Enoch and Noah

I realized too late that this was going to be my Thanksgiving post. That is, on Sunday, when thinking about it while trying to take my Sunday afternoon nap (something I highly treasure), I realized that this is not really super Thanksgiving-y. Its what I have though, unless you want a post from Lamentations. Anyway, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. May you be blessed with a table full of food, a heart full of love, and a home full of laughter this weekend. And may your football team win.

 Genesis 5 serves as a transition chapter. We need to get from Adam and his sons, to Noah. So chapter 5 takes us there. There is a formula for each person mentioned; their name, how old they were when the next in line was born, how long they lived after, and then he died. Is there any doubt that death has entered the world? For 20 verses, the formula repeats itself always ending with and he died. But then something changes in Genesis 5:21-24.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether Enoch lived 365 years.

So far so good. Enoch fits the formula. But then verse 24 breaks the pattern.

Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Remember this was an oral culture. The audience would have perhaps been lulled into a rhythmic trance while this chapter is being read, but then, and verse 24 they would have been snapped out of their reverie. Enoch didn’t die, because God took him away. But then the pattern resumes, until we get to Noah, where the pattern is interrupted to tell Noah’s story.

Again, the audience would perk back up at the change in the rhythm of the orator. Finally at Genesis 6:9, we make the connection:

This is the account of Noah: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

Noah receives high praise, especially when compared with the preceding narrative about the widespread wickedness that mankind has fallen into. Noah is different. How different? As different as Enoch was from the rest of the genealogy in chapter 5. You see, both men walked with God. Not only does this word not appear of any of the other people mentioned in the genealogy in chapter 5, but it is also not used in 6:1-9 to describe anyone else either, regardless of what kind of walking they are doing. The Hebrew form of the word, though, is even rarer! What is translated as “walked” in English, really means “walked around, back and forth, in many/all directions.” Enoch and Noah walked faithfully with God in all ways and all parts of their lives.

Up until this point in Scripture, the only other person who “walks” in all directions or ways is God: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day… So God, Enoch and Noah, all walk the same walk, which is to say that Enoch and Noah walk like God walks. For Enoch, it led to him being assumed into heaven. For Noah, it led to him and his family surviving the Flood that destroyed the rest of mankind at that time.

Faith can take us to scary places. Is it worth it to let God into every area of our lives? To hand over control in those places that we think we need to control? The obvious answer is “yes”. But I must confess that more often than not, it comes with hesitation. Perhaps, it is because we don’t hear God’s voice as clearly as we want. Or maybe because we think we know too much about the situation and the outcome. Or possibly because we just don’t want to be uncomfortable and take our eyes off our lives to focus on God not ourselves. Enoch and Noah kept their eyes on God and they were richly rewarded. Scripture doesn’t say that many people “walked” with God the way these two men did. How can you walk faithfully with God today? What are you holding back that you can give to Him?

Let us be grateful for a gracious God who sees our fears and tells us anyway, "Do not fear!" He is in control, what a relief! Happy Thanksgiving!

For more on Enoch, see my previous post here.

Desire and Rule: Genesis 3:16 and 4:7

While teaching on the Creation Covenant, the question came up as what exactly was meant by “desire” and “rule” in Genesis 3:16. As I dug deeper I found a connection between this verse and Genesis 4:7 as to how the words are used. Genesis 3:16 says:

To the woman he said,

“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;

with pain you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.”

To understand the last part of 3:16, we need to look at the Hebrew words themselves. The word translated as “desire” comes from the Hebrew word, teshuqah (hקָוּשׁ֣תְּ). It only actually appears in Scripture three times and means: to stretch out after and long for. It carries with it the sense of a strong unbreakable emotion that is persistent and unchanging. Genesis 3:16 is the first appearance, the second appearance is in Genesis 4:7 when God tells Cain, “sin is crouching at your door and desires to have you.” And, finally, in Song of Songs 7:10, “I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.”

The word translated as “rule” comes from the Hebrew, mashal (לשָׁמְ). It is used throughout Scripture to mean: to rule; have dominion; reign; have authority; oversee; and master. For example, it is used in Genesis 1:18 of the Sun and Moon that they will rule the day and night. It is also used in Genesis 4:7 when speaking of Cain’s sin, “…it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Another example comes from Genesis 37:8 when, after hearing his dream, the brothers say to Joseph, “are you really going to rule over us?” In this sense, it seems that pre-fall, the authority denoted by this word was good and for the benefit of others. Post fall, it was tainted and overbearing, and carried with it the tone of conquering, rather than leading and guiding.

