The story is in the names.

In this episode, we explore the meaning in the genealogy of Genesis 4, and how Scripture traces two competing ways of being human: one built on self-preservation, power, and vengeance, and another built on forgiveness, service, and self-giving love. Most surprisingly, we discover that when Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy-seven times,” He is answering the song of Lamech with a better song—one that calls humanity back to bearing the image of God.

Transcript

Martin 0:00

Hey all, this is Martin. If the Two Trees has been a blessing to you, please leave us a review on your favorite podcatcher or visit our website www.the two trees podcast.org and click the yellow buy me a coffee button to leave a donation. And now let us join the conversation.

Jon 1:08

About time. And this is Martin Listener.

Martin 1:10

Hey y'all. It has been rainy, rainy, and more rain. Trying to play baseball this spring has been a challenge.

Jon 1:17

Yes, the canoe races down the first baseline have gotten out of control.

Martin 1:21

You are not kidding. We uh finally got two games in back-to-back nights the last two nights. Not so well last night. Tonight we had a really strong night uh and came out victorious. Excellent. So it was a good bounce back game for uh the 8U team from Covington. Uh but hey, John, we need we don't need to talk about baseball anymore. We need to talk about our Facebook page.

Jon 1:39

It is quite the place to be.

Martin 1:40

The engagement's been off the chain this past week. Uh first of all, I have to shout out to Angie and Leah, I believe is how you say your name, Leah, all the way out in Texas. I doubt it's raining out there. It's always sunny in blue skies in Texas. But they went and had lunch together. I can't believe it. They posted a picture on our Facebook page about how an awesome time they had. And my heart has never been more full about the two people I've never met in my entire life.

Jon 2:03

I'm a little upset they didn't send us the bill.

Martin 2:05

I really, I really wanted it. Or an invite. We could have flown down there real quick and lunch. But uh anyway, that's just one thing that's happening on our Facebook page. We got people that are asking questions and then don't respond with their own thoughts. Hashtag Mark. Thanks, Mark, for that. Uh Caleb is back, Caleb Amos is back on there. Haven't heard it from him in a long time. He's had a crazy past several months, he said, but he's back listening again. So we'd love to hear that. Um, also, somebody said that the sponsorships have really been paying off for us. So I uh I really appreciated that. And there's even an Adam's Rib place like 30 minutes from us. Yeah, we gotta go. So we are definitely taking a road trip and we will leave a review, leave a comment, which is what you should do if you're listening to the Two Trees Podcast, right?

Jon 2:46

Yeah, leaving us a review opens doors of ministry for us, it brings our podcast into other people's phones.

Martin 2:54

And then uh when people are saying that we are reminding them of the Naked Bible podcast or Dr. Michael Heidemak.

Jon 2:59

That is the gold standard.

Martin 3:00

That's pretty much a uh a solid compliment that you can give to us on the Two Trees Podcast. And did I mention that the sponsors are doing a good thing for us? Obviously. Well, guess what?

Jon 3:10

They have brought in upwards of zero dollars.

Martin 3:12

We have ourselves a sponsor. Oh, who's our sponsor today? Um let me figure out which one I want to do. Uh oh, uh of course, since I'm going fishing tomorrow, I hope, fingers crossed, uh, this episode is brought to you by Peter's Bait and Tackle. They have the best worms, flies, or ears you can buy. Ears? Oh, I got you. I'm sure catfish would eat it or something. Catfish would eat about anyway. I'm new into fishing, but I'm trying to get some lures and stuff going on.

Jon 3:41

Well, I gotta tell you, there's better options than ears.

Martin 3:43

But not if you go to Peter's Bait and Tackle. Thanks for sponsoring today's episode, Peter.

Jon 3:49

Excellent. We'd introduce Rose to you, but um, you know, she ditched us for her true friends, is what I heard. That's what I heard too. She's even friends with those people on Facebook, I think. I bet she's not.

Martin 4:01

She has no friends.

Jon 4:02

I bet Rose she is running out of friends. It's a good thing we like her a lot. Otherwise, our feelings would be hurt.

Martin 4:09

Exactly.

Jon 4:09

Now she's got people at her house, so we decided to get together because there has been a plague moving through the listener household, and because they are sharers, they have given it to my people. I believe I am the last man standing, and I refuse to be sick. Uh with that in mind, I've told Martin to be ready to preach on Sunday. Just in case. Just in case. Hopefully it doesn't happen, but it's in it's entirely possible. Martin looked fine until he was dead. It was rough.

Martin 4:38

It was a flip of a switch. I played basketball Sunday night and I played with the toilet already.

Jon 4:42

Your kid was sick, right? And then your wife, did she get it before or after you?

Martin 4:45

Right after me.

Jon 4:46

You're sharing people, that's for sure.

Martin 4:48

Once I get some, I give it to everybody.

