This chapter, as already remarked, as a continuation of chapters 2 and 3, carries on, evidently, the question of sin into men's relationship with one another. It is not absolutely said that Eve gave Cain his name (Seth she did), but the thought is hers. Ha-Adam is merely the course of the race. Eve was Adam's Ish-shah here, but " Eve " is in sense; it was her thought on the Lord's mind of giving a seed; she has gotten a man-"Ish"-the name Adam gives himself in chapter 2; she came out of "Ish." She-Eve-on this great new event, had from herself, with Jehovah's will, and as from Him, a man, a born man, seed of the woman in the world. I say it was her thought; it is not " the Lord hath appointed," that was deference to His will. This, her feeling, though looking to the Lord; she looked at the gift, though she ascribed it to Jehovah; but it was man-natural man-a child of Adam really; evil, yet outwardly in the place God had set Adam in-a tiller of the ground. Abel's place was a place out of the natural place in which man was put, whatever brought him there; he kept sheep, a new and invented thing. In this relationship with God, he was clearly in faith, offering a sacrifice of slain beasts; Cain in nature.
Then comes out exasperated hatred; but first the immensely important ground it is all on-law and gospel. First, we have God still in intercourse with fallen man; He had clothed Adam-grace had wrought; next, acceptance if he did well- that is law-if not a khat-tath (sin offering) was there, ready for him; • that was the ground he was on with God; as to his brother, as the elder, Abel would be subject to him. But what man is comes out; hatred is above all fear, and remedy or intervention of God. Sin against one's brother fills up the measure of sin against God, through which they were already cast out. There is, again, a present judgment as to the ground; and, besides hiding from God's face (which his own conscience tells him), he goes out-here his own act-from the presence of the Lord, not in sorrow-no humiliation in His presence- the despairing complaint of selfishness-and makes the world as comfortable as he can without Him.
I do not dwell on the evident figure of Israel, I have spoken of it elsewhere; the moral ground is what 1 look for here.
In Seth's case " God hath given "; it comes from Elohim's, -God's-own act, not " I have gotten " from " Jehovah "; here again Eve is in the sense, and all right. Subsequently the worship, or owning of God-connection of men with Him- was with Jehovah; a name of relationship. This closes this part.
This was the breaking out of an evil nature, when it was there. There cannot be a more important chapter, whether we consider the fact of Jehovah's intercourse with fallen man, or the ground He puts him on, or Cain's conduct afterward, showing where his nature was. Yet it was founded on the intervention of God with Adam. Cain's worship, after Adam and Eve having been clothed with skins, shows great indifference and hardness I think; he had the signs of sin and judgment always before him. Not so Abel; yet he approached by faith-it was Jehovah. Intercourse had given occasion to worship; it was duty, only duty in Cain; spiritually intelligent approach, which had taken notice of his state, and God's grace, in Abel.
Note.—Clothing is from God—sacrifice from man, only the true Lamb was God's Lamb. It is remarkable that Cain's worship should be connected with nature and the curse, of which he was daily cognizant; Abel's with God's act in grace, however noticed or apprehended, for slain beasts had been the means of clothing Adam's nakedness.
This chapter is a wonderful display of grace, after the fall and exclusion. Cain is nature, and the world after Christ's rejection.
The woman looks for the promise in nature, and connects Jehovah with it-" I have gotten," etc.
Cain's is the worship of nature, when doing what God had set man to do. But nature under grace is " vanity " (Abel); and if connected with Christ, i.e., coming, owning sin, and by death, is rejected of men, and under death must have, in itself, its sentence. In nature Jehovah owns right and wrong. If Cain did well he would be elevated, and his brother subject to him; if ill, there was sin; then sin is completed by murder, and then " instructed " (Enoch) world comes in; but grace, acting in the midst of nature, fails under the power of evil, i.e., of result here. So Christ has in death fully shown.
Then the world is built up-then we have God's appointed seed.
It is "Ish"-not "a son," not "Adam," not "Enosh"; there is triumph in what is right, and promised, but according to nature-he is born after the flesh-not Seth " appointed."
" I have gotten from Jehovah "; verse 25, " Elohim hath appointed me"—but that was after Abel.
There is nothing new in it, but it is wonderful to see how complete is Eve's mistake as to the man from Jehovah. The first man-his blindness and natural insensibility to sin, and where it had placed him, and thinking to worship with what was the sign of the curse-then man of the wicked one- murder and falsehood, and driven out from God—the world and its enjoyments—the whole history of the first man.
Abel coming with the sacrifice, as the only way of access to God, receives testimony that he was righteous; God testifying to his gifts. Seth is the appointed man instead of both.
