The Early World

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0:00 So, let's go ahead and jump right into the text. And let's start, let's go to Genesis 3, and let's look at the curse, beginning in Genesis chapter 3, verse 14. Barbara, are you up to reading tonight? Sure. All right. And just go ahead and read the curse. The curse. Genesis 3, verse 14. Then Yahweh God said to the snake, Because you have done this, accursed be you of all animals, wild and tame. On your belly you will go, and on dust you will feed as long as you live.

0:52 I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. It will bruise your head, and you will strike its heel. To the woman he said, I shall give you intense pain in childbearing. You will give birth to your children in pain. Your yearning will be for your husband, and he will dominate you. To the man he said, Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, accursed be the soil because of you. Painfully will you get your food from it as long as you live. It will yield you brambles and thistles as you eat the produce of the land. By the sweat of your face will you earn your food until you return to the ground as you were taken from it. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.

1:47 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of those who live. Yahweh God made tunics of skin for the man and his wife and clothed them. Then Yahweh God said, Now that the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat, and live forever. So Yahweh God expelled him from the garden of Eden to till the soil from which he had been taken. He banished the man, and in front of the garden of Eden he posted the great winged creatures and the fiery flashing sword to guard the way to the tree of life. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, so remember this curse is not just an arbitrary God just, Oh, you sinned.

2:39 I think I might curse you. But rather this is the logic of the covenant. The covenant, if you keep the covenant, the blessings keep coming. You get covenant blessings. And if you transgress the covenant, you get the covenant curse, the judgment. Okay, again, this is why we put our military officers, our policemen, our firemen under oath and witnesses on the witness stand. Because if they lie, and if we never catch them until the day of their death in perjury, God's justice grinds slowly, and it will always take place. Because God is their judge. And so we have the curse of the Adamic covenant, the first covenant made with mankind. And the curse, if the interpretation that we gave last week is correct, And of course, I can't tell you it is correct.

3:36 This is exactly what he means. Because I don't know. I don't have a, the church hasn't said, hasn't definitively given us one interpretation, that is the interpretation. We don't have, you know, a divine voice from heaven telling us this is the interpretation. Rather, we should accept the interpretation that has the best explanatory power. Okay, there are lots of interpretations out there. And the one that explains the text the best, we should go with. And so far, this is the explanation that, that I, I think explains the text the best. It has the, the most interpretive or explanatory power. Is that Adam was called to be the high priest in the Holy of Holies, the Garden of Eden. And the Nahash came up to Adam and Eve. And again, remember the Nahash is not a little green gardener snake. Remember last week we closed our eyes and we cleared our minds of all, all thoughts of all little green gardener snakes.

4:25 And we imagine the Nahash to be the venomous killer type serpent with venom that it is. And that the Nahash was telling the woman, uh, who we see is named Eve in, uh, Genesis three 20, uh, because she became the mother of all the living, uh, that the Nahash said, if you eat of it, you will not die. And implicit within this could be a threat that the Nahash is saying, look, if you do eat of the fruit, I won't kill you. And if you don't eat of the fruit, guess what? And the whole time Adam's standing right there because Adam just pipes up halfway through the story. I mean, he's, he's there the whole time. I mean, it doesn't say that he's not there and we're, I mean, it doesn't say that, you know, Adam's with his wife, uh, before the narrative and then, uh, halfway into the narrative after the serpent's been talking with the woman, it just says that, uh, she just gave Adam the fruit. Like she took it, she ate it, she just gave it to him.

5:27 So Adam's most probably standing there and, and the serpent is talking to Eve, telling her this stuff. And Adam's called the Abaddon Shamar to keep and to guard the garden of Eden. And he fails in his task. He doesn't, he doesn't guard the garden from the Nahash. Rather, he lets the Nahash, uh, you know, basically strike at his wife, uh, with these cunning words of, of deception. And then the Nahash says, surely if you eat of this fruit, you will not die. And then she eats of the fruit, Adam eats of the fruit. Adam cowers in fear. He does not exercise his priestly service. And so the curse given fits the crime. Adam does not suffer for his bride. So suffering is going to be the curse. And the curse in covenantal, uh, thought is always, absolutely always redemptive. It always has a good purpose.

6:24 It's never just wholly bad. In the same way that the church, uh, doesn't excommunicate people just to get even or just because that's what they had coming. But excommunication is always a sign of, of love. We want to excommunicate the person to bring them back into the fold so that they realize the seriousness of their sin. And this is the reason why the church, uh, doesn't excommunicate just anybody. You know, we see a bunch of public sinners. We're like, why didn't the church just excommunicate them? Well, because that public sinner might just use that to their advantage and say, I'm being persecuted by the church. And they wouldn't repent. And so it wouldn't do any good to excommunicate them. In the same way, the curse, the curse is always redemptive. There's always a positive aspect to the curse. And in the, in the book of, of Hebrews, we're told that, uh, whenever we undergo suffering in the Christian life, this is the father disciplining us.