Jon 4:49

So my son has been sick, and then my wife told me today that she's sick, and we're like, we better record like now, or else it ain't gonna happen. So here we are, back in Genesis. And it's a shame that uh Rose was too cool to hang out with us today because these are honestly, this episode is about some of the things that she asks questions about. And really, it it kind of centers around why the story of Kane kind of just hangs there. Like, what happened to Kane? How do we know like that his family was not a good bunch of people? It doesn't really give you a whole lot of information about them, it just kind of drops the names. And and so I'm trying to explain this, and it takes longer than like two minutes to explain this to you. And Rose's patience with me sometimes is uh well, let's be honest, it's longer than it should be, but not as long as I wish it was. And uh and so what I thought we would do is we just tackle this topic together and kind of talk through one of the weird things in the Bible. And if it's weird, it's it's usually a sign that there is a cultural difference between us and the ancient culture that wrote this down. And that's exactly what you're seeing in the case of the Cain story. And so, as Americans, or as Westerners rather, we like lots and lots of details. We have biographies that just go on for pages and pages about random detail. Our entertainment industry has invented reality TV, which is nothing but random details. And we kind of expect the same thing to be true in the Bible, that if they really want us to notice something, they'll repeat it over and over and over. And sometimes the Bible does that. Sometimes it focuses our attention by repetition. Other times, though, it does it in much more subtle ways that are intentional. And before we jump into it, I want to refresh your mind about what it is that we're talking about. So, Martin, there are names, you're gonna need to pronounce them as best you can. Everyone in the audience is forbidden from critiquing.

Martin 6:51

This is why I was hoping Rose would be here today. But John, I did want to highlight something that you said about if it if it seems weird what you're reading. I think a lot of the times when we've come across something that is weird, we assume it's the subject matter that is weird. The subject matter still applies to us today, one way or another. It may not be in an identical, you know, one-for-one scenario of what happened then to what happened now, but the idea behind what was happening is still very prevalent today. So the subject matter isn't the weird part of what you're reading, it's the ability to translate the culture of that time period into your own thoughts and ideas today. That's right. And that's that's something that really is tough for us because we'll read something weird in the Bible and we're like, uh, this doesn't fit in my spectrum of the body.

Jon 7:37

Or you're like, where's the rest of it? Like something's missing here. And normally that happens when the author didn't think it needed to be in there, yeah, because everyone already understood it. And I and I hate to be the guy to tell us this, but we're not the normal ones. Like you're living in a very different world than Moses or you know, Abraham, or any of these guys. And so when you look at how much the world changed, just in like your grandparents' or your great-grandparents' lifetime, it it it is a totally different world from what it used to be like. And we're living through a time that hasn't really coalesced into anything. We're beginning uh the stages of what the next period of human history is, but time's running really fast right now. For a long, long time, though, it wasn't that way. I mean, somebody from like frontier days here in Ohio or like early 1900s would have been very familiar with lanterns and horses and all of those things. That agrarian worldview wouldn't have changed a whole lot from about as far back in human history as you can go. Now, though, it's very hard for us to wrap our heads around that just because everything has changed so drastically.

Martin 8:47

We talked about this in other episodes, but just the idea of like things that were old for me. Like I remember my grandparents had a rotary phone, and we used to play with that sucker all the time. You know, and and then my son doesn't even have the audacity to know what a home phone is, let alone a rotary home phone, let alone you know a payphone and stuff like that. And this is stuff that's in the last 50 years. Yeah. And it's just he will have almost no recollection of it. We're watching a movie from the 90s and they went and did a payphone, and he was like, What the heck is that?

Jon 9:18

Like it's like that's how people used to talk about it in a land not very far away.

Martin 9:23

But even just for me, uh I wasn't really privy to that. I'm a little bit past that, but still understood what it was, and yet him, the next generation down, has no inclination whatsoever what it is.

Jon 9:34

That's right. And so, like, if you go back in time, like the difference between like Bronze Age people and like late Iron Age people isn't that big. They're still worshiping the same gods in a lot of the same ways. The technology is different, but the lifestyle that they lived was very similar, and they were living in the same places that their families had lived since you know who knows when, or they had come in and and in and immeshed themselves into a culture that was already there. And so they have a greater unity of storytelling and of teaching methods that are foreign to us because we live in, literally, a part of the world that they didn't even know existed. Like it's it's a huge difference. And so there are parts of the Bible that you'll read, like this spot in Genesis, and you're like, well, what happened to Cain? Why why do some of these guys get stories and not the other people? Uh there's there's some oddities here that we're looking at. Like, why did you bother telling me their name, but not give me any of the information about them? It feels like if you're going to introduce a character, you should at least do something with the character. Uh, at least that's how I feel about it, as somebody who reads a lot of books. If I was reading a book and they were like, here are some names, they're just there to fill space. I would be like, We could have done without this. I don't know why it's here.

Martin 10:53

It'd be like my English teacher reading one of my essays because I needed so many words. Superfluous.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

There you go.

Martin 10:59

So anyway, Genesis 4. Yeah, 17 and 18. All right, I've delayed the inevitable. I'll I'll help you through this. Okay. What's this first one? C A. Oh, yeah, got it. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Erod, and Erod fathered Mihajel, and Mihadjel fathered Methuselah and Methusel. No, not Methuselah, it's actually a different name. Methusel. Methushael. Oh, see, I thought I knew one.

Jon 11:30

No, you were you jumped to a familiar one. Methu Shael fathered Lamak. So yeah, this is this is where we're at. And you're thinking to yourself, that tells me nothing. Just a bunch of random names. That if I was reading the Bible myself and I was like, all right, I'm going to read through the Bible in a year, and someone was like, this verse, it got me. You're like, there's nothing there to get got. Like, why? This is something you shove past on your way to narrative. And that's because our culture, the Western world, is built on narrative. And we don't really know what to do with genealogies because we are an individualistic people. We view ourselves as an island in time, like my life. I mean, I'll look at my grandparents and my parents because they were part of my life, but I don't really view myself as part of the house of Dylan or the house of listener with this long storied history. We kind of feel like, you know, we've outgrown that. And so thinking of ourselves as having a family history is kind of for people who are really into family trees, or uh maybe someone who's like a Mormon who's like doing baptisms at the temple for the dead, like there's got to be something going on here that doesn't fit into my normal life. Like in Covington, we have the Covington Historical Society. They would be very interested in the genealogies. But if I went down to the end zone, the local bar in pizza place and was like, let's talk genealogies, there'd be a collective groan from all the Browns fans who are good at groaning anyway, because we weep and wail.

