hand of God could free His people. We learn that it’s only by faith, and not our works that we are saved.
Our entire walk with Jesus teaches us to depend not on ourselves, but on him and what he did on the cross, and through the empty tomb. This is our hope. He is our salvation.
That’s the premise of our entire faith.
So why does God tell Cain that he must “rule over” his sin?
I don’t think God did. Or at least, I think the Hebrew text might be written in a way to understand the message another way. The key is in this word “sin.”
It is translated two different ways in our Bibles:
SIN… and SIN OFFERING
(Sin: 182x; Sin Offering: 116x)
The only way to know which way to translate it is through context. In the next usage of the word, it’s quite clear that it can ONLY mean “sin,” because “sin offering” would make no sense here:
And the Lord said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.
Genesis 18:20 (NASB)
In fact, if you ONLY read Genesis, you’d think that the word could only be translated as “sin,” but note that each time, it’s connected to the word “offense” or “outcry.”
And the Lord said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.
Genesis 18:20 (NASB)Then Jacob became angry and argued with Laban; and Jacob said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me?
Genesis 31:36 (NASB)‘This is what you shall say to Joseph: “Please forgive, I beg you, the offense of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong.”’ And now, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Genesis 50:17 (NASB)
But when you get to Exodus, AFTER Israel’s deliverance, when God teaches Israel how to sacrifice and worship rightly, we have these renderings of the SAME word. The context is what gives you the right meaning.
But the flesh of the bull and its hide and its refuse, you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering.
Exodus 29:14 (NASB)Each day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to consecrate it.
Exodus 29:26 (NASB)However, Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year; he shall make atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.”
Exodus 30:10 (NASB)
So let’s go back to Cain, and see another problematic word. This time, it’s DESIRE.
I said earlier that a serpent desiring to eat you is a fine picture for sin. But that word “desire” is not used to describe the desire of a predator in the scriptures.
It’s longing. It’s love.
To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you shall deliver children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
Genesis 3:16 (NASB)“I am my beloved’s,
And his desire is for me.
Song of Songs 7:10 (NASB)
So now let me paint this picture for you.
Cain has just been rejected. His heart wasn’t right. He was filled with pride of his own work, and that isn’t an acceptable offering.
So God tells him, “if you do what’s right, you’ll be favored. But if not… ”
“… then see that I have placed a sin-offering at your door. It longs for you. It’s a lamb that knows nothing except love for you, but… you have to grab hold of it. You have to bring it to the altar, as your brother did.”
God tells Cain that a sacrifice is available.
This passage is NOT saying we have to overcome our own wickedness. That is impossible. It’s saying that, just like for Abel, an offering was made available for Cain. An offering he did not work for. He did not earn. It’s there FOR him, just like for Abel.
It is always God who provides. It’s the same message Abraham understands when he tells his son Isaac, “God will provide a lamb.”
That has always been the message. It is the only answer to sin. It is the only thing God requires: a sacrifice HE gives us to offer.