7:16 And that the father never gives us more than we can handle. Okay. So, so any hardships we experience in our life, you know, God's going to bring good out of them. And in the end of Romans eight, Paul says that God works all things for those who love him. Uh, even for the good. Okay. And, and Paul's talking about suffering in Romans eight, being conformed to the image of Jesus. So we have this curse, the curse of the covenant. Um, it has a redemptive value. It's not all bad. It's not, it's not just, um, the wrath of God for the sake of the wrath of God. And, and right when the curse happens, uh, we have this statement. And I will put enmity and the, the word for enmity. I know you guys don't speak Hebrew, so this is probably going to superfluous, but it's kind of fun to put Hebrew words up on the board. Um, it's I bah is a Hebrew word for enmity.

8:09 And it means complete separation, being completely at odds with one another. And so there's kind of a paradox here. There's kind of a tension. Eve is the woman, you know, woman. She came from man. The narrative tells us she's the woman. But yet Eve's not at a complete enmity with, she's not at an I bah with Satan. She just cooperated in his plan. And now we're going to see that the fruit of her seed is going to be Cain, who's going to become the first human murderer. And so Eve is not I bah, she's not at enmity with the Nahash. But yet, in a certain sense, it is her seed that's going to, it's going to be her seed that's going to be battling with the Nahash's seed. There's, we see this, I will put enmity between you and the woman, this is verse 15, and between your offspring and hers.

9:04 He will strike at your head, and some translations have the, it will have the, what is it, a pronoun, it, or not a pronoun, but yeah, it, or it's. It will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel, or while you strike at its heel. And some manuscripts have the pronoun he, some don't. It's a, it's a controversy in biblical studies between what exactly it says in that one little word. Because there's like, anyways. But, okay, so he will strike at your head while you strike at his heel. So there's going to be the Nahash's offspring and the woman's offspring. And this is going to be very, this is very important because within the curse, we're going to have an interpretive clue for the rest of Genesis. Because we're going to have two seeds.

9:55 We're going to have the seed of the Nahash, or we could say the seed of Satan. And we're going to have the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman. And ultimately, I'm going to go ahead and give you the answers, because we already have the answers in the back of the book. And we read from them every Sunday in the gospel. And in the third reading, which is the second reading, because the second reading is really the psalm. But don't let me confuse you on that. Is that the woman is ultimately going to be Mary. It's going to be Mary's seed. And Mary is the one who's going to be Iba. Who's going to have complete enmity with the devil. And we see this in her Immaculate Conception. Okay? In the Pan Hagia. The All Holy, as the East has called her from the beginning. Is that Mary, who in her Immaculate Conception is at complete enmity with the devil.

10:48 It's going to be her seed, Jesus. It's going to conquer all of Satan's seed. All of the Nahash's seed. So ultimately, we're going to have this ultimate fulfillment in the person of Mary. Who Jesus calls woman at the wedding of Cana in John 2. And at the foot of the cross in John chapter 19. But we're going to wait. We're going to get to that. But I'm just giving you a little foretaste of the answers in the back of the book. Which is the New Testament. And again, we have here in verse 20. The man called his wife Eve. Because she became the mother of all the living. And last week, at the end of the session. We saw how Mary is kind of presented as a new Eve. At the wedding of Cana. And at the foot of the cross. And if she's the new Eve.

11:35 Then she's the new mother of all the living. And this explains why Jesus says. Not Mary, behold your son. But woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. Because Mary has become the mother of all the living. And especially of Christians who are represented by St. John, the beloved disciple. Or again, St. John calls himself the beloved disciple. In the Gospel of John. Because he wants to associate himself with all of us. Okay? That's why he doesn't refer to himself by name. This is a literary device that he uses. And so in chapter 4. We have these two seeds. That start up. We have Cain. And we're told that the man. Adam. Had relations with his wife Eve. She conceived and bore Cain.

12:23 Saying, I have produced a man with the help of the Lord. Now, Cain, Cain, means possession. To take possession. To get. To have gotten. And this is why Eve says, I have produced a man with the help of the Lord. Like, I have gotten a man. I have possession of a man. Of a child. A child man. And so that's like an explanation of the name of Cain. And the next she bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of flocks. And Cain, a tiller of the soil. Now, notice that in the curse, it said, Cursed be the ground because of you. Okay? Now, Cain is going to get his sacrifice from the cursed ground. And he's not going to give the first fruits of his harvest.

13:14 But he's just going to give some of his harvest, it tells us. It says, when he finally gives his offering, it says, in verse 3, we have, At the end of days, Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil. While Abel, for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock. Okay, the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not. Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen, is what my translation says. And so, we see that Cain brings fruit of the ground that's just been cursed. And we're told that he doesn't give the first fruits like Abel gives the firstlings. And this is an Israelite point of view.

