Bible In A Year: Genesis (Chapter 4)

Genesis 4–5 reveals the clash of two ways of life—trusting God’s provision or approaching Him on our own terms. Through Cain and Abel and two contrasting genealogies, we see the ongoing conflict between two seeds and the hope of a better sacrifice. This episode points us forward to the mercy found in Christ.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Mission
• 0:33 Framing Genesis As A Continuous Story
• 1:28 Eve’s Hope And Cain’s Birth
• 3:20 Shepherd And Servant Of The Ground
• 5:03 Offerings, Acceptance, And Anger
• 7:10 “Sin Crouching” And Firstborn Status
• 9:40 Murder, Curse, And The Mark Of Cain
• 12:05 Two Lines Multiply: City And Violence
• 14:05 Seth, Calling On The Lord Begins
• 16:20 Why Genesis 5 Matters And What’s Next

Transcript

Phil Porter: 0:00

You're listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast. Our mission is to help the people of God understand the Word of God. Join us each Monday and Thursday for new episode releases. Listen to our full library of content at teachmethebible.com or by downloading the Teach Me the Bible app from any app store. You're listening to Teach Me the Bible Podcast. Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to Teach Me the Bible Podcast. My name is Phil Porter. I am here with Dr. David Klingler. It has been a couple weeks now since we have started the story. We're going to continue that today in Genesis chapter four and five. But just so you know, if you um would like to go outside of this as well, if you've never understood any of our resources that we have currently, um we want to just make you aware of those. We have a bunch of book studies on our app and on our website that is available to every single person. And so you can also go and listen to any podcast for any chapter of any book and so and track right along with us. So our goal is to get 2027 be done with the whole Bible. So that's uh an ambitious goal, but something that we're very excited about and we hope is a blessing from generations past us to come. I mean, that would be great. Yeah. So um uh, but for today we're in Genesis chapter four and five. We're gonna be going along with the story. So, David, why don't you uh pick up kind of where we left off and uh then take us away? Yeah, chapter so chapter four.

