the beginning of repentance: "then men began to call upon the name of the LORD"

genesis 4:25-26:
"and adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name seth: for god, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of abel, whom cain slew. and to seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD."

the story of salvation begins anew with seth, in a line which luke's gospel will continue to "jesus himself." (3:23-38) the linage in its fullness begins with chapter five, but it has this little introduction, ending "then began men to call upon the name of the LORD."

this verse introduces a theme which will be of tamtamount importance through the rest of scripture. in exodus, when the name of the lord, forgotten in captivity, is revealed to moses, it is because, "the LORD said, . . . the cry of the children of israel is come unto me." (3:7-9) even in the dark days of the judges, when "every man did that which was right in his own eyes," (judges 21:25) ". . . when the children of israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of israel, who delivered them . . . " (3:9)

even so, seth, the son of adam, began to call upon the name of the LORD, and the great song of salvation began to rise in a mighty chorus for all those who have ears to hear.

the first geneology: the line of cain

genesis 4:16-24:

"and cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of nod, on the east of eden. and cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, enoch. and unto enoch was born irad: and irad begat mehujael: and mehujael begat methusael: and methusael begat lamech. and lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was adah, and the name of the other aillah. and adah bare jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. and his brothers name was jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. and zillah, she also bare tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of tubalcain was naamah. and lamech said unto his wives, adah and zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of lamech, hearken unto my speech: for i have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. if cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly lamech seventy and sevenfold."

genesis. "in the beginning." we read these titles of the first book of moses and in our simple, reductive way want to make this the book of the beginning of some one thing. now, ultimately and most importantly, it is the story of the beginning of two things: the beginning of creation, and the beginning of the holy one's redemption of creation in christ jesus, an event so important that matthew in his gospel will call it the regenesis (19:28). but that is a story with many threads of narrative, and they all start in genesis.

the first geneology will be that of cain, "who went out from the presence of the lord." it is interestingly enough from the line of cain that most of the things in which we most pride ourselves as "civilized" people originate: cities, tent-dwellers with cattle, harp and organ, artifice in brass and iron, and, in lamech's declaration to his wives, the idea that we can, in our own wisdom, act without consequences.

except for lamech's conceit, these things are not all wrong in themselves. but they are fruitless done "out from the presence of the lord." as david will recognize in psalm 127, david, who wanted to built a great city with a house for the holy one: "except the lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build it." indeed the ultimate or at least penultimate vision in the revelation to john is "the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven . . . ."(21:2) the messiah will tent among us, and we will be his cattle, says john in his gospel. (1:14; 10:11) david, the clearest image of the messiah in the old testament, will tell how to redeem harp and organ and instruments of brass and iron, culminating the psalter with "praise ye the lord. . . . praise him with stringed instruments and organs. praise him with the loud cumbals; praise him upon the high sounding cymbals." (150:1, 4-5), an image paul will pick up in first corinthians, saying that without charity, we are sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal, nothing. (13:1-2)

and nothing is what becomes of the line of cain, "out of the presence of the lord." perhaps they are mentioned in the enigmatic passage about "giants in the earth" that leads to the story of noah. either way, the holy one will continue his story of redemption through the line of seth.

a note on cain's wife

cain's wife as a befuddlement to freshman bible students is a result of the odd way we have come to read genesis. few of us read genesis 1:25, "and god made the beast after his kind," and imagine, say, all the beasts descending from one great ur-bear. but when we read about man, we think of only two people, or maybe in the second story in the second chapter, one person.

we want to make adam a proper noun, when a better understanding might be earthlings, the human ones, made from the humous.

the transgression of the man and the woman was not so importantly a singular historical event, but the description, as much as we might wish otherwise, of how all of us earthlings, unhumble human ones, act when we are beguiled by the subleties of the serpent, the shiny one, unless we are living in the presence of the holy one.

by "coincidence" i am writing this essay on february 16th, the commemoration of st. juliana. ". . . the devil is said to have appeared to the saint as an angel of light. his aim was to persuade her that what she had renounced in the world [,marriage to a roman prefect,]was in fact good." (james bentley, a calendar of saints (new york: facts on file publications, 1986.))

man, born of woman. 4: eva & ave

"and adam knew eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare cain, and said, i have gotten a man from the Lord. and she again bare his brother abel. . . . and adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name seth: for god, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of abel, whom cain slew. and to seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name enos . . . ." (genesis 4: 1-2, 25-26)

the part of genesis we call the fourth chapter is so dense it is easy to miss some notes. there is a unusual way of describing birth recorded here. the emphasis is on the mother, eve. "she bare ... and . . . again bare . . . and called his name."

then comes the interlude of cain and able, climaxing in the strange story of lamech, whose seventy and seven-fold vengeance we will not hear echoed until jesus declares seven and seventy-fold forgiveness. (matthew 18:21-22)

then "she bare a son, and called his name seth: for god, she said, hath appointed me another seed instead of abel, whom cain slew." almost as if to point out the rarity of eve's centrality, verse 26 returns to the more usual way of noting births: "and to seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name enos."

one of the fascinating thigs about these early genesis stories is that they are seldom mentioned again in the old testament, but they become very important in the new testament. from the time of irenaeus until the middle ages it was very popular to see eve as the type of mary, and much was made of the pun of "ave (maria)" and "eva." we would do well not to let the singularity of eve's baring the first-born son go unmarked.