14:02 The Israelites were commanded to take the firstborn of their flock. Okay, so you take the firstborn sheep or goat or cow or whatnot, and that's what you give to God. The first, the best. And you also give the fat. You give the fat with whatever you're offering. And in the, I believe in the actual text, it talks about how it actually uses the word fat in there that Abel gives. It's not in some translations, I don't think. Yeah, in Genesis 4.4, it does say it does have fat in there in the original Hebrew. And the idea of giving the fat of the animal and the firstborn is like giving your very best. And so, we see that Abel's doing this with faith, that he loves God.

14:56 He wants to serve God. But Cain is just like, I'll give you some of the fruit of this cursed ground, but not the very best. And so, Abel's name means breath or shortness or about to pass away. And his name, Hebel, meaning breath, describes Abel's life. Abel's life was very short because Cain ended up murdering him. And in the New Testament, we have three places where Abel is spoken of. We have 1 John 3, verses 11 through 12. And don't feel like you have to turn here. If you want to, you can, or you can write down the verse. 1 John 3, 11 through 12. And 1 John is speaking about the Christian who's in a state of grace, who's right with the Lord, who is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And he gives all the fruits of somebody who's living this life.

15:51 And he says that he who does not sin, you know, is with the Lord. So, he's talking about, you know, you need to be living upright. You're not living a life of sin. He talks about loving one another. You know, how could one hate his brother and love God? It's not possible. This is in 1 John. And then at the end of 1 John, he says, John says, I have written these things so that you may know you have eternal life. And so, some people will take this verse out of context and they'll say, see, the scriptures say you can know infallibly that you have eternal life. You know, but they don't hear what John says at the beginning where he says, I have written these things. And John uses the word if 21 times before he says that. And he's giving all the conditions of someone who's living in a state of grace.

16:42 And then he's giving a Christian, like, a mirror to look at, to kind of reflect, to compare yourself to, to say, okay, am I matching this? If I am, I can know I have eternal life. It's not perceptible to the five senses. So, John is giving this, and I know this is a, this is a digression, but 1 John chapter 3, verses 11 through 12. John is talking about this. And so, he, he takes a moral example from the Old Testament. And he says, for this is the message which you have heard from the beginning. That we should love one another. Comes from Leviticus 19. It's not a new commandment. Leviticus 19 tells us to love one another as we love ourselves. Jesus' commandment is a new commandment because he tells us to love one another as I have loved you.

17:39 In a, in a deeper, more self-sacrificial way. Apart from just loving one another as you would love yourself. Or that, you know, but rather it's much deeper, much, much more profound. So, he says that we should love one another and not be like Cain, who is of the evil one. And the sense given in this passage is that Cain was begotten of the evil one. That's kind of the, the sense of the passage. So, we kind of have Cain coming from the line of the, the line of the Nahash. Okay? He's begotten of the evil one. He's of the evil one. And murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. And the other seed, you can kind of see, uh, Abel. But we're going to see this actually being fulfilled in Seth.

18:30 And Seth's name means compensation. Or... But, of course, that's not so. I mean, if he says that Cain is from the evil one. Because it says right here that Adam and Eve had relations and then she bore Cain. Right? This is not literal. This is not literal in the sense that, that Satan somehow had literal offspring like Adam and Eve did. But rather, from Adam and Eve, an evil line and a righteous line are going to spring up. And the evil line that are going to come through Cain are going to be called the seed of the Nahash. The seed of the evil one. Of the evil one. Even though that their parents really were, Cain's parents really were Adam and Eve. This is a, this is a figure of speech. This isn't literally saying that somehow Satan copulated. Very important to note. Because spirits can't copulate, by the way.

19:19 Just to let you know, they're not corporal. I know you know that, by the way. I'm just saying it for rhetorical effect. And so, we have the New Testament saying that, that Cain is of the evil one. He murdered his brother. He murdered him because his own, own deeds were evil. And in, and I want to, I want to point out a distinction here. And that is that jealousy is not always a sin. Jealousy can be both good or bad. Okay. The Old Testament, and I believe also in the New Testament, but I don't know where, says that God is a jealous God. He's jealous for his people. This doesn't mean that God is sinful. It means that God seeks the good that's in another. That's to be jealous.

20:05 And this can be bad. This can be bad. You can inordinately, or with the wrong reasons, be jealous. And this is where we get into the ninth and the tenth commandments. You know, you can, you can covet. And so this is bad. But jealousy doesn't, isn't always bad. It can be good. Like I can, I can be jealous of the fact that my friend Sean is really buff. You know, and I can be, I can be like, I want to, I want to work out like you, man. I want to be just as good looking as you are. You know, but I'm not, but I'm not, you know, hating him for it or anything. I'm just, I'm kind of jealous in a good way, you know. And, and now Sean's turning red. And, but this is only because he's my friend. I would never do this to any of you. So this is actually a compliment. This is a special, special thing.