Dr. David Klingler: 1:30

Uh one of the we've talked about this several times, but one of the unfortunate things is that we have chapter breaks and verse numbers, and it it chops up the Bible into uh you know memory verses. You know, there's all kinds of memory verses. Now we've got reading plans where you read this little section, read that little section of this book, of that book. Who reads that way? Yeah. And so it makes it kind of incoherent, it doesn't flow. Uh, and so I always point out the obvious, right? Chapter four follows chapter three. Yes. Yeah. Well, I love how you do that. It's so important to remember that because uh it's kind of like sitting there watching a movie, and and you you just assume that this scene is related to the movie. You wouldn't make the assumption, this has nothing to do with anything. Uh, and and your brain just automatically goes there, just assumes that okay, how does this fit, right? Uh and uh and of course it does, but but we don't treat it that way. We treat it as these individual standalone kind of you know, we can call them pericopes or passages where we learn principles from there, like, you know, try not to kill your brother or don't hate him too much or something like that. Yes. And and really, that's not what's going on. This the story's developing. Uh, just like when you watch a movie and you have certain things that happen early in a movie that aren't real clear what's going on. Uh, you have a general idea, the the meaning has been narrowed a little bit, but you still have some options, right? You don't know exactly what the identity of this serpent is, for example, in chapter three. You you know that there's gonna be enity, there's gonna be uh dissension, these two sides are gonna be enemies, the woman and the serpent, and the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, but you don't know what that looks like yet. Uh you're you're you've got to watch the next scenes and the coming scenes. In sorrow you shall bring forth sons. You don't know what that looks like yet. Well, that's what we're developing. And so chapter 4, verse 1, it says, And Adam knew his wife uh and uh Eve, and she uh conceived and brought forth Cain, uh, and she said, I have acquired a man, the Lord. Now, remember back in Genesis 3, 16, uh, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In sorrow you shall bring forth sons, yet your desire will be for your man, and he will rule with you or over you. Um but all of that language that the conceived in sorrow you shall uh bring forth, you shall conceive. Um it's all the same. She conceived, same word in 316, she brought forth or gave birth, yelled is the word, same word in as 316, and she said, I have acquired an Ish, a man, uh same word. And so this this gives some pretty good insight into what 316 is about. She is looking for this one who's going to come and strike the serpent and restore her rule. Her her hope is no longer in the man with her, but in the man that will come forth from her. Uh, the the translations are all over the place here on on 4.1, particularly with I've begotten a man. They translated a man-child. It's an interesting translation. Uh, it's the only time in the Bible uh where Ish is translated man-child. It's not a you know, she she had a baby, but she says, I've acquired an Ish. You know, this is the one. It's it's referring back to the previous scene. Um, then the second the last thing, or the second thing in chapter four, verse one, is uh most uh Bibles will put with the help of in there. It'll be in italics. Um that's not in the original. Uh it's translating a construction. Um, and uh and people are trying to figure out well, what what's exactly going on here? You should say, I have acquired a man. Uh with the word there that's behind with, they're translating. There's two ways you can translate that. One is to translate it as the word with, um, but the other way is is a direct object marker. It it identifies this the the what's being talked about in the sentence. And and actually, uh that that word, it's et is the word. The word has already been used several times already in this verse. Adam knew et Eve. He knew uh um Eve, you know, et Eve, it's it's identifying who he knew, his wife, and she conceived and brought forth et Cain, Cain, uh, et Cain, identifying Cain. Uh, and she said, I have acquired a man at the Lord. Um again, she brought forth et his brother, et Abel, uh, and Abel was uh so so so five times in a year it's at et at et uh and these translators are saying, Well, let's separate this one out and translate it differently than the other four. Well, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. And that construction of et the Lord is is always uh you know the direct object marker of the Lord. So probably I've begotten a man, the Lord. And the question becomes, what does that mean? My suspicion is uh that she is calling on the name of the Lord, that uh she is she says, This is the one, the Lord. This is the one that the Lord has promised, this is the this is the the one that's coming forth from me, but the one who's going to restore, she's looking for the promised one. Uh and again she gave birth to uh his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the flocks. But Cain was a tiller of the ground. There's a contrast going on there, and and in this construction, you would think um it it the the the story presents it as if Cain, if as if Abel is doing the normal thing. Abel is uh a uh they translated a keeper of flocks, it's a roate sown, it's a uh a shepherd of sheep. Um why is he raising sheep? Well, previous chapter, right? The Lord provided a substitute, and again, as you watch the story, it's gonna develop. John the Baptist is gonna see Jesus, this one, uh, come on to the scene. He says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is what the whole story has been looking for. And so you're watching this develop. Uh some people will say, Well, you're reading the the New Testament back into the Old Testament. Say, no, no, no. Look, uh, if you're watching a movie, okay, and you get, you know, halfway through the movie, three quarters of the way through the movie, to the end of the movie, uh, and your understanding of the first few scenes don't fit with how the movie progresses, you've misunderstood the first few scenes, right? You're not reading the later scenes back into the earlier scenes, you've misinterpreted the earlier scenes. The author is showing you what you need to know to get to the later scenes of the movie. And and so one of the problems we have is we we assume that this isn't a unified story, uh, and and then it seems to make no sense. No, that this is pretty pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And so what Abel's doing here is a response to what the Lord did, uh providing a covering back in chapter three. But it says, but uh but Cain was a they translated numeric standard at least, uh tiller of the ground. What do you have there? What translation do you have? NIV. NIV. What does it say there for tiller of the ground? Yeah, it says uh Cain uh worked the soil. Worked the soil, yeah. Actually, it's the exact same wording, the exact same wording uh that is back in chapter 3, verse 23. Therefore the Lord God took him out of the garden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken, to serve the ground. What does yours say there in 323? Yeah, it says, for me, it says um to work the world. To work the ground. Yeah, to work the ground. Uh it's Avad, it's to serve the ground, right? So he it's the Lord God sent him out of the garden to serve the ground from which he was taken. And so actually, what what Cain is doing here, it's the exact same wording, but Cain was a servant of the ground. So he's actually doing, you know, Adam was expelled from the garden, and Cain is doing what you would think was expected. The question is, why is why is Abel raising sheep? Yeah. Um, and and so you get this contrast between uh in chapter three, Adam and Eve cover uh providing a covering