Martin 13:08

Yeah, my my uncle Chuck was really into like genealogy of the family, and he had pictures and and ideas way, I mean, generations upon generations back, and spread out all over the place. And you know, it's a it's a lost art form because he actually found kind of someone that was in our family on the other side of the country and reunited him with uh another one of his cousins. And it's like it's something that can really connect you, but it's definitely lost in our world today.

Jon 13:35

Yeah, and so that's part of what you're looking at here. This list of names is way more than a list of names, it's actually a story that's hard for us to see because we don't speak the language and because we're not used to thinking of names as having meanings. And so when we're looking at the story of Lamek, like last week we talked about how uh the children of Lameck had these major leaps forward in human civilization, and they occur in the same generation, right? To us, it just kind of pops out of nowhere, like these other guys, what were they doing? They didn't bring forth anything all of a sudden. By the way, I think there's some watcher type things that are going on there, but we'll get to that when we push on a little bit further into the story. Uh, to us, this is this is weird. Where's the context? How do I know what to do with this? We're not sure how to take it. And so the point that the author of Genesis is making isn't that uh human civilization is bad. It's trying to tell you that human civilization, our naturally occurring creative gift, was supposed to be wielded uh for the enrichment of the world. And instead we have twisted it with a desire to cultivate sin and violence and obsession. Mankind was made to image God, but apart from him, we cease to be a blessing, we manipulate and we corrupt. Each one of us seeks to do what is right in our own eyes, and our attempts at control become little pockets of Babylon, little anti-Edons. And so Cain's city that he builds, like we talked about just right there, it becomes a template for Babel, Babylon, for Egypt, for Rome. But at the end of the story, we find that there is humanity being welcomed back into a city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And so we know, okay, God isn't saying culture is bad. We read last week a lot about this. God says, you know, we're going to beat those swords into plowshares. He doesn't say, but I told you not to invent plowshares, even like that was bad. He's not got a problem with technology, he has a problem with what we do with these things. Why are we wielding our creative ideas for the destruction of those around us and for the lifting up of self at the expense of the creation of God?

Martin 16:05

And how how did you get to that conclusion from these two verses?

Jon 16:10

Well, it's in the names. All right. This is weird. Ancient cultures don't always tell things the way that we expect or even notice. When a story is lacking detail, I want to just complain about what's missing. It is better time spent to look at what is present. And so if all the text gives you is names, a student of the Bible ought to say, I wonder what those names mean. Because what I have seen is the murder of Abel. Cain has been driven away. He's wandering, he stops wandering, and then you get this city that's built. And no indication that any change has happened in Cain's life. Nothing that would pause the direction of what's happening here, and you get instead a list of people that ends with a song about murder. And so I'm left to assume okay, this is probably not just and so-and-so begat so-and-so, begat so-and-so. There must be a reason that the Bible lists these people's names, because the Bible doesn't always list people's names. Like who was the Pharaoh in Exodus? His name is taken away. If you're reading through the book of Genesis, you're going to notice, especially in the first 12 chapters, the names of gods are not there. There have been purposefully stripped away. Even one of the wives of Lemech, her name is Ada or Ada, however you want to pronounce it. Normally that word is on the end of a God's name. Like Baal has adorned me or Osiris has adorned me, and hers is just adorned. Like it just hangs there, as though somebody took a meat cleaver and chopped off the name of the God and left it just hanging there. And so the author isn't just thinking of names as nothings. Remember, God made a big deal about Adam being a namer when he was in the garden.

Martin 18:11

So do you think that Cain and his lineage intentionally named these people with a name that showed their intention for these people? Uh sort of. Or do you think the author threw the names onto the people because they brought forth such a Yeah, it's so here's here's the problem, right?

Jon 18:31

Yeah, well, kind of. So the names aren't always excuse, they're not just names. They're telling me about the family. They're telling me what these people valued. They're telling me how they saw themselves, right? Remember, we're reading a book that's written in Hebrew about a time before Hebrew existed. So did they name their kids these things? I don't know. This is one of the mysteries. The names might be actual names. Like this is what this is the sound that came out of their mother's mouth. Um, and and it could be that those names influenced how later cultures spoke. Like the Semitic languages would have remembered like this this sound and dragged it with them into their culture. It's also possible that Semitic speakers, like Hebrew speakers, would have looked back and said, How do I translate this idea of who this person is? And let's call him this.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Right.

Jon 19:28

Uh Jesus does this um with uh with Baal at one point. He says, You worship Beelzebub, the Lord of the flies. There's actually not a God named that. It's him making fun of Satan, of Baal. And it's a way of saying, Listen, I know what you really are. I'm identifying you and calling out the evil for what it is. And so which is it, we don't know. It's a mystery. But what you can do is know for sure how the writers of Genesis felt about these people.

Martin 20:01

Yeah, it's not really as big of a deal if the if the creator of the individual named them something with the intention of them acting a certain way, or if the author assigned that name because they act a certain way.

Jon 20:14

That's right.