man, born of woman.3: a crescendo of mercy

"and the Lord said unto cain, where is abel thy brother? and he said, i know not: am i my brothers keeper?
and he said, what hast thou done? the voice of thy brothers blood crieth unto me from the ground.
and now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brothers blood from thy hand;
when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
and cain said unto the lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear.
behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
and the lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the lord set a mark upon cain, lest any finding him should kill him." (genesis 4:7-15)

is there a more poignant question in any scripture than cain's: "am i my brother's keeper?" i would suggest that in the recognition of the proper answer to that question is all that is necessary for politics and ethics. nor is there a more bitter irony in any scripture than abel's blood which cries unto the holy one from the very ground which cain had tilled.

building is slow, destruction is swift, and sorrow does not restore. cain the farmer becomes a vagabond on the earth. no cain cries out, "my punishment is more than i can bear. . . . everyone that findeth me shall kill me." justice seldom seems so attractive when it is happening to ourselves as it does when it is happening to those with whom we are vexed. but cain does not meet the punishment he thinks he deserves. "the lord set a mark upon cain, lest any finding him should kill him." even over the cacophony plays the theme of the holy one's faithful mercy.

(the image above is a capital in the cathedral of st. lazare in autun, depicting a legend that cain was accidentally killed by the young tubalcain who mistook him for an animal.)

man, born of woman.2: the invention of murder

"and the Lord said unto cain, why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
and cain talked with abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that cain rose up against abel his brother, and slew him." (genesis 4:6-8)

one of my favourite oscar wilde aphorisms, the theme of his amazing de profundis, is that all sin results from a lack of imagination. perhaps eve had not been able to imagine that any creature so glittery as the serpent would not speak gold.

cain, who had been his mother's favourite, now can imagine no other way to regain the holy one's respect than to kill his brother. he cannot imagine that he could, as the holy one tells him, rule over [sin]. rather than hearing the good news, "if thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted," he seems to think that if he is the only son, he will be the favourite son. so, he talks with his brother, takes him out to "the field," and murders him. in these few notes is already written the story of jesus' crucifixion, when, after the accusers talk to him, they take him outside the city to murder him.

into the joyous song of creation comes the dark cacophonic theme of murder, as well as the motif of adversity between the first- and second-born.

man, born of woman 1: the invention of religion

"and adam knew eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare cain, and said, i have gotten a man from the lord. and she again bare his brother abel. and abel was a keeper of sheep, but cain was a tiller of the ground. and in process of time it came to pass, that cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the lord. and abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. and the lord had respect unto abel and to his offering: but unto cain and to his offering he had not respect. and cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell." (genesis 4:1-5)

our history begins. the woman, now named eve, "the mother of all," mothers: ". . . she conceived, and bare cain, and said, i have gotten a man from the lord. and she again bare his brother abel, and able was a keeper of sheep, but cain was a tiller of the ground."

the first first born, the first two brothers, the first favourite son. now it is the woman who names, and cain's name is a proud statement of achievement while abel's means at best merely "brother" and perhaps merely "futile."

the futile second brother seems to ignore the curse on the ground, not eating of it but becoming a shepherd, precurser to david and the messiah.

hard-working, brow-sweating cain, however, tills the ground and invents religion: "cain brought of the fruit of the ground and offering unto the lord."

much of the strength of these stories is their spare emptiness. one of the few things helpful that i learned in seminary is that the why question is seldom helpful. this story does not present us with whys.

so we speculate, perhaps, why cain made this offering. he is not told to. leon cass, in one of the most insightful readings of genesis i have found, the beginning of wisdom, suggests that cain must have thought the holy one like himself, and hungry. (noah, released from the ark, also ". . . builded an altar unto the lord . . . and offered burnt offerings on the altar" (gen. 8:30), and in what can be seen as the ultimate ironic fulfillment of this passage as prophecy, jesus, released from the tomb, will prepare for the disciples "a fire of coals . . . , and fish laid thereon, and bread." (john 21:9))

"and abel, he also brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. and the lord had respect unto abel and to his offering: but unto cain and his offering he had not respect. and cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."

i am tempted toward theodicy here, to quote later scriptures about the holy one's knowing the hearts of men (a theme which also crops in john's gospel (2:24-25)), but the text does not say anything about what the holy one knows about the brothers' hearts or why he respects one's sacrifice and not the others'. rather, i will suggest this story shows how limited man's knowledge is. we are, as eve said, "beguiled" by "shiny things" (the hebrew name for serpents), and nothing seems so shiny to us as our own good ideas about religion.

an excursus on eating

so much happens in these first chapters of genesis that it's easy to let some of the "most important themes slip by unheard. so, i want to take a moment to think about the role of eating in genesis.

the second commandment is about food:

"and god said, behold, i have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, i have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." (genesis 1:29-30)

(the first commandment, to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (genesis 1:28), is perhaps fulfilled, but in an unsatisfactory manner.)

so the man and the woman (it is not really accurate to call them adam and eve, since adam means both of them, male and female, and the name eve does not occur until after the fatal bite) sin by eating the forbidden fruit.

again and again eating, being fed, banqueting, or feasting will occur in the scriptural story. indeed the ultimate act of salvation will be celebrated in a holy meal.