-2. Cain was in his legitimate place according to nature; chap. 3: 23. Compare Zech. 13:55But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth. (Zechariah 13:5), rightly translating the close—“from" is not amiss—"with" (His aid and blessing).
-4. Abel's is wholly out of, and above nature and duty; it is faith.
NOTE.-Though there is no way back to life here, there is access to God while here through faith.
7. " Accepted?" (" and... door "); but the khat-tcith (sin-offering) is at our door in Christ.
7. I have long thought that " sin-offering " is the true translation here, but I am confirmed in this thought, by the whole course of the history, in an interesting way.
In chapter 4, the question is of the state of man, and how, being such, he could approach God; the answer is, by expiatory sacrifice, which owned the state of sin, grace, and the remedy it afforded; or, rather, the self-offering up of another to God- it is "fat," not "blood" as for committed sin. It was not a question of guilt from sins, but of man's state, so here it is a sin-offering " if thou doest not well." The two things are quite distinct, one is the abstract consideration of man's estate before God; the other, getting an individually purged conscience before God.
I cannot but think that lap-pe-thakh khat-tath' ro-vetz' (sin will be the Her at the door) is a sin offering, meaning it is quite ready-" lying at the door " I suspect to have come from this. We have the doctrine of the eldest, as before of the woman—dependent—looking up to-and desire-and being ruled over. If it be a " sin offering," it shows how early it was spoken of by God-a thing known and recognized.
NOTE.- Not only was there faith, but God had intercourse with Cain, as having to say to man after the announcement of the woman's seed, and the skins—the person and the work.
It is objected that till the law there was no khet' (sin). In general, I apprehend this is just, and the difference important; as in Abel's sacrifice it was the state of man-" Where art thou? "—not what he had done. The burnt offering took this ground; it was not for particular faults which a man had committed, but that man, driven out of Paradise, alienated in sin from God, could not come to God as if nothing had happened; sin, and death for sin, and the glorifying of God as to it, must come in, in order to approach acceptably; and this was the general character of sacrifice till the law made imputable transgressions. It was the ground on which sinful and excluded man stood with God.
The blessed Lord, having come down to reconcile us, took this place—was made sin—and His perfected obedience was, when He was made sin, He drank the cup.
When I see sin really, as God sees it, I see it is putting away; I see what it is, only when it is put away. " If one died for all, then were all dead," they were away from God in sin, and He, in its judicial infliction, drinking that cup, was forsaken of God—just feeling it as it really was, as forsaken of God—separated from the presence of God—as to what His soul felt, and judicially. Hence when sin is presented to me fully (not merely my particular sins), Christ and His cross is presented to me—He, on the cross, a sacrifice.
And I think there is allusion to this in the Lord's word to Cain; I do not say it is to be translated " a sin offering," but sin has been laid at my door by God—how?—in Christ. No doubt I have sins to be dealt with; but, when the world is convinced of sin, the whole status of man is exposed—it is in the cross of Christ. So, even here, it is in that " lying couched at the door," that sin is laid there.
Still, it is to be remarked here that the case of Cain's not doing well is put, i.e., not the status of Adam; it is a positive and imputable fault which is supposed, then sin " lies couched at the door," and the word of course is so applied—sin-offering.
If the s'eth (accepted or " exaltation ") refers to his exaltation above Abel, not to his place before God, though it be supposed withal, then khat-tath' (sin) refers more to sin itself. I am still rather disposed to take it as a sin-offering, at least Christ presented as such. It is not " at thy door," and it is a reply to anger and a fallen countenance.
There was no need for it, he well-doing—exaltation and acceptance of person; and in ill-doing—the remedy there.
It brings in the state of man before God, and in Abel's offering, that state met, and acceptance-the burnt offering; and thus, supposing sin, the remedy there. There was no need for irritation or hopeless despondency.
It may not be treated of formally till Lev. 4; but, when these great elements are discussed, it comes in as a part of the needed punishment, and remedy of God for the sinner's sin.
Man was ruined, there were no offerings for sin; Noah offers, and the Patriarchs their burnt offerings (these last only in Palestine, and the young men at Sinai, Ex. 24), and in these cases sin-offerings were not in place; when the law had raised the question of imputable sins, then they were; but here, as a great principle, they are in their place. After the general principle in Abel, Abraham's offering (chap. 15) was the founding a covenant, but it was hardly a burnt offering.