of uh from the fig leaves, and the Lord providing a covering of animal skins. Uh, and both sides now have kind of uh identified with with those two solutions in chapter three. Verse uh three says, and it came about uh in the course of time, literally in the at the end of days, at the end of days. So in other words, you know, the the the director of the so to speak has got his camera on Cain. Everybody's watching Cain. Um they translate it uh it came about in the course of time. But literally, uh it is at the end of days. At the end of days, um Cain brought an offering, a minkah, to the Lord from the fruit of the ground. The word there for minkah actually comes from the the word Noah, right? That we're gonna be introduced to the Noah, it's to a restful, uh maybe translated like an appeasement offering, something to bring rest to the Lord and uh to to appease the Lord, something like that. And uh, and so the question is why is he why is he doing that? Uh and then it says uh verse four, and so Abel also for his part, uh from the firstlings, from the firstborns of his flock, and from their fat portion, uh he he also brought a sacrifice. And so notice that Abel only acts after Cain. So the story was watching Cain, is Cain the one? By Cain's actions, you see that he's not the one. Uh and Abel now needs a covering for himself because his brother, Cain, is not the one. He's he's not his brother's keeper, he's not his brother's covering. And so the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard. And so Cain became angry and his face fell. His they translated his continence fell, his his uh his face fell. Interesting uh wording there. Um I I wonder if this isn't where the the word there, uh his face fell, his face Nephal. Um I wonder if this doesn't introduce us to the Nephilim, uh, which is going to be in chapter six, the fallen ones, you know, their face fell, the fallen ones. Uh I think that that's that's the connection there. But anyway, uh then the Lord said, Why are you angry and why is your face fallen? If you do good, will not you be uh will you not be uh they translate it lifted up. This is an interesting uh so this is uh uh as we've talked about last time and want to mention again, there's three verses here that are just really uh pretty difficult to handle. Uh this chapter four, verse seven verse is actually one that uh in Judaism they basically say it's it's hopeless, you can't you can't understand it, right? Um be but I think you can. And the reason why I think you can is be is if you understand it in light of the story. Uh I think it fits right in. Uh verse seven, this is a question. If you do good, if you do tove, if you do well, uh this is what what man was created to do, what was good in the eyes of the Lord. And and so uh clearly uh Cain is not doing what's acceptable in the eyes of the Lord. He's bringing from the fruit of the ground, um, but without the shedding of blood, there is no uh covering of sin. Uh, you know, all the the Hebrews, New Testament verses are coming from this, uh, you know, from these early early stories. If you do good, they translate it uh uh lifted up or or something like that. Uh it's uh the the word is used later in Genesis, and it's an interesting usage. It's at the end of uh the book of Genesis, the exact same form of this uh word is used, uh and it's in reference to um uh to when Reuben said, Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might in the beginning of my strength, uh strength, preeminent in and here's the word uh that they're translating it, uh excelling in in dignity, or what in other words, um I think what's going on here is if the Lord is saying to Cain, if you do good, you will have the role of the firstborn. The inheritance will come through you, the promise will come through you, the promised seed will come through. But if you do not do good, sin is a crouching one at your door, uh and and we'll go back to that. Uh, this is the same thing that that say it said of Reuben. Reuben's firstborn status was removed because he did not do what was good in the eyes of the Lord. He slept with his father's concubine. We're gonna get to that in the in the coming weeks. But but in other words, um you're tracking the firstborn and and and uh um Abel needs a covering for uh for Cain because Cain's not his covering, he's not his brother's keeper. He's uh and so he needs a covering of firstborn covering a from the fat portions. And and watch these things as we go through the story because these are the things that are going to be placeholders for the coming Christ, the the the fat portions in the uh in the the sacrificial system, the the the pr the uh the importance of the firstborn throughout this story, you know, looking for this firstborn, only begotten, that type of thing. This is all this is going to be very important. And this is how a story works. It's kind of setting the categories for us to uh to walk down the trail on. So if you do good, will not you will you not be um established or you know have have uh you know preeminence, that type of thing. Yeah, it but uh if you do not do good, they translate it, sin is crouching at your door, its desire is for you. Um it's as if it's referring back to sin, right? Uh the problem with that is you you can't do that. Um the um the sin is a feminine singular uh noun, uh and um uh and um the pronoun there's a what we call pronominal suffix. There's a pronoun on the end of desire. It's desire is for you, that's a masculine uh pronoun or his desire, it or his desire, it's masculine. And so it's like saying la taco for you know, all of us who live in Texas, we know you know, el tortilla. That's that's not what you say. It's la tortilla, el taco. Uh, not um uh you you wouldn't say uh a masculine pronoun for a feminine uh for a feminine noun, you just wouldn't wouldn't do that. The masculine thing that's in the verse is a crouching one. Sin is a crouching one at your door, his desire is for you. Now, uh as we talked about uh back last time, uh you now you got the desire of the woman uh and the desire of the serpent. You have two sides, the woman and the serpent, you have two seeds, now you have Cain and Abel, uh seed of the woman, seed of the serpent. So the story's starting to develop, you're starting to see kind of how these two things are playing out. You're not looking for little snakes, you're looking for those that represent the serpent's desires, and and uh and you have two desires, the desire of the woman, the desire of the woman is for the promised one to come and to strike the serpent, and uh the desire of the serpent is to uh you know deceive the the children of the woman uh and if you can't deceive them, kill them, right? And uh and so this and he's gonna operate through uh the the the children of the woman. Uh and so you're watching Cain become the seed of the serpent. Uh his desire is for you, uh, and they translate it, but you will master it, uh probably uh, and you will rule with him. So you have two sides, um the woman and the serpent. You have two seeds, the woman's seed and the serpent's seed. The woman is looking for the one who will rule with her, uh, and uh the serpent is looking for the one that will rule on behalf of him. Uh and there's going to be enity between these two, and this is what we see play out throughout the whole story. And so the two sides are being clearly drawn. This is a very important passage for our understanding of the Bible. And so Cain said or spoke to Abel, his brother, and it came about that when he was in the field, he rose up and he killed Abel, uh, his brother. Um, and so now you're seeing the full playing out of the seed of the woman, the seed of the serpent, the enemy between them. And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I don't know, am I my brother, am I my brother's keeper? Uh verse uh ten. Uh he said, What have you done? The voice of your brother is crying out from the ground. Now you are cursed more than the ground, or from the ground, which uh uh is opening