20:59 Yes, I meant to say I was jealous of his intellect. And so, but what's happening here is that Cain wasn't just jealous. He was envious and envy seeks to harm or destroy the good in another. Okay. It springs from jealousy and it goes beyond jealousy. And so Cain not only was jealous of his, of his brother in a bad way, but then he sought to destroy, to, uh, to somehow harm this good. And we're told in wisdom 224, wisdom 224, that Satan rebelled because of envy one envy also is one of the seven deadly sins. We also have, uh, uh, murder, gluttony, pride, greed. Envy is one of the big seven.

21:50 And if you have a copy of the compendium of the catechism of the Catholic church, it has it, the list of the seven right in the back. So you might want to go buy one, uh, later on. But wisdom 224 tells us for God created man for incorruption and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil's envy, death entered the world and those who belong to his party experience it. Okay. So the devil saw the good in man and he didn't just, he wasn't just envious of it. The devil wanted to destroy it. So that's the reason why he came in and was, uh, uh, an instrumental cause of original sin. Hebrews 11 is a hall of fame from the old Testament. So you have, you know, if we want to have a hall of fame from the, uh, from the church age, we'd have St. Francis of Assisi, St. Faustina Kowalska, we'd have St. Paul, St.

22:42 John, the apostle, St. Peter was crucified upside down, St. Matthew, St. Thomas, you know, we'd have, uh, uh, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Padre Pio, Blessed Mother Teresa. We'd have all of these people, but from the old Testament, Hebrews 11 gives us a line of, uh, a hall of fame. And in the, in the beginning of Hebrews 11 in verse four, we're told by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he received approval as being righteous, God bearing witness by accepting his gifts. He died, but through his faith, he is still speaking. Hebrews 12 talks about persevering in the faith. So don't throw away this hope that you have. Don't commit mortal sin. Don't go back to your formal way of life, but stay the course.

23:32 Run the race is the, is what's the image that's given the beginning of Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, 24 tells us you have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel. Okay. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than Abel. So Abel is a type of Christ. Abel is righteous. Abel offers an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord at a faith, at a faithful obedience. And Jesus is faithful to the father.

24:20 He, he follows the father's will to the end and he offers an acceptable sacrifice. Abel is innocent. Christ is innocent. Abel's blood speaks out from the ground and Christ's blood speaks out for us. Okay. The redeemed. And so Abel is a type of Christ, just as Adam was a type of Christ. And so what we're going to see here is that in Genesis chapter four, let's go ahead and open it up with me to Genesis chapter four. We're going to, we're going to continue where I just left off. And so we have Cain and God basically, uh, having this conversation and God continually gives, you know, gives Cain the opportunity to repent.

25:10 Just how like God gave Adam the opportunity to repent, but Cain does not repent. Uh, rather Cain goes on and, uh, and doesn't, and he says, you know, am I my brother's keeper? He doesn't repent. And Cain has relations with his wife. She conceived and bore Enoch and Enoch was in the land of what? Nod. Okay. So Enoch is in the land of Nod. And what does Cain do after he has his son Enoch in the land of Nod? What is, what does he end up doing? He names a city after Enoch, right? So Cain names the city after his son Enoch. Okay.

26:06 It's going to be very important. And then let's go ahead and go to, uh, and then we see that, um, through Enoch, we have several more people are born. We have Irad, Mahujel, Matusel, and then Lamech. Lamech took, and then we have like a, like a little, the author goes into a little tangent here. He doesn't just go, okay, who's Lamech's son? But he stops and he says, Lamech took two wives. The name of the first was Adah and the name of the second Zillah. And basically it's saying, hmm, Lamech is the first bigamist. What was the covenant that God made at, you know, at, on the, on the seventh day between man and woman marriage, the marital covenant.

26:56 It's to be faithful, fruitful. You know, it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be monogamous, mono, not by, not bigamist. And so Lamech is transgressing the marital covenant. And he says in verse 23, Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice. Wives of Lamech, listen to my utterance. I have killed a man for wounding me, a boy for bruising me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech's seventy-sevenfold. Okay, this is one of the other seven deadly sins. Pride. We see pride being embodied in Lamech. And we'll see this continuing in the line of Cain, who's of the evil one, the seed of the Nahash. Adam again had relations with his wife.

27:44 This is verse 25 in chapter 4. And she gave birth to a son, whom she called Seth. God has granted me more offspring in place of Abel, she said, because Cain slew him. So Seth's name means compensation. Okay, because Abel, the righteous son, was killed, God compensates Eve with another son named Seth. And there's a very important thing that's said in verse 26. Would somebody please read verse 26? Okay, Enosh. It's similar to Enoch. Okay. Well, the verse keeps going, yes.

28:38 Ooh, very important. The men began at this time to call upon the name of the Lord. This is very important. Okay. So, the line of Seth going through Enosh, people call upon the name of the Lord. They don't name cities after themselves. They don't try and make a name for themselves out of pride. But rather, there's humility. There's calling upon God's name, giving God the glory. And calling upon the name of the Lord, as we saw when we reviewed covenants in the last couple of lessons, how do you enter into a covenant?