Martin 20:15

That's less as important as understanding that they are using this name because Yeah, I mean, even look at somebody like uh Simon, right?

Jon 20:23

Jesus looks at him and says, I know your mother called you Simon, I'm gonna call you Pebbles. I'm gonna call you Peter, I'm gonna call you the rock. Sponsor of today's episode. Yeah, excellent bait shop. Uh you you you see this in other places where people are given names.

Martin 20:36

Well, I mean, we do that today too. I mean, you you get nicknames. I'm a huge proponent of a nickname. It's it's not the name that their mom gave to them, but if a nickname is really good, it will stick to the person because there is something about that person that emanates what the nickname means. And so that's kind of what we're talking about here is like this person was a blank, whatever their nickname is.

Jon 20:57

Yeah, and even we even have like familiar titles, like my name is Jonathan. I'm only Jonathan, though, like to my mother, uh, or if people are mad at me when you're in drive. Like Rose will yell Jonathan sometimes at me. Um my granny and and other people, they they called me Johnny. And so but Johnny. You're who? My granny. Was that her name? Yep, that was her name. That was God gave it to, as far as I know, yeah. That's granny. Uh and so like, but that was if if most people called me that, I would be like, Why would you call me that? You don't have the right to do that. There's like three people on the planet who are allowed to do this, and uh, and you're not one. But the idea then is okay, this this is the same person being referred to in different names.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Sure.

Jon 21:38

What you're dealing with here is a story that is way older than the book. Remember, even like the most conservative groups of people are going to look at the Pentateuch as being written by Moses. I think that what you're reading here is Moses and later scribes writing down the ancient stories. So this is. From like the dawn of human history. What language did they speak then? This is way after the Tower of Babel. And so we're which is it? We we don't know for sure, but we do know that this tells us how these people were remembered by the storytellers. And so the very first guy we're looking at here, Cain has a son, and his name is Enoch. And Enoch is a weird name, it doesn't show up in many places that are not biblical places. As a matter of fact, I don't know of any. There doesn't seem to have been a Semitic root behind this name that people were using as just like random names. This was kind of a biblical sounding word. And it comes from the Hebrew Khanok, which means dedicated, or it can mean inaugurate. This shows that Cain's family, right away, they're not cave people. They're not just running around grunting and wielding clubs and that kind of a thing. There is almost right away a sophistication to this. I am dedicating this child. I am going to inaugurate a dynasty that's going to come through this. He even names the city after the son. And so we're we're viewing Cain's family not as primitive savage peoples, but as an incredibly uh well-intelligent group who are thinking about the world and they're going to shape it after their own image. The question then becomes dedicated to what? What is it that you're inaugurating?

Martin 23:39

Or who?

Jon 23:39

Or who? Yeah. So is are you dedicating this child to the Lord Most High? It doesn't appear so. There's nothing in the text that indicates that. Are you dedicating it to yourself? Are you making yourself a god? Or uh worse, you know, have you given your allegiance to some other being who has come around and is trying to wheel and deal? I'll give you blessings if you will dedicate your children to me.

Martin 24:09

Well, you know, what did God say to Cain shortly after? Sin is crouching at the door. Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah.

Martin 24:17

So that's a pretty good foreshadow as to what Cain is actually dealing with or who he's dedicating to. I think you look back at that verse and it's plainly clear who he's alleged.

Jon 24:26

And Peter's going to get into this later on. He's going to specifically say that Cain is owned by the evil one. Uh and so there's there's the weirdness that's happening here, but it's supernatural. Even this building, the city that Cain makes, it says is dedicated. Dedicated to who or to what? Remember, ancient peoples thought of cities as naturally religious in their core. They didn't just see them as a large urban sprawl, they thought of them as a place where the God was shepherding people. And so if Cain's city is the archetype for this, the name kind of leaves us a little creeped out. Now there's another Enoch who's coming up in the story, and you can tell definitely who he's dedicated to. He walks with God. And it's very clear because the text makes it so. Why does the text not tell you? It's almost like they're saying, you know. Right. You're seeing where this is going.

Martin 25:26

Well, you see the path that Cain has already been trotting down. And we talk a lot about it, especially on Monday nights, as far as like the natural inclination of humankind is not to just revert back to God. Like it takes a strong will to, you know, repent and come back. So if you're already on the slippery slope going down, and then you're saying I'm dedicating myself to something, you're on the downslope. You're not, you're not naturally turning around and climbing uphill for that.

Jon 25:53

Yeah, and so each of the sons of Cain, or grandsons or great-grandsons and so on and so forth, is going to be seen as descending further and further until you hit the sixth or the seventh from Adam, the sixth from Cain. And that number has significance. We're going to get into it in a minute. But when Enoch has a son, he names this kid Irad. Irad. And believe it or not, there's historical drama wrapped up in this name. Are you familiar with the word a polemic? You know what a polemic is? It's where like you are making fun of another thing or like showing how something else is inferior to what you're doing. And so like the Jewish people are dealing with a society that is driven by a pagan world, especially the Babylonian world. And they're dealing with the Babylonian myths and the stories. And a person from Babylon would say, Our people are the chosen people because look how great our city is. Look at all of the accomplishments that we've made. And a Jewish person would respond and say, I mean, it's big, but it's gross. Like you may have built something impressive, but it is by its nature violent and evil. And so there's a subversion of the Babylonian stories in the way the author of Genesis is talking. Now, this is where people get wrapped up into uh what's going on here. I take the view that these events really happened. I don't think these are imaginary stories that are just there to teach us a lesson about what happened during the exile. But I think that the people who wrote them had this happening in both ways. They're recording a real event and they're seeing how it has implications to the present world that they're living in at the time.

