But Genesis 4 shows us two paths: one of righteousness that leads to dying, and one of wickedness that leads to killing.
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.
However, Adam is noticeably absent from any mention of the raising of his sons, and in a post-fall world, this can be seen as a sin of omission.
We are told that Cain “worked the soil” in the NIV. If you’ve followed along the previous weeks’ studies, you’ve heard this word “worked” before, but in a different form. And connected to a different man.
Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.
Genesis 4:2 (NIV)
It’s Cain’s own dad, Adam. In Genesis 2, we’re told that Adam’s role was to “till the ground.” This word “till” is the Hebrew word “abad,” which means to “labor” or to “work.” And in Genesis 2, the work is GOOD.
Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground.
Genesis 2:5 (NIV)The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Genesis 2:15 (NIV)
But in Genesis 3, the ground gets cursed.
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.
Genesis 3:17 (NIV)So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
Genesis 3:23 (NIV)
What does it mean that the ground is cursed? What does it mean that the work will result in painful toil, thorns & thistles? Why does this point to death?
Cain’s name means “acquired.” As in, “I worked to acquire this.”
This is death.
God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering is unrelated to his own accomplishment. He simply brought the best of what he had: the “fat” (or choicest/best part) of the “firstborns.” The best we have.
It’s the same thing God asks of us today. Not the sacrifice, but our heart.
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Genesis 3:10 (NIV)
Over and over again, we are told, “do not fear.”
However, that’s not the word used here. A “covering of skin” is a phrase that shows up again later, in Genesis 27. The usage of the phrase may give us a clue.
Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins.
Genesis 27:15-16 (NIV)
Perhaps God is doing something… tricky.
The word is used again later in a story linked to something important: it’s the word used when Sarah drives out Hagar.
And she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
Genesis 21:10 (NIV)
While we wrestle with Sarah’s unkindness and Abe’s foolishness and Hagar’s slave-status, there’s something that Paul says later about this story that we have to understand. These characters represent something.
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
Galations 4:22-23 (NIV)
There’s so much talk about “works” and “faith,” and Paul links these concepts to slavery and freedom as it relates to God’s promise to us.
When Sarah demands that Abe “get rid of” Hagar and the boy, she is using this same word of “banishing” as Genesis 3.
The link should be viewed through an eternal lens: God is banishing the slavery of works and our own attempts at attaining status and relationship from the garden. The Garden is Holy.
He’s not kicking US out. He’s kicking out the works of the flesh.
How do we know this?
Because if you read the text closely, God only banishes Adam from the garden, and not Eve, who represents Life. The spirit. The one through whom God promises to bring redemption. Not through through One born of the flesh, but born of the spirit.
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:22-24 (NIV)
It’s the Cherubim.
There was a time we thought they were babies with wings. Read the article to know why!
What we know for certain is that “cherubim” is the plural of “cherub,” and they are mentioned nearly 100 times in the Scriptures. However, I don’t recall ever hearing a sermon including them. They seem wildly important, yet they’re never talked about.
It’s interesting.
Adam calls his wife the “Mother of Life.”
Genesis 3 seems to separate the man and his wife and put them at odds with each other, right after God brought the together in the previous chapter.
We read that Adam is cursed to die, and that a flaming sword blocks Adam from the Tree of Life.
From Eve? Is Adam separated from both Life and from his wife?
There is so much being said here.