29:33 How do you enter into a covenant? You take an oath by calling upon the name of the Lord. I will tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me, God. This is oath language. This is covenantal worship language. How do you worship God? Through the covenant oaths. And we'll see later on how this is tied up with sacrifice. And then ultimately in Jesus' own sacrifice and with the covenant oath that he establishes in the Eucharist. Okay. So we have covenant worship. We have people calling upon the name of the Lord, not naming cities after themselves. And if you guys, who here, just go and raise your hand if you fit this category. Who here has read or seen or in any way Augustine's city of God and is aware of Augustine's city of God? I'm aware of it.

30:23 We haven't read it. You're aware of it but never read it. Okay. Yes. Okay, good. Augustine, in the city of God, gives a commentary of the scriptures. And he talks about how the church kind of extends in embryonic form all the way back in the Old Testament. And how the church kind of began with the line of Seth. And Augustine, in the city of God, let me go ahead and quote him here. I have a quote here. He says, In regards to mankind, I have made a division. On the one side are those who live according to man. On the other, those who live according to God. Okay. So we have those living according to man, those living according to God. And I have said that, in a deeper sense, we may speak of two cities or two human societies.

31:15 The first child born of the two parents of the human race was Cain. He belonged to the city of man. The next born was Abel and he was of the city of God. Notice here a parallel between the individual man and the whole race. We all experience as individuals what the apostle says. It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The fact is that every individual springs from a condemned stock and because of Adam must be first cankered and carnal. Only later to become sound and spiritual by the process of rebirth in Christ. And so this is, and then Augustine goes on and he goes through the Old Testament and talks about these two kind of competing cities. You have the mystical body of Satan and the mystical body of Christ. And all who are attached to Satan and are in his slavery or in slavery to sin are part of the mystical body of Satan.

32:10 And all those who are attached to Christ and are living in his will and in his grace are in the mystical body of Christ. Okay, so then in chapter 5, something for the first time happens, is that we get this, well it doesn't actually happen for the first time, it happens in Genesis 1. You just probably can't see it in your English translations. But we get a toledoth in chapter 5. A toledoth. And if you look in chapter 5, verse 1, my record, my Bible says, this is the record of the descendants of Adam. And this is what in Hebrew is known as the toledoth, the descendants.

33:05 And so the author is giving the descendants of Adam, and he's doing this for a reason. There's always a reason that you have toledoth. It's not just, oh, we need to know our family tree, you know, just for the fun of it. But rather, there's always a reason. And the author of scripture is focusing in on one line, on one birth line. Like, for instance, I don't focus in on my cousin's birth line. I focus in on mine. I don't care about, you know, who my second cousin once removed line is. I care about my parents, my parents' parents, my parents' parents. I want to see, you know, do they go back to the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany? Now, that's what I want to know, because when I'm there drinking that lager, I want to know if I'm sitting where my great-great-great-great-grandfather sat. Right?

33:55 That's what I did. Okay, good. So, this toledoth is focusing in on one line of people. And notice that, let's count the generations. We have Adam, one. We have Seth, that's two. Enosh, three. Canaan, four. Or Canaan, however you say it. Mahalelel, that's five. Jared, six. Enoch, seven. Methuselah, eight. Lamech, a different Lamech, by the way, than the other one. You don't want to give him a bad name just because it's someone else's reputation. That's nine.

34:43 And then Noah, ten. Hmm. Now, notice that in toledoth, in a Hebrew way of thinking, they don't always say exactly who was whose son. Sometimes they'll cut out a person. Now, they don't make up people. But they'll say, like, you know, a grandfather's son is his grandson. You know, they'll do things like this. So, like, for instance, Jesus is called the son of David. Yeah. Was David his father? No, Joseph was. But Joseph is still, I mean, Jesus is still considered the son of David because he's in the line of David. Well, in the genealogy that Matthew gives for Jesus, he cuts out lots of people. He'll say someone is the son of somebody, but they're really so-and-so's great-grandson or grandson or not their son. And he's cutting out people because this is another way of doing Hebrew historiography is because how many generations there are will signify something.

35:43 The author wants to show us something. And there's exactly 10 generations in chapter 5. And this is pretty much chapter 5. Chapter 5 basically shows how we get to Noah from Adam. We start over here. Generation 1 is Adam. Generation 10 is Noah. Okay, we got to Noah. We're finally there. Verse 28. When Lamech was 182 years old, he begot a son and named him Noah. Saying, out of the very ground that the Lord has put under a curse, this one shall bring us relief from our work and the toil of our hands. Okay, this one shall bring us relief from our work. Noah's name means rest. Noah's name means rest. Lamech lived 595 years after the birth of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.

36:36 The whole lifetime of Lamech was 777 years. Hmm, a very covenantal type number, huh? 777. Then he died. When Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shim. Abraham and Japheth. 500. He must have been like Ponce de Leon, and he found the waters of youth in southern Florida. Yeah, and then they moved it to Florida. I think the descendants of the Mormons did that. They came over on a boat and brought it over there. I don't know. I know it's bad. It's actually not bad for those of you who don't know. So don't go quoting me. Okay. Chapter 6. When men began to multiply on earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of, now in Hebrew, it's Elohim, which means God, not heaven. Okay, sons of God.