Martin 27:46

So the event happened, but the authors are writing them in such a way that it passes along the moral or the what they're trying to get to.

Jon 27:55

That's what I think. When you come away from this story, no one reads Genesis and thinks, man, this Babylon sounds great.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Right.

Jon 28:04

And I think that's on purpose. And it's the text itself battling, uh joining this long conversation against the darkness. And so the historical drama that's here actually has to do with the very first city of the Babylonian culture. The word that uh we think of is the Sumerians, right? The Sumerians and the Akkadians, these are peoples who lived in that fertile crescent in modern day Iraq. And many people think that Iraq comes from this name, from this person's name. Uh, but the very first city, according to their tradition, was a place called Iradu, Iradu, as in named after this person. Uh the Sumerian tradition says that the gods that they were worshiping, these spiritual powers, gave mankind the gift of kingship. And it began in a city called Iradu. Um that's in Akkadian, which is another Semitic language, like Hebrew. This is nerd stuff, I'm sorry, it just is. Uh, but it's it's Iratu. It's the same word as in uh the root of it is the same word as the Hebrew for city, ear. Remember, we talked about this before. And so what you're doing is with just the name, you're saying, oh, Eridu, you think of this as the place where kingship descended into the world, and look at how awesome our civilization is. What do we have to say about Irad and his people? Uh, nothing, actually. Let's move on to the next guy. It's it's a way of criticizing. Now, did this guy have a life? Yeah, probably hundreds of years, seems to have been going on, but he's a footnote to the extent that like you're looking at this person and uh he's not worth looking at. This isn't a person worth building a civilization on. This person is anti-God, anti-Christ. And so there is this pushback. You're seeing the descent of the family further into death and destruction. Irad is gonna have a son, and this is the one that this is where they actually start getting confusing, right? So Irad, I can pronounce, Enoch, I can pronounce, uh, even Cain, I can handle that. Mahu Jael feels foreign. It feels like some. This guy could be a character from like Lawrence of Arabia or something like that. Like this guy, he sounds like he belongs in a in an exotic feature film in the desert, you know, wielding a scimitar, riding camels off into the desert. Who knows?

SPEAKER_03 30:35

I agree.

Jon 30:35

He sounds cool, but his name literally means smitten by God or struck by God. I doubt his mom named him that.

Martin 30:47

You don't think so?

Jon 30:48

No, I don't think so. I think what you're looking at here is this is one of those moments where if I was sitting through class and the rabbis are reading this, I'm gonna raise my hand and be like, tell me a little bit more about that guy. Like, what exactly did he do? Why does God strike this guy? Another way that you can read this is the enemy of God. Again, like if you're naming your kid that, that's a bold thing to do. But what it's showing us here is just through the names, I have a group of people who are drifting further and further and further from a deep, meaningful relationship with God.

Martin 31:28

That's so funny because like in today's entertainment, you can see this very easily when you watch a show. Like when somebody goes through something and they'll they'll go through stages which leads them further and further away from what they're trying to accomplish or what they're intending to or what they should be going towards. And you can see the steps that lead them further and further and further. And there's things that happen in a show or in a book that are very easily picked up by us, and you're like, ah, he just took another step away. Ah, he just took another step away. I would have no idea any of these names mean anything.

Jon 31:59

This is the ancient version of that. Because in an ancient Hebrew culture or any ancient Semitic culture, remember there are lots of other languages that are related to Hebrew. When they started saying people's names, people wanted to know what it means. Because in our culture, and you we kind of talked about this before, like our names really just mean like mom knew this guy was her cousin, it was a really great guy, and they named me after him. Right. Um, or worse, you know, I just really think it's pretty. Uh and so they wrap this name around or a movie star or something. A movie star, whatever. Um, we don't really follow the meanings of names, but many cultures do. The ancient culture that gave birth to the book of Genesis was doing this. And so when God inspires the scriptures, he doesn't seem to be so focused on making sure that they sound good to a modern Western reader. He's using humanity as they are to tell the story. And what we're looking at here is a cultural difference. Somebody from the ancient world would have listened to this list of names and been like, oh snap, I can see where this is going. This is trending in the complete wrong direction. This name, though, is interesting because we kind of have this idea that, well, God sent Cain away, so God must be done with Cain and his kids. But this gives the idea that God judges this man, that even though he has declared himself an independent power, he is still subject to the will and word of the king. And so, again, that's that polemic idea. I do think there was a real person here. What his mother called him, I don't know, but he's remembered in this text by this phrase or by this uh idea. You look like you're chewing on something. Have I lost you?

Martin 33:51

No, no, I'm I'm following you 100%, but it's the idea of these guys are almost trying to live their life separate from God. 100%. Into the idea of like, not, I mean, it's obviously in rebellion from God, but that statement you just made made me think of like they're just trying to live their life without God. And this idea of like there's not a need for God because we can supply what we need, and what we can't, these other, you know, kind of spiritual like creatures will fill in the gaps when we can't provide, they will do what we need. And it's almost this idea of uh because I struggle with this a lot when we talk about certain things as far as like going against God, as in being against it 100% the opposite way of God. And is it just like, no, I'm just gonna do it my own way because it's safe or it's secure, or I feel like I can. And I realize that probably I'm saying the same thing that I'm going against God by doing that, but these guys are almost saying that like we just don't think God is even important at all. And then God still steps in and says, That's right, no, even if you stray away from me, there's nothing that you can do to not be subject to me because I am the creator. And it kind of reminds you of the Jonah story when Jonah's like, I'm just gonna run away because I just don't want it. It's like I just don't want to be under your you know direction and your dominion, and God's like, You have no choice. Like it's a creator.