its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you serve the ground, you will no longer yield its strength to you, but you will be a vagrant and a wanderer. Um that's an interesting uh little uh vagrant and a wanderer uh in the in the earth or in the land. The the word uh wanderer is uh uh you will be a na, a vagrant, and a nod, a wanderer. So he's going to go be a wanderer in the land of node. Node is wandering, it's the same word. He'll be a wanderer in the land of wandering is in. Sounds like he's going around circles. Right. That's what sounds like Cain said to the Lord, my pain is too uh great to bear. Um you have driven me from the face of the ground, and from the face uh your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer in the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. And the Lord said to him, Whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken sevenfold. And the Lord uh appointed or or set a sign uh on uh on Cain. And um, you know, the word here that uh is oat the is the word for sign. We're gonna see this all the way. At the end of the story. Now Cain has been marked out as you know, he's been identified as the uh on the serpent side. Uh and uh by the end of the story, um, Revelation, you're gonna have the mark of the beast if you don't receive the mark of the beast. It's the it would be the same word if they were writing it in Hebrew. It's uh it's this mark. So all the things that are showing uh showing up at the beginning of the story, you're gonna see again, right? These are core important uh important passages. And so Cain goes and he lives in the land of uh wandering in the land of uh in east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And so you're seeing both sides now start to multiply. And uh and uh um uh in chapter uh so so what we're gonna get in the the rest of chapter four and chapter five. Um chapter five usually is usually a chapter that everybody skips, right? It's just a genealogy skip at what you know we don't know why it's there. But but actually, what you what you what what we see is two sides are multiplying. You uh the uh the the side of the serpent, Cain's genealogy is multiplying. And uh in uh at the end of chapter four and into chapter five, we're going to get um Seth. And we'll talk about Seth here in just a minute. Uh but I want to want to make sure that we see the contrast. Uh, Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch, and he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch after the name of his son. Now, remember a man was created to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, right? To make God's name great, to do what's good and right in the eyes of the Lord. The opposite of that would be to congregate in one place, build a city, make your own name great, right? And so this is how the stories tell are saying, yeah, they're doing their own thing here. Um now this Enoch, you're gonna get an Enoch here in chapter four, uh verse 17, Enoch the son of Cain, uh, and you're also going to get uh in chapter five, uh uh you're gonna be introduced, for example, 521, Enoch lived uh 65 years. This is a different Enich. Uh this Enoch, uh uh born from Jared in verse 19, is from the line of Seth. And so you have two Enochs, one who's building a city, making his name great, and an Enoch from uh from Seth's line, who is walking with God. And that's gonna be code language, walk according to the word of the Lord, to walk uh with God. You're gonna have a Lamak in uh in Cain's line. He's gonna be the first to take two wives, and uh, and he's going to be killing people. He's gonna take two wives, uh, and he's going to say, Lammock said to his wives, this is in verse 23, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamak, give heed to my speech, for I have killed an eash for wounding me, a yelid for striking me. All the language of you know, back in the story 316, 315, 316. So, so the he is opposed to the other side, and if Cain is just as Cain killed Abel, if Cain is of uh is of in sevenfold, Lamak seventy-sevenfold, um uh and Adam knew his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth. Uh the word for Seth or the name Seth comes from the the the uh verb actually back in Genesis 3:15. I will appoint enity between you and the woman and your seed and her seed. Uh I will set, I will, you know, Seth, I will place uh enity. Uh and so we need a replacement for Abel, who Cain killed. And so God, uh so she named him Seth, for she said, God has appointed me another seed, Zerah seed, seed of the woman, seed of the serpent, in place of Abel, for God uh for Cain killed him. And Seth, a son, was born, and he called his name Enish. Uh then uh the name of the Lord was begun to be called, or something like that. That uh that men begin to call upon the name of the Lord. Now, this is important. You're again, um uh you once you know this all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is the first time in the story this shows up to call upon the name of the Lord, to walk with the Lord. Uh this type of language is going to be really important as we go throughout the story. So um we're gonna get Noah walking with the Lord or walked according to the word of the Lord. Um, Abram is going to walk according to the word of the Lord. Lot is going to walk according to the word of the Lord, at least for a while. Um they're going to call upon the name of the Lord. And so this is the language that you're going to see throughout the whole story, right? Paul's going to talk about this in Romans chapter 10. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Uh, and so this isn't new language. This is language that's established here, and it's all the way through the story. So it's pretty important that uh that we see it. So when you when we're seeing uh what when we're thinking about chapter four and chapter five, uh you're you're starting to watch the uh the two sides develop. Uh what was not clear in chapter three, okay, is this what are we talking about? Baby snakes attacking people. What are we talking about here? It's not real clear. Now it's they're starting to get some clarity to it. You're seeing these two sides developed. Well, one side does what's good right in the eyes of the Lord, they're doing actually opposite what the Lord has uh has commanded them. They're building cities to make their name great, they're multiplying wives rather than 224, one man, one woman, one flesh. They're multiplying wives, they're killing people. You have enmity between these two sides. Uh on the other side, uh, on uh on Seth's side, uh, you have uh people walking with God, calling them on the name of the Lord, that type of thing. And so so chapter five is actually gonna walk us right into chapter six. We're gonna uh stop here. Um, but the first thing we're gonna do at the beginning of our next session is say chapter six follows chapter five, just like follow chapter three followed chapter four. Uh and so so remember we're just reading the story. Uh, and uh, and as we're going down through uh through these uh these sections of or these scenes, think of it more of a scene of a movie. Uh each scene just continues to develop the plot. And so so we're we're rolling along in the story. We're we're about to get to uh the flood. Usually when we think about the Bible, we think about chapter one and chapter two is you know some kind of creation. Chapter three is quote the fall, chapter four is Cain and Abel, chapter uh chapter five, skip that genealogy six through nine, the flood, chapter ten, skip that it's genealogy. Chapter 11, Tower of Babel, Chapter 12, Abraham's story, right? As if it's a bunch of you know, kind of collection of different stories thrown together. No, no, it's one collection of story. As you're reading it, you can definitely tell. We're tracking one uh one plot development, one seed. Yeah. Uh and the contrast, the this conflict between the two sides, as this one side is looking for the promised one who will come and uh and reestablish the rule that was lost at the garden.

