I was listening to the latest sermon from Bridgetown Church on my morning walk, titled Genesis: Cain and Abel. They have been going step by step, or more accurately section by section, through the Genesis text emphasising the narrative that it is both establishing and evoking. In this particular section the teacher/preacher tasked with bringing this to life narrows in on the importance of the geneaolgy. Bypassing this means missing the story.
The insights he brings regarding the nature of the geneaology (or geneaologies) here is not new, especially for anyone familiar with the work of the Bible Project (Tim Mackie attends this church), but there was a particular insight that stood out for me. He notes the way the narrative is established against two broad reaching, parallel geneaologies- that of the serpents seed and that of the woman’s seed. Much more can be said about how this frames the overaching story the scriptures are looking to tell, but for the purpose of this sermon he narrows in on the connection between Cain and Lamech as a literary device establishing the line of the serpent within the larger narrative.
Many will be familiar with the line from Genesis 4 which depicts sin as crouching at Cain’s “door.”. Much more than metaphor, this phrasing is taken seriously in depicting Cain’s active transformation into an image of the serpent. “It will have you,” God says, if you image the serpent rather than me. Not inconsequentially, Cain is also established as the father of the nations as he builds the cities that define them. This sets the stage for the conflict that will confront the formation of Israel as one set apart among the nations in order to image Yahweh to the world.
And don’t let that pass by unnoticed- the nations are associated with the seed of the Serpent. Important to the story- Egypt, Pharoah, Babylon, Rome, Ceasar, all associated with the seed of the serpent.
The Bible Project does a good job of unpacking the narrative hperlinks between God’s creation of Adam and Eve, Eve’s creation of Cain, and Cain’s creation of the city, all of which use the same word with contrasting emphasis between “I have made” and “God has made.” We are already meant to be immersed in this necessary tension between these parallel lines that are unfolding. In fact, the stark contrast is found at the end of chapter 4 where, instead of the phrase “I have made” in relationship to Cain, we get the phrase “God has granted me” in relatinship to Seth. Here Seth (rendered “appointed one”) is established as the answer to Chapter 4’s poignant commentary on the state of things in which the serpents seed is filling the earth with perpetual vengance.
And here is what I thought was truly interesting. Leading up to Seth is this lineage that connects Cain to Lamech, bookmarked by these two phrasings- “anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over,” (4:15) and Lamech’s reiteration and recasting of this phrase, “If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
Common readings have a tendency of racing past these phrasings with the assumption that this is about God enacting vengeance on those who kill Cain or Lamech. This misplaces the phrasing. First, the narrative is emphasizing the two seeds that we have in view from Chapter 3. One is going to be crushed, the other is going to liberate. Second, the contrast that we find in Chapter 4 is between Cain and Seth.
The teacher/preacher at Bridgetown notes the unfortunate translation of punishment in vs 13 as perhaps fueling certain approaches to this text, a word that should be translated as “visiting.” Or in this case, “the visiting of Sin’s curse through the subsequent encounters with its vengeance. The same curse of the land that we find in Chapter 3 now being applied to Cain. In 4:14 it actively defines this as seperation from God under this cursed land (or occupying this cursed reality). The vengeance in mind here is not God’s doing, rather it is giving us a portrait of how Sin is fruitful (the picture of the seed). Vengeance breeds more venganeace. That’s the only way it can seek justice in a world where the presence of God is absent.
The mark God applies to Cain “so that no one who found him would kill him” (vs 15) is in fact tied to God’s redemptive work in stopping this cycle. We find this in Seth. More importantly, we find this in the portrait of Cain’s giving birth to the nations, out of which God is going to preserve a people in line with the woman’s seed by coming to dwell in the temple (a micorcosm of Eden).
This is in contrast to Cain’s seed, which we find culminating in this passage about Lamech. Thus it is not about greater punishment being enacted on Lamech by God. That makes no sense of the literary flow. In fact, the number 7, applied as it is to Cain, would represent a mark of completion, fulfillment, or wholeness. Meaning, what this should be awakening readers to is God’s promise to crush the head of the serpent in Chapter 3. It should awaken not to perpetual punishment, but to the promise to do something about the problem. The problem here is not Cain, or people, it is a creation under the curse of the serpent. The same serpent that is defined according to this statment in 4:23 where, instead of Cain being targeted it is Cain’s seed, a fact that hands us these competing realities- in a world bearing the fruit of the serpents seed and where the head is not crushed what we get is endless cycles of vengeance that fill the earth with something other than God’s glory (presence). In order for God’s presence to fill the earth, it must be made new, meaning, it must be liberated from the serpent itself. That’s the problem.
Thus God gives a child. A child that, in the broader scope of this narrative, is appointed to bear the weight of this cycle of vengeance but mark it by bringing about this image of the 7 days (the bringing about of the new creation by curshing the serpents head). This is precisely what we find in Jesus who contrasts the image of Ceasar by ushering in the Kingdom of God through His resurrection.
The Bridgetown teacher/preacher notes Jesus’ evoking of this phrase that ties Cain and Lamech together, only reframing it as “forgiveness.” How many times should I forgive? Jesus speaks to Lamech’s concern. Why? Because this is the reality, the world, that we know. It is only in Jesus that we can know the true Sabbath. It is only through the mark that we can reframe the world as it is (seventy times seven, a number that is never complete) within the proper narrative of God’s restorative work (the same 7 day creation imagery that marks the temple inaugeration).
There’s one last important contrast to note here. At the end of chapter 4 we get this phrase- “at that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.” This is in response to the birth of Seth. Fast foward through the geneaologies of the next two chapters, and in chapter 6 we get this phrase bringing us into the story of Noah- “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” Readers here are meant to carry the story of Adam and Even/Cain and Abel forward into the story of Noah. Noah’s story mirrors these narratives with an intentional literary design, Where the serpent is at Cains door, here we get the story of the “sons of god” coming down and seeding the women. Noah is ultimatley cast as an Adam figure, with his sons estbalishing this equal picture of two lines that lead to the formation of the nations and ultimately the formation of Israel. We have intentional interplay woven all the way through, including hyperlinked terms that tie Noah’s drunkenness to the eating of the fruit of the garden and the fruit. Which is to say- the same story but told from a different vantage point.
But that phrase, at that time, is meant to catch us with a particular kind of hopeful echo and refrain. At that time frames the hopeful expectation that will follow a story defined by the reality of Lamech. If the fulfilllment is not yet seen, the work of God, or the faithfulness of God can be found in His specific responsiveness, always pointing us not just an ambigious or distant entity unanmed and undefined, but one who is named, who is encountered, who is found in his persistant movement from heaven to earth. One who can be known and who has not abandoned creation to the curse of Sin and Death. One who’s revelatory nature is made fully known in Jesus whom bears the weight of Sin and Death itself. Not some punishment meted out by God, but a stated and responsive act which stops the cycle of Sins continued visiting in its tracks. Announcing a different way, a different kind of Kingdom based on a different kind of needed justice. A justice bent on forgivness, a forgiveness which reclaims and restores by replacing vengeance (the presence of the serpent and its seed) with Love (the presence of God).
The Stories of my Life 