Jon 35:17

Remember back in the garden, God doesn't or or Satan doesn't say to them, eat the fruit, show God that you're the boss. But that's implied. It's not stated, but it's there. You decide what's right. All through the Bible, you're going to get this phrase keeps popping up. He did that which was right in his own eyes. Jesus is gonna say this way, he who has ears, let him hear. You should be able to recognize wisdom or not. Now, Erad, I don't think I told you what that meant. It means uh to flow fast. Um, or rather, yeah, it means like to um a land flowing with milk and honey, or like a runner. Remember, Cain is supposed to be wandering, so Erad is not just wandering, he's like booking it, he is heading places. Uh, then you have the son Methushael and his or Mahujael, and his name means struck by God. He the God is not going to just let go of creation, he is the king, he is God. And even though Cain's people are trying to cut God out and replace him either with themselves or with gods of their own choosing, which you're going to see again at Babel, it's going to lead to death. They are never going to be able to make an Eden, even if it's as beautiful as Babylon. It's going to become a cesspit of death and sin. To the extent that you see people like this in the Bible, remember Pharaoh, he's living in a place that has loads and loads of food, loads and loads of water, and he looks at the Israelites and he says, You guys are a danger to me. I need to kill all your firstborn children. Throw them in the water. And so he turns the water into an execution, something that is intended to flow for the uplifting of giving of life. He has now turned into something evil. Then the story comes of Moses in the basket being carried away by the water into safety. I'm sorry, my my throat. I am not getting sick. This is not happening. It's a north side of Covington allergies gotten you again. I know. So let's look at the next guy, Methushael. Uh, and this name is interesting. This one's kind of it does sound like Methuselah, right? Methushael means who is of God or God's man. And it makes you wonder, based on all the context that you've read so far, what are the odds that this man belongs to the most high God? Because the word here is L, and that can mean supernatural being or a god, just as much as it can mean the God. It's kind of a generic catch-all uh for a supernatural being. And so you're wondering, this man has been dedicated to something, he belongs to someone, but it doesn't seem to be the god of the garden. It seems to be something else entirely. Is this a descendant of Cain who's loyal to the Lord? Well, if it is, the text doesn't mention it. We're left to assume this is a deeper slide into violence, and this brings us 40 minutes into it to Lemmech. Lemmeck is also a weird name. There, as far as I could find, are zero examples of similar names in any culture of the biblical world outside of the Bible. So either this name comes from a root word that has been lost to time and no one knows, which is possible, or the author is doing something clever with the name. Uh there is uh an interesting theory that I heard on a podcast called Answers to Giant Questions. Uh TJ Steadman, shout out to Australia. He's over there on the dry side of the island. Uh, really cool guy, great podcast, but he noticed that the name for the word king in Hebrew is the same letters as the word Lemmock, just scrambled. And so it makes us wonder: is this just a name that we just don't know what it means anymore? It's entirely possible. If that theory that Mr. Steadman has come up with is correct, it's a way of saying, what is Lemeck? He is the king of chaos, he is the sixth from Cain, he is the culmination of this. And so it could work. It's a theory. Um, if it is true, then I think that's really interesting. But I'm not gonna die on this hill. I'm gonna come away and say, of all the names we've read so far, this one doesn't fit anywhere. And so it does have connections. All the letters are there to spell king, but they're in all the wrong order. And so something is odd with this guy. But when you read his story, you recognize there is something wrong with this guy. He acts like a king of chaos, even if his name doesn't mean that. So now we're gonna get into his song. This is chapter four, verses twenty-three through twenty-four.

Martin 40:35

Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lammock, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lammock's is seventy-sevenfold.

Jon 40:49

Oh, it's so clever. You can tell this is poetry. This is a song. Maybe uh his son wrote the tune to this. Maybe this was something that they would sing and celebrate. But the very first song of Cain's people isn't a song of worship, it's not a song about the beauty of the earth, it's a song about how I love killing people. Again, this shows us the decline through the names, and it is you've got this mysterious last name, but even without knowing what the name means, it becomes very clear oh, this is not a godly guy. This is a man who is obsessed with violence. He uses strength for personal power. He views the world and the people around him as things to be used. He is the definition of every man doing that which is right in his own eyes. Think of like King Saul or the Pharaoh from Exodus. When we look at the psalm, the song that he sings, it's it's strange. It has six lines. And this is the sixth man from Cain. Seventh from Adam, sixth from Cain. You're gonna have another guy on the opposite side of the family, the seventh from Adam, and his name is Enoch, and his story is wildly wonderful. We're gonna get to it later. This is his polar opposite on the other side of the family, and so you're looking at a guy who has become the ultimate expression of what it means to be a corrupt-hearted man. He collects women, he brings violence. Uh, it says there that he killed a young man. That word's almost the word for boy. Uh, he says, you know, the idea is what how did he bother you? What did he do? Well, this man apparently came after me, and so I killed him. And I'm gonna go home and sing about this. Uh people need to know. This isn't something that he hides, this is something that becomes a centerpiece of his life. Almost bragging about it. He's totally bragging about it. So there is intentionality in writing a six-lined poem. When the Bible lists things in sixes, it is a way of talking about imperfection. It falls short because the number seven is a way of talking about completion. And so it's poetic. Remember, this is a piece of ancient history passed on from family to family.