37:40 But my translation says heaven, so I just scratched it out, and I wrote God right above it. I do this all the time with my New American Bible, because some places, man, it just misses. Misses the mark. By the way, that's what sin means, to miss the mark, literally. So my Bible sins. It misses the mark right here. Okay, so the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. And that insinuates polygamy, as many as they chose. This is kind of like an idiom for, you know, as they chose. I'll take one here, one over here, one over here. And so, again, we have the marital covenant being transgressed like what happened with Lamech. Now, who was Adam's firstborn son? Cain.

38:33 Was Cain, now do the scriptures say, in Genesis 5, 4, that Cain was begotten in the image and likeness of Adam? Who was begotten in the image and likeness of Adam? Seth. Hmm. But not Cain. And who is Adam in the image and likeness of? God. And who at the end of Luke chapter 3 is the son of God? Jesus. But Luke is tracing Jesus' genealogy all the way back to Adam and all the way back to who is Adam the son of? Yeah, it says in the end of Luke chapter 3 that Adam is the son of, it says, you know, Seth is the son of Adam. Who is the son of God.

39:25 And we have Adam being made in the image and likeness of God. And we have Seth being made in the image and likeness of Adam. What's being implied here? Adam is the son of God. Adam is the son of God. Adam forsakes this in the garden. Remember, he forsook divine sonship. But somehow, we still have like a metaphorical divine sonship happening, a covenantal type of sonship, where the fatherly blessing, the covenantal authority is being passed from God to Adam, Adam to Seth. And we'll see this continue all throughout the Bible. The covenantal authority, the paternal blessing is going to continue. The head of the covenant.

40:13 Where is God operating with the covenant? And we see this happening with Adam is made in the image and likeness of God. Seth is made in the image and likeness of Adam. So, we could say that Seth is the son of God, right? Just like Luke chapter 3 says that Adam is the son of God. Okay, if Adam is made in the image and likeness of God and Seth is made in the image and likeness of Adam, Seth, you know, it's like a syllogism. We have the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion is that Seth is the son of God. What would be up with Noah's children? What would they be?

41:03 Sons of God. Chapter 6, verse 2. You think maybe we're solving the mystery? Or maybe these are mythical angel beings who came down and had relations with men, and then they created big giants, and the Bible's just wacko. No, this isn't what it means, and some people actually think this. I mean, I've been to Bible studies where people believe this stuff, that they believe that angels came down and copulated with men, and this is why my Bible somehow says sons of heaven, because maybe it's the angels who came down. Because the translators of the scriptures are so confused. They're saying, who would be the sons of God? That just doesn't make sense. These must be angels. Right? And so they say sons of heaven, but that's not what the Hebrew says.

41:54 It says sons of God. And now, so we have, again, we have the two seeds, the two lines, the line of Cain, and the line of Seth. The sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man are. The daughters of man. And they took as many as they chose. The Lord said, my spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise 120 years. By the way, you know how old the oldest living person is right now? I think he just died, actually. 118. It was on CNN the other day. 118. Hmm. Okay, anyways, I just thought that was kind of interesting. It's really close to 120. At that time, the Nephilim appeared on earth, as well as later, after the sons of heaven had intercourse. My Bible is just so uncouth.

42:47 It does not say intercourse in the Hebrew. It says went into. I mean, it's a little bit more, you know, a little bit more veiled. You know? Anyways, this is bad. I mean, this is when you come up with bad translations. You know, at least the Hebrews knew how to be a little chaste in their writing. Okay. Who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of what? Renown. No, not renown. That's not what the Hebrew says. The Hebrew says that they were men of. By the way, when I said name earlier, that men began to call them the name of the Lord. What does the textbook say name is in Hebrew? No, what is name in Hebrew? Shem.

43:36 The word there is they were men of the Shem. They're trying to make a name for themselves. They're the wicked, the big giants. By the way, the Philistines were the enemies of Israel. And they were like giants, you know, Goliath. And so there's some allusion here to the life of Israelites, what they have to deal with. Okay. So we have the Shem. And so what do we have? We have the Sethite line, the sons of God, the descendants of Seth, intermarrying with the daughters of Cain, the Cainite line. Who's of the evil one.

44:28 And what happens when you have mixed marriages? Everything's cool, right? Trouble. What happened when Israel entered the land of Cain? Israel's men married the daughters of the Cainites. And they took up the idolatrous practices of the Cainites. And they started falling into idolatry. Okay, this is, again, this is an Israelite way of looking at the world. When you have an intermixing of lines like this, you have trouble. You have trouble. And so what does God do? Does he go, okay, I think I'm going to try and split you, baby. And we'll try and get the Sethites by themselves again and the Cainites by themselves. No, God says, verse 5, chapter 6, when the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man.

