We know that “where are you?” means “you aren’t where you are meant to be.”
When we read “where is your brother?” the message is the same: “you aren’t where you are meant to be.”
After sin, God said: I will know them. I will experience them. I will suffer with them.
And then Cain kills Abel.
Perhaps God is saying to Abel: I’m going to suffer your senseless death.
Perhaps God is saying to Eve: I’m going to suffer your heartache and loss.
And perhaps God is saying to Cain: I’m going to suffer being rejected and hated.
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.
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.
The first thing you may notice is that one says “all flesh” and the other says “all people.”
And God said to Noah, `An end of all flesh hath come before Me, for the earth hath been full of violence from their presence; and lo, I am destroying them with the earth.
Genesis 6:13 (YLT)So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
Genessi 6:13 (NIV)
But look at this word “end.” This word, when it isn’t connected to a specific time (like “end of 40 years,” or “end of his reign“) has a much more… eternal meaning.
I. end
1. end, at the end of (of time)
2. end (of space)
H7093: קֵץ (qēṣ)
There are two places in the Torah where this word is not connected to a specific time. Here, and back in Genesis 4 when Cain and Abel offer an offering to God.
This is an eternal image. This is not only our past. It is our present and future.
This passage can be read: “the end of all flesh is before me because the earth is filled with violence through the works of the flesh. I will destroy all flesh with the earth.”
If you read my Ish/Isha (flesh/spirit) post about Genesis 2-3, you’ll see a connection here.
If the Flood is a symbol of death & picture of baptism, where the flesh dies and is raised again by the Spirit of God, the destruction of the flesh is not disaster. It is what we long for: Not the death of wicked people, but the death of our sinful selves… so we can live.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
Genesis 6:4 (NIV)
The actions of the “sons of God” here are written in stark and glaring contrast to Genesis 4:1, where it says that Adam knew his wife Eve.
I believe the text is describing violence.
Genesis 5 lists the ages in the generations between Adam and Noah, and a few stand out. The youngest, the oldest, and the one with the strange number.
Methuselah lived the longest – 969 years. His name is linked to his long life, which was not just for his benefit, but for the benefit of humanity as God restrained the Flood until after Methuselah died.
Enoch notably never died.
And Lamech? He shares a name with a notable man in Cain’s genealogy. Cain’s Lamech is man of seventy-seven-fold vengeance. But the Lamech of Genesis 5 goes down a different path. Not one of vengeance, but of Comfort.
Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.
If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
Genesis 4:23-24 (NIV)
Seventh from Cain, we have Lamech boasting a 7-fold to 77-fold vengeance. I mentioned previously that Jesus flips this with this a 7-fold to 77-fold forgiveness.
When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.
Genesis 5:28-31
Eighth down the line from Seth in Genesis 5, we have a different Lamech, tied to the number 777.
Lamech’s son is Noah: Comfort.
In Hebrew numerology, 7 means completion. Perfection. But 8 symbolizes new creation. A new order.
It’s so fascinating. It’s like the numbers tell us about God creating a new order, undoing vengeance and overcoming it with forgiveness to bring us comfort.
Consider the law of the Kinsman Redeemer:
If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
Deuteronomy 25:5-6
This law defines how to be a “brother’s keeper.” Perhaps we’re told that Cain left and knew his wife (Genesis 4:16-17) specifically because he wouldn’t marry Abel’s wife in order to continue his dead brother’s name.