Martin 43:22

The thing that sticks out to me uh in the song is what he what's he talking about when he says if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, what's the revenge of Cain?

Jon 43:31

Remember, God told Cain, if anyone comes after you, I will defend you, I will bring about seven times whatever is done to you on them. The story seems to have got to Lemmock and turned into you know what Cain was worth? Cain was worth seven people. But I I don't need God to fight my battles for me. I'll do it myself, and I'm not gonna avenge myself seven. Seven times. I'm going to avenge myself seventy times seven. Again, that is language that numbering has meaning. Seven times seven. I will this is this is him saying, I will be like the most high. I will rise above the stars of the sky. I will be greater than God. And so you're looking here at a song about anti-Eden. This is the world remade in the image of man. So Eden is, you know, receiving from God, trusting God, cultivating creation, serving other people. Cain's line becomes taking control, securing ourselves, building our own kingdom, using others, violence to silence objections. It's kind of a sad story. And you're looking at the world and you think to yourself, man, it maybe people aren't singing about it so much, but mankind's heart is just as crooked as Lemnox ever was.

Martin 45:08

Easily. Yeah, and and we don't use the same medium, is what you're saying. We don't write songs or poems or diddies about this kind of stuff. But with our actions, we definitely portray the same type of idea. Even just the idea that like I can do this without God. This what I was just mentioning before is like, I don't think man looks at God and says, you know, no, I'm just going to be stronger than you. Like that there isn't this head-on force of God that says, like, yeah, I'm going to walk up to the most high on his, you know, on his throne and just be like, nope, I'm better.

Jon 45:40

Yeah. Well, that's what Lamek is doing. That's what that whole ending means. But I've heard what God said. I am greater. I have brought about real change in the world.

Martin 45:51

Yeah, but it's just the idea that like when I look around at the world, what can overtake me? Like it's the pride of when you look at real life, you do it from God being in the rear view. You turn around from the throne of God and look at creation and you say, Yeah, I can take that on. I don't need God. I will provide for myself. I will have avenge myself no matter what. You don't turn around to God and say, like, okay, now let's arm wrestle and I'm gonna beat you. And I think that's that's the part in my mind to best describe it to everybody as to what how I fall victim or how I struggle with the idea of sin or rebellion against the body.

Jon 46:29

Well, this concept is actually laid out very beautifully in the very first psalm of the book of Psalms, where it talks about sitting in the seat of the scorner. You get this descent. He walks not, he stands not, he sits not. There's this descending motion of a guy who's coming to a stop and growing in evil. That's Lemmock. This is a different way of saying the exact same thing. And it, I think it really happened. Like, I don't want anyone out there saying, like, John doesn't think this happened. I think it did. I think God is using this storyline and exposing it to us in such a way that the real heart of the matter becomes painfully obvious. And it even comes to the point where Jesus goes so far as to say, like, oh, okay, you didn't actually kill someone, but if you're filled with hatred in your heart, what's the difference? Why is it that you feel superior because you're sinning differently than somebody else? You're still neck deep in sin. It's like someone who's, you know, drowning in quicksand and they're like, Yeah, but mine is blue. Yours is just dirt colored, you know, mine is better. You're still gonna drown. Like, there's a problem.

Martin 47:38

Mine is pretty.

Jon 47:39

Yeah, it's just it's not gonna matter.

Martin 47:41

Okay.

Jon 47:41

This is something that's going to destroy you. And remember, we're coming up to the flood. Like, there is going to be the judgment of God on the earth. Now, this idea of 70 times seven is actually specifically used by Jesus to reverse this story around and to show you what I'm calling the way of Eden. Let me show it to you. It's in the book of Matthew, chapter 18, verses 21 through 22.

Martin 48:07

Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven seventy-seven times.

Jon 48:19

Yeah, seven on seven, seven times seventy. This is the this is the same phrase that's kind of used by Lemick, the same idea. And so when you're looking at this, it kind of comes across where, first of all, kudos to Peter, because he's going above and beyond. The rabbis didn't say you had to do this seven times, but Peter's picking up on this numbers thing. He's like, all right, seven times, it's the perfect number. I'm gonna roll with it. God's gonna like that.

Martin 48:42

It's just so funny because I can see like my dad and you having this conversation. He's like, What do you want, John? Seven times. And you're like, actually.

Jon 48:51

This totally happens. Dan keeps me down to earth. So Jesus is not telling Peter, hey, you need to count higher. He's rewriting the song of Lammock. He's showing how mankind can still image God even outside of the garden. So if the point was just to say, wow, that's a big number. 72, 73. Yeah, why did you stop at 70? Like that's a really and then you made it a math problem. Like, why didn't you just say 10,000 or 10,000 or millions? Like they had words for these things. 70 is a really odd choice. This expression, where else does it appear in the Bible? It appears here with Lemmock. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10 gives us a glimpse. I'll read this one, into what it is that God requires of mankind. He says, Each of you has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. That's what God made us to do. The prophet uh Amos is or Micah is gonna say, You know what God made you for? Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. That is the opposite of what you're noticing, the trend is in the family of Cain. We're gonna look at one last verse. All right, not verse, verses. Uh it's seven verses, and just in case you wanted to know. Uh, and it's here in 1 John chapter 3, verses 11 through 18. I may stop you a couple times, but it's how it's gonna be.