As regards khet' (sin) there is another difference. In the o-lah' (burnt-offering) as Abel's, and all others, man approached God by it; he came by it freely to approach and worship God. So here Abel comes; the manner of coming, as recognizing all truth, is in question. It was as referred to-it is willing, though due, heartcoming to God-but how to come, now sin had come in, and man was out of Paradise. But Cain's was positive, active sin, and a sacrifice required for that evil; not only man was a sinner and excluded, but he had committed a sin, and against his brother-hence, khet' (sin) was there; still I think presented by God in Christ.
I cannot come and tell the Jew who has slain the Christ, nor the world which has not believed on Him, of their actual sin, without presenting the sacrifice lying at their door_; that is, in the grand principle of it, God's way of presenting their sin to, them.
In this way the sacrifice of Abel, and Jehovah's words to Cain, have great importance amongst the great foundation principles here set forth; we have the burnt-offering, and sin-offering as the great foundation principles of relationship, and clearance with God, replying to " Where art thou? and " What hast thou done? '
8. The completing of sin in its second part.
13. Rather as in the margin, but in the sense of despair.
14. " Of the ground."
17. A city here first—the world.
But in Lamech we also return to the Jews.
Civilization is not merely post-diluvian.
Is there nothing peculiar in va-y'hi be'-neh (and he was building) instead of ba-nah (he built)? Is it not characteristic rather than historical?
It is nothing new, but very striking, how much more activity and interest there is in the history of Cain than of Seth. It comes first too—it is after the flesh—in fact Abel disappears before it—but less of the individual than of the world.
In Seth we have individuals only—they lived so long and died, that is all • but the progress of the world is largely recounted in Cain's family, cursed from the ground—hidden from God—but establishing cities, and arts, and luxury, and a sister whose name was " Pleasantness." But what a character it gives • to the world—" despair " with God, and marked " not to be killed " with man—city, and luxury without God—gone from His presence—is that the world?
We have another element, " not of the Father." Still it is in rejecting Christ what it is.
He went out from the presence of the Lord in despair, not in repentance—with his life safe. I cannot but think Lamech's a threat—" Have I done as Cain? I will be seventy-seven times avenged " (only I admit it true of the Jewish remnant at the end, as slayers of Christ).
We have the difference of the name of Seth, after we have learned that all is " vanity " (Abel—He'-vel). " God has appointed," not " I have got."
NOTE.—Here it is Elohim not Jehovah, the whole thing began again, so to speak, from Elohim, and so does chapter 5 completely; Cain is not owned at all; Seth is instead of Abel, though he takes the place of rejected Cain.
Then began a distinctive people of God in connection with the name " Jehovah "; not a people called out by it as Israel. Cain had gone out from the presence of Jehovah, and taken care of himself, settling down where Jehovah had made him a vagabond; but in Seth's time the matter began again, and Jehovah was owned on earth.
We have He'-vel's (Abel's) portion, a better one not here revealed.
Is there anything in the names Khanoch' (Enoch) and Enosh?
The condition of the world and man is—singularly pictured out in all this.
26 is a distinct part. Enos is in contrast with Ish; nor is it simply Adam—the race. They took the lowly place failure and death put them in. And then (men) began to be separated to the name of Jehovah, and to be distinctively associated with Him, and worship Him. This was the knowledge of faith; it is not " on Elohim."
Nothing provokes the world like divine favor. But Jehovah reasons with Cain on the ground of responsibility, and present government or order, in a world of sin—doing well, a sacrifice of sin-offering if needed, and superiority here in the world. But this, though he did not care for God, would not do; his jealousy was of man enjoying this favor in grace—allowing it to run. Cain was utterly evil—no relenting—no profiting by God's patient goodness.
The order is, Abel accepted according to Heb. 1—faith; himself accepted and his gift—sin—death—judgment propitiation recognized.
Cain, like the world, untouched by conviction, is not accepted; as the natural man, furious; Jehovah reasons with him, the case put before him, in grace, to do well, or, in grace, a sin offering is there—no relenting, nor profiting by it—fills up sin against his neighbor; judgment from the world (as Jews with Christ)—no hope or relenting—despair.
God had not said to him to leave His presence. Cain does and goes out from His presence himself, to dwell where judgment had made him a vagabond, and then comes the world -the world as God sees it in its true place before Him.
Note- Cain and Abel—wicked nature and suffering in grace—both disappear; Seth only is man appointed of God—Christ, when He comes again.
Otherwise we have man wicked, the rejecter of God—Adam fully developed—Christ and suffering saints in grace, both pass away. Seth is the appointed man—Christ, as the Son of Man, to come.
It is a wonderful chapter—the whole history of nature and of grace.