45:32 Wow. It's pretty big, huh? I mean, it's like, there was such evilness. But he found favor with Noah. Noah found favor with the Lord, verse 8. And so these are the descendants of Noah, Shim, Ham, and Japheth. Shim, Ham, and Japheth. So Noah has Shim, Ham, and Japheth. And there's the flood. And Noah is commanded to build the ark. And ark means like a box. So that's why the ark refers to both the ark in the flood and the ark of the covenant, because both are like a box. And it's most likely that the ark that Noah built was like a box, like that. So you have the ark of the covenant, you know, in the temple. And it looks like that with cherubim on top.

46:20 And then you have Noah's ark that probably looks like a box, you know, on the water. And Noah is presented as a new Adam. Okay, would somebody please, how about this? Why don't we have Barbara here with Mrs. Rexrode turn to Genesis 1, verse 2. 1, verse 2. And Margie, would you please turn to Genesis 8, verse 1. Okay. Genesis chapter 1, verse 2. Genesis 1, verse 2. Yeah. I need to move this table closer over here, because I'm getting too much exercise running back and forth. Okay, go ahead and read.

47:09 Okay. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formed and quainted them. And darkness and comforted the earth, while a mighty wind breathed over the water. Okay, that's good right there. So we have... Oh, go ahead just a little bit more. Just another word. Then God said, let there be light. Okay, that's good. That's good. Thank you. Thank you very much. God created, and the spirit or the breath or the wind went over the waters. Well, which is it? The spirit, the breath, or the wind? Well, it's all three. It says that God's, and it uses the Hebrew word, ruach, you know, was over the waters. Ruach means spirit. It means breath. And it means wind.

48:00 Okay, let's go ahead and read from that verse in chapter 8. The waters maintained their quest over the earth for 150 days. And then God remembered Noah and all the animals, wild and tame, that were with him in the ark. So God made a wind sweep over the earth. All right. God made a wind. The same Hebrew word, ruach. Ruach. And then what does it say? A wind sweep over the earth, and the waters began to subside. The fountains of the abyss and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the downpour from the sky was held back. Gradually, the waters receded from the earth. At the end of 150 days, the waters had so diminished, that in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. All right.

48:52 So we have the water subsides, and land comes out of the water. Does this remind you of anything? The beginning of creation. God, you know, let the waters go back, and land appeared. He let the waters go into their basin, is what one translation says. And so we have kind of a new creation. God's ruach going over the water, and then we have the land appearing. God bless them, saying to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Be masters of the sea, the birds of heaven, and all the living creatures that move on earth.

49:52 God also said, look, to you I give all the seed-bearing plants everywhere on the surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit. This will be your food. That's good. Thank you. Okay. So we have, be fruitful, and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the animals. Okay, what's said to Noah? Okay. God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fertile and multiply, and fill the earth. Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground, and all the fishes of the sea, and to your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat. That's good. Thank you.

50:38 Okay. So we have the command to multiply and have dominion over the animals being repeated again. And then what about the curse? We have both Adam and Noah. Oh, by the way, God rested on the seventh day of creation, right? And Noah's name means rest. So there's another one. There's other likenesses, other parallels that are here. I'm just giving you a couple because we only have so much time, and we're just running through this. Okay, Adam and Noah. Noah, how did Noah sin? What's Noah's sin? He got drunk from the what? From the wine. But what is wine? It's the fruit of the? And so of the grape, it's the fruit. And what did Adam eat?

51:29 Fruit. And where did Noah drink the wine? I know he got drunk in his tent, but where did it come from? The vineyard. He had a vineyard, right? And Noah was, I mean, Adam was in a garden. Hmm. And after Adam sins, God gives a what? God does what to them? Curses them. What happens after Noah's sin? He curses Canaan, the son of Ham. So there's a likeness in what's happening with the sin. And we're told in chapter 9, verse 22, what are we told? What happened? What did Ham do that was so bad? He saw him naked.

52:19 He saw him naked. Guys, I have something to confess to you. When I was a little kid, I saw my dad naked. What on earth is so bad about that? Okay, let's turn to Leviticus 18. Third book of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Leviticus 18. Margie, would you please start reading for us? Okay. The Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites and tell them, I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you once lived, nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan.

53:12 Well, the land of what? Canaan. Canaan, okay, keep going. Where I am bringing you. Do not conform to their customs. My decrees you shall carry out, and my statutes you shall take care to follow. I, the Lord, am your God. Keep then my statutes and decrees, for the man who carries them out will find life through them. I am the Lord. None of you shall approach a close relative to have sexual intercourse with her. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is not in the Hebrew. Where did you get that from? Okay, the New American Bible again. This New American Bible. I'm sorry, what is, what is, what is this, the NIV? What is this? None of you will approach a woman who is closely related to him. No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say you'll approach a woman. It says, it doesn't say that.