Martin 50:25

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning.

Jon 50:28

From when? The beginning. So this is like going way back in human history. This is nothing new, I'm telling you. This is what we've been talking about from the get-go, since like page one. Keep going. The message we've heard from the beginning that we should love one another. So Cain doesn't do that. He murders his brother. His children don't do that. You get this drifting away, and when uh Lammock is attacked by somebody or bothered by somebody, he just kills him. This is the opposite of what God made Lemmech to be or to do. Keep going.

Martin 51:01

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.

Jon 51:11

So why does Cain kill Abel? Here it is. Abel was nice, he was a good guy, he was a godly man. Cain hated that. That's why. That's the motive behind it. And the reason that Cain is like that is because of what John says here. Cain, who was of the evil one, he was dedicated to the darkness. The wording here is that he belongs to it. Taking that line from back in Genesis 4 that sin is crouching at the door. It desires to have dominion over you. You must have dominion over it, you must rule over it. Cain doesn't. He becomes the slave of this thing. And what we get from those names given to us is that his children seem to have followed in the same trajectory. And today, people are doing the exact same thing. Oftentimes you'll hear people say, Well, you know, I it's a sickness, or, or, you know, I do this because I was raised that way. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility for you. If you want to stop something, you can't just perpetually bring about excuses. You have to repent of your sins, turn away, and start striving to change. God can bring about healing, God can bring about deliverance, he does it every day. But what he doesn't do is make it for you. You have to want it, you have to pursue it, you have to change, you have to repent. That's what Jesus says. Repent. Why? The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Come, take, eat. He says, My burden is light. What you're getting here with Cain is the opposite. So, how then does God want us to look and act? If he doesn't want us to look and act like Cain. Keep reading.

Martin 53:07

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

Jon 53:20

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. I don't like that. It's saying that not only am I not better than Cain, but I'm kind of exactly the same. It maybe hasn't exploded to the same measurement of it, but I'm just as sinful as anybody else that's ever run around. When the Apostle Paul talks about himself, he calls himself the chiefest of sinners. Like if you're sitting there thinking, Yeah, God, you got a real good deal when I came along, you're welcome. It's probably not a good moment for you. Like, God has done you the favor, not the other way around. We are not going to heaven because we have earned it. It is the grace of God. And so we don't view ourselves as having uh demands on the king. We view ourselves as the servants of the king, the children of God. Keep reading.

Martin 54:11

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Jon 54:25

Yeah, so here it is. How do you know what love looks like? It looks like Jesus. That's what it looks like. Now, that that phrase there um, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. A murderer will have really great days where he's doing really, really good things, and then all of a sudden, bam, horrible. Like it's not saying that humanity is completely devoid of anything good. The children of Cain brought about immense technological advances and civilization, but the society that it grew into is corrupt from its very beginning. It doesn't have life abiding in it. Going back to what you and I talked about before, Martin, a dead seed and a living seed, you can tell the difference because one of them grows. They look the same, but one of them is dead. There is no life in it.

Martin 55:18

What you're saying, like they're not void of production. Like Cain's family brought forth technological advances and a bunch of different stuff. When you look back to the creation, Adam is in the garden advancing life. He's naming the animals, he's doing all this. But God looks at him and says that he's not good, he's not finished, he's not complete, he's missing something apart from him. I think it's the same thought that's coming along here. Like, mankind can still be effective and efficient and produce new creative things, but if you have the mentality of a murderer because you hate your brother, you are missing that spark in your life that comes with the fullness of creation.

Jon 55:58

Yeah, and even to the extent that, like, okay, someone comes to you and they have needs and you say to them, Be warmed and filled and send them on their way. What good is that? Make them warm, make them filled. Well, I don't like their color. There's no room for racism within the people of God. We are the image of God, all of us. You say, Well, I don't know how they vote, or I don't know what they like, or I don't know that they're my kind of people. You are made to be a blessing, not because people deserve blessings, but because it is what you were made to be. You are to be a force of God in a broken and twisted world. And I'm here to tell you the world is more twisted now than it was in Cain's day. There are more sinners running around for sure. I mean, you think about this. Cain, Cain kills one guy. Lamick's writing a song about killing one guy. Some of you guys out there have lived through horrific periods of history. You read World War I or World War II, and they're like, somebody died, and they're like, Yeah, like millions of people are dying. We're living through all kinds of horrible events in the world. We we've become numb to it. And we do have, I mean, look at our entertainment. How much of our entertainment glorifies violence and revenge? It's a huge part of what we're interested in. He says, How do we know love? Jesus laid down his life for us. Keep reading.

Martin 57:27

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

Jon 57:42

Boom. This is the way of Eden. The way of Babylon takes people's lives to improve their own. The way of Eden is shown to us by Jesus. He lays down his life for others in spite of what we have done. The way of Babylon doesn't do that. I think I may have misspoke there. Babylon is bad, way of Eden is good. And so what he's saying there is listen, Cain or Lemmech, he probably had every right to be mad at this guy. His natural reaction, though, is not let me lay down my life to defend the sinner. But that's what Jesus does. Jesus doesn't die for you because you're a good person. Jesus dies for you because you are a mess and you need him. When we look at what Jesus did, he laid down his life for others in spite of what we have done. We have to sit back and say that's because he is the God of gods, the Lord of Lords, mighty and awesome.