Part 8 (1/2)

239. It was from this place, therefore, in which G.o.d declared that he was always present, and in which Adam resided as high priest, and as lord of the earth, that Cain ”went out;” and he came into another place, where there was no ”face of G.o.d,” where there was no visible sign of his presence by which he could derive the consolation that G.o.d was present with his favor. He had no sign whatever, save those signs which are common to all creatures, even to the beasts, namely, the uses of sun and moon, of day and night, of water, air, etc. But these are not signs of that immutable grace of G.o.d contained in the promise of the blessed seed. They are only the signs of G.o.d's temporal blessings and of his good will to all his creatures.

240. Miserable, therefore, was that going out of Cain indeed. It was a departure full of tears. He was compelled to leave forever his home and his parents, who now gave to him, a solitary man and a ”vagabond,”

their daughter as his wife, to live with him as his companion; but they knew not what would become either of their son or of their daughter. In consequence of losing three children at one time their grief is so much greater. No other explanation suggests itself for the subsequent statement ”Cain knew his wife.”

241. Where, then, did Cain live with his wife? Moses answers, ”in the land of Nod,” a name derived from its vagabond and unsettled inhabitant. And where was this land situated? Beyond paradise, toward the east, a place indeed most remarkable. Cain came into a certain place toward the east, but when he came there, he was insecure and unprotected, for it was the land of Nod, where he could not set foot with certainty, because ”the face of G.o.d” was not there. For this ”face” he had left with his parents, who lived where they had paradise on their side, or toward the west. When Cain fled from his home he went toward the east. So the posterity of Cain was separated from the posterity of Adam, having paradise as a place of division between them. The pa.s.sage, moreover, proves that paradise remained undestroyed after Adam was driven out of it. In all probability it was finally destroyed by the deluge.

242. This text greatly favors the opinion of those who believe that Adam was created in the region of Damascus, and that, after he was driven out of paradise for his sin, he lived in Palestine; and hence it was in the midst of the original paradise that Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho stood, in which places Jesus Christ and his servant John chiefly dwelt. Although the present aspect of those places does not altogether bear out that conclusion, the devastations of the mighty deluge were such as to change fountains, rivers and mountains; and it is quite possible that on the site which was afterward Calvary, the place of Christ's sacrifice for the world's sin, there stood the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the same spot being marked by the death and ruin wrought by Satan and by the life and salvation wrought by Christ.

243. It is not without a particular purpose, therefore, that Daniel uses the striking expression: ”The end thereof (of the sanctuary, the sacrifice and the oblation) shall be with a flood,” Dan 9, 26. As if he had said, The first paradise was laid waste and utterly destroyed by the mighty deluge, and the other, future paradise, in which redemption is to be wrought, shall be destroyed by the Romanists as by a flood.

244. We may carry the a.n.a.logy further by stating that as Babel was the cause of the destruction of the Jewish people, so this disaster had its beginning with Cain and his offspring, who settled in that part of the earth where, at a later day, Babylon was founded. These are my thoughts and views, derived partly from the fathers. Though they may not be true, they are yet probable, and have nothing unG.o.dly in them.

And there can be no doubt that Noah, after the flood, saw the face of the whole earth altogether changed from what it was before that awful visitation of the wrath of G.o.d. Mountains were torn asunder, fountains were made to break forth and the courses of the rivers themselves were wholly altered and diverted into other channels, by the mighty force of the overwhelming waters.

VII. GENERATIONS OF CAIN AND OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

A. IN GENERAL.

1. Why Cain's generations were described before those of the righteous 245.

2. How the Holy Spirit is interested more in the generations of the righteous than in those of Cain 246-247.

3. Why the Holy Spirit gives this description of both 248.

4. The relation of the two to each other 248.

5. How the generations of the righteous are attacked and conquered by those of the G.o.dless 249.

* Of Cain's marriage.

a. Who was his wife, and the question of his being married before he committed the murder 250-251.

* How to read the writings of the Jews 251.

b. The question of his being married after the murder 252-254.

* That some of his posterity were saved 254.

VII. THE GENERATIONS OF CAIN AND THE GENERATIONS OF THE G.o.dLY.

A. The Posterity of Cain in General.

V. 17. _And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch._

245. It is worthy of admiration that Moses describes the generation of the sons of Cain before the generation of the sons of G.o.d. But all this is done according to the fixed counsel of G.o.d. For the children of this world have in this life and in this their generation the advantage of the children of G.o.d (Lk 16, 8) with reference to the first promise. The spiritual seed of the woman indeed possess the spiritual blessing, but the seed of the serpent arrogate to themselves the corporal, or temporal, blessing, and they bruise the heel of the blessed seed. In this respect the temporal has precedence over the spiritual.

246. But a great difference comes to the surface at a later day.

Although Moses records the history of the posterity of Cain before the posterity of the righteous, yet we afterwards see that the latter are more especially the care of the Holy Spirit. He does not confine himself to a bare registration of their names, but he carefully numbers their years, makes mention of their death, and not only chronicles their own doings, as he chronicles in this pa.s.sage those of the sons of Cain, but also the transactions and the conversations which Jehovah had with them, the promises he made, the help rendered in danger, and the blessings vouchsafed.