In 3:16, the woman is told that she will stretch out after and long for her husband, but he will rule her in a negative sort of sense. In 4:7, sin is stretching out after Cain to take hold of him and destroy what God has created him to be, and he is given the opportunity and the choice to rule over it, and in this case, reject it.

In the Ancient Near East (ANE) cultures depended largely on oral tradition since paper was expensive, and there wasn’t a great place for the common man to store it. In general this was the case until well into the 13^th century AD. So, people shared stories orally and with great skill and memory. If an Israelite had been listening to the Scroll of Genesis read aloud, or a skilled orator tell of the creation of the world and the fall, and the two words teshuqah and mashal were spoken so closely together in the story, he or she would have taken notice. Therefore, it seems logical to look at both these verses when trying to determine how they shed light on the dominion mankind was supposed to have over creation.

After reading Genesis 4:7 dozens of times I came to imagine sin as a wispy, shadowy figure crouching near the ground. It reaches out its long thin arms and unfolds its long wiry fingers to reveal sharp claws that stretch towards Cain with unfaltering tenacity. When thinking about it this way it is easy to see what Cain should have done! He should have stomped on the sin and sent it out of his presence! Alas, if only temptation and sin always looked so menacing, it would be so much easier to cast out!

However, I am uncomfortable applying this image to Genesis 3:16 and Eve desiring her husband. Especially in light of Song of Songs 7:10. The line comes at the end of a rather steamy exchange in which the Lover (Solomon) describes his Beloved. The Beloved then responds and says: “I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.” Above, I said that teshuqah had the sense of an unbreakable, unchanging, persistent emotion. After all the Lover said about his Beloved, he certainly does reach out after her and long for her in a most passionate way. But this isn’t quite the tone present in Genesis 3:16 either.

Up to this point, Adam and Eve had been given dominion over all creation. They functioned as equals in the garden and supported each other in their various duties and responsibilities so they could survive and flourish. After the fall, a hierarchy is introduced, which still exists today to greater or lesser degrees. Therefore, the “rule” the husband has over the wife is not the same “dominion” he was granted over all of creation in Genesis 1:26.

Sin has entered creation and distorted and destroyed the bliss and peace that once ruled there. Perhaps Eve reaches out to Adam to find relief and comfort in the equality they once shared, only to find that there is no equality or shared dominion anymore, and Adam still has ultimate authority over her. Perhaps she reaches out in sin and despair to pull him down and use him as leverage to stand up on his same level once again only to find that she is mastered and put in her proper place. This may seem absurd today in our modern and socially advanced civilizations, but in the ANE the husband had full control over the life of the woman. Love certainly did play a part in the relationship and help to smooth over the difference in authority between the genders, but at the end of the day, the man still had rule over his wife.

Dominion over creation is gone at this point and the man and woman do not rule jointly, but devolved into a hierarchical form of rule. Creation, now awaits the day when the good and true ruler will be revealed. Eve found out the hard way that what she desired and how she wanted to rule were incompatible. God ordained for this world to work and flourish in a certain way, and when humankind veered from that, it all fell apart. But there is the promise of redemption and victory in Genesis 3:15, “he (the woman’s offspring) will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” The coming son of Eve will destroy the serpent and the evil he has wrought on creation. He will suffer in the battle, but will not be conquered. He will emerge victorious. He will master the sin that plagues us.

No marriage is perfect. There are times our desires for our spouse will be positive, and holy, and proper. And then there are times that they will be negative and desperate and deceitful. Jesus came and died to make a way for us to get back to Paradise and how it was before the fall. Jesus is the only one who can properly rule us, put us in our proper places, and have authority over our lives in such a way that gives us freedom to flourish and thrive. We cannot expect that from an earthly spouse, because we are all still fallen creatures that are on the path to glory. We must reach out with love and grace to our earthly spouses, and must be willing to be corrected by our heavenly Lord and the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ. We cannot do it on our own and without his guidance. Until all of Creation is renewed and restored, we have to submit to God, forgive our spouses and others, and understand that some things will not be fair in this world. But God is good, and His love will endure and sustain us always.