Phil Porter: 27:20

Now, uh for our our listeners, I guess we haven't got we didn't go over chapter five, but it's I would say um you would definitely recommend reading Oh yeah, read chapter five.

Dr. David Klingler: 27:31

We'll actually pick it up. We'll we'll uh next time uh here's what we'll do. We'll we'll um we'll summarize chapter five and we'll show you how that all fits in.

Phil Porter: 27:38

Because I had a lot of questions about chapter five. I mean, a lot of these people, I mean, I'm seeing a lot of years here. Yep. This is a long life. Yep. Um, and I I don't understand why it's so long. Um I just don't understand.

Dr. David Klingler: 27:53

So maybe we shouldn't maybe we don't understand why our lives are so short. Maybe that's the problem. But we'll talk about it.

Phil Porter: 28:02

Yeah. I feel like I just like whenever you're sitting here and you got like a Chinese master sitting across from you. I felt like it was one of those things. I'm talking about long, you talk about short now. My brain is blown. So uh, but anyways, okay. Well, we'll start uh up again at uh chapter five. Thank you, David, so much for walking us through even tough passages that thank you so much for pointing out six and seven of chapter uh four, you know, just explaining how difficult these are, but also tying it back into the story. Um so remember that as we go along, these passages are gonna come up. And David, we just thank you so much for breaking them down for us because even some things like this we pass over and don't just because we just don't know. Um, you know, you you're you're diving into the meanings of the words and it deeper, and we're just seeing the English translation. Like my NIV is clearly a little bit off. So um I just appreciate you so much doing that for us. And for all the listeners, continue to stay with us. Chapter four, there's a lot in it. And uh we'll start the summary of chapter five, but thank you for today. For more resources, visit teachmethebible.com or download our app from any app store. You can partner with Teach Me the Bible in helping the people of God understand the Word of God by subscribing and sharing with others. Thank you for listening to Teach Me the Bible Podcast.