So it came about [a] in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the ground.
[a] Genesis 4:3 Lit at the end of days
There are two lessons that jump out.
Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
Genesis 12:8 (NASB)
And he went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there previously; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.
Genesis 13:3-4 (NASB)
First, repeating things is a way to highlight the story. It’s underlined, bolded, italicized and blinking: REMEMBER THIS! A great famine will drive the people of God into Egypt, where a Pharaoh will take what is not his. But remember God’s mighty hand; you will be rescued. Remember!
Second, the rabbis say that “called upon the name of the Lord” can mean that Abram preached. He told people who God was.
But imagine how different his preaching was before and after being in Egypt. What lessons has Abram learned? Experience, suffering, seeing God rescue… these things change a person. They grow a person.
After the first altar, Abram is still willing to let his barren wife be taken away, fearing for his own life.
After the second altar, he is willing to accept a barren land, allowing Lot to take the fertile plain of the Jordan, trusting that God can turn barrenness into fruitfulness.
But WE are given God’s name in Genesis 2:4, right before the Tree of Life is described:
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 2:4 (NKJV)
God’s name and the Burning Bush seem linked, both in Exodus and in Genesis.
I wonder if Moses was given a vision of the Tree of Life, barely obscured by flaming swords (Gen 3:24).
So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:24 (NKJV)
Perhaps the imagery is that the Tree of Life can only be accessed by Fire. This could point to following the Pillar of Fire, or being refined by Fire, or perhaps being “burned in the Fire” as a Living Sacrifice.
It could be many things, but it seems to be linked… to dying.
Perhaps Adam’s waking revelation of another life made from him tells us that in waking from death, we will be joined with another. Complete.
And perhaps the waking tells us another thing: If Adam is like God, his own sleep/death tells us that God will die and rise to be united with his bride, too.
Genesis 2 hints at this as well.
The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.
On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.
Genesis 2:1-2 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)
We have a day of rest every week, and while we could get lost in a cycle of week-in and week-out, it’s written in a way to show us that rest is a finality. It is FINISHED. It points to a future forever-rest.
Gen 2 gives us a clue.
The words that I highlighted in the first post are the same word: “finished.” Kala.
But they have different forms in the text there in the passage. They mean different things.
The first instance of “finished” is in the pual form. This idea of completion. “It’s done.” God finished it, perhaps the way one might finish a task or an assignment.
But the second instance is in the piel form. It carries a more… ominous meaning. It’s not just being done, but having brought something to an end. To fulfill. In some instances, to destroy in its finality.
Perhaps this points to a future newness. A new heaven; a new earth.
A final Sabbath.
Genesis 1 ends in the daylight. It ends VERY GOOD. It ends in flourishing.
Genesis tells us the beginning and the end.
So does Genesis 1:1-3.
So does all of chapter 1.
So does the whole of Genesis.
The scriptures echo, and grows louder and clearer every time.
If you look at Genesis 1, it’s clear that it really ends in the next chapter: Genesis 2:1-3. Go look!
Now if you read Genesis 50 (the last chapter of Genesis), it’s clear that it really ends in the next book: Exodus 1:1-7.
My theological takeaway?
The fulfillment of God’s promise may not happen in this lifetime. God told Abraham re: his descendants & the Promised Land, but it was a promise that wouldn’t be fulfilled until the book of Joshua.
God will make things right. Some now. Some later.