54:01 It says, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. And guess what happens in the succeeding verses? Every verse begins with, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your kinswoman. You shall not uncover the nakedness of, you know, fill in the blank. It's given 11 times. It's a Hebrew idiom. Guys, guess what? Because the New American Bible knows the Hebrew idiom. So it's translating it for you. So that you're not really confused. You're like, so what about uncovering nakedness? There's no confusing that.

54:51 That's right. And so, did you guys know that my wife and I, we went to Las Vegas and we made out. We did. We made out like bandits. I got, I mean, I must have made at least $50. We did. Why are you guys laughing? It's just making money. Yeah, we did. My wife and I, the other night, we made love. We did. We made love. I made her a little heart on a card and I gave it to her and she gave one to me and we made love. It was just really, it was really beautiful. We saw the cards, they're on our refrigerator. I gave, right? It's a Hebrew idiom. This is a way of speaking and it means something more than what you're just saying. And so, Ham looks upon the nakedness of his father and then Cainan gets cursed. Whoa, who committed the sin?

55:42 Ham. By the way, this is the reason that Jews don't eat ham. If you guys ever wanted a biblical precedent, I figured this one out. Perhaps, perhaps the interpretation with the greatest explanatory power is that Ham had relations. Okay, I'm using a veiled chaste term. I'm not using the New American Bible's terms. Had relations with his wife. I mean, not his wife, but his father's wife, his own mother. And the fruit of the incestual union is Canaan. And guess what topped the vices of the Canaanites? Maternal incest. Why? Because it was ritual, it was part of their temple ritual, their fertility rites. This is what they did to worship their gods.

56:35 Very sick, I know. But this is what happened. Like in the New Testament, we have the temple prostitutes. You know, in Corinth and in Rome, in these different pagan cities. But let's, did you know in the New Testament, in the life of David, David had a son named Absalom. And he had even a younger son who was Solomon. And Solomon was the half-brother of Absalom. So David was the father of both Absalom and Solomon. Solomon was younger. And they were from different women. So Solomon is Absalom's younger half-brother. In 2 Samuel, you can just write this down. Please don't flip to it. 2 Samuel chapter 16, verses 21 and 22. Absalom resented the plan of David to give the throne to one of his younger half-brothers, Solomon.

57:31 So what did Absalom do? He drove David out of Jerusalem. And he went into David's concubines in order to signify the seizure of royal power. Have you guys ever seen The Gladiator with Russell Crowe? It's like in the beginning, you know. The emperor wanted to give the throne to, what was his name, Marcus Aurelius, I think. And not to his son. And so what does his son do? He kills his father to get the throne. Well, this is kind of what happens with Absalom. And so who was the firstborn? Who was Noah's firstborn? Who was going to get the blessing, the covenantal authority? Shem. Ham was the secondborn. Ham wasn't going to get the blessing.

58:19 He wasn't going to get the authority in the family to continue this covenant leadership. And so possibly we have an act of a coup, a palace coup, where we have Ham wanting to kind of usurp the father's blessing that's going to be given to his brother, Shem. And so Canaan is the fruit. And then there's a curse. Blessed be Canaan, the lowest of his slaves, shall he be to his brothers. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his slave. May God expand Japheth so that he dwells among the tents of Shem. And let Canaan be his slave. Noah lived 350 years after the flood.

59:07 The whole lifetime of Noah was 950 years. Then he died. Then we're given the table of nations in chapter 10. And we're going to talk more about that next week because that's going to tie in to Abram. And then we're given the descendants of Shem, the chosen line, in verse 22 of chapter 10. Now, the, oh, by the way, also notice that the descendants of Ham are the oppressors, the enemies of Israel. We have, from Ham's descendants, we get Egypt. Egypt enslaved Israel. We get Canaan. Canaan ensnared Israel with its idolatry and with its women when Israel entered the promised land of Canaan. We have the Philistines who oppressed the Israelites in the promised land.

1:00:01 We have the Assyrians who annihilated what will later be the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom, or the kingdom of Ephraim, annihilated by Assyria. We have Babylon who ended up exiling the southern kingdom and oppressing them. Okay, so we have all of the, basically this is a, the book tells us it's a rogues gallery. It's kind of like a who's who of Israel's enemies come from Ham. Okay, now this is really cool. This is not in the book. And this is, I'm going to be sharing this with you because you guys are really neat. I want to share this with you. But we have, we have something called literal symmetry happening here. Literal symmetry in Genesis 1 to 11. And the author, remember how back in the Toledoth, in Genesis, what was it, five was it?

1:00:57 We had ten generations. Well, that was for a reason. Again, we saw God saying something ten times at the beginning of creation. We have God commanding Moses ten times in Exodus 39 and 40. And we have, we're going to be, and so there's a parallel. Well, here we have ten generations. Well, check this out. In Genesis 1 to 6, we'll parallel Genesis 7 to 11. And in Genesis 1 to 6, we have Adam. And Adam has a son named Seth, who ends up getting the covenant leadership. And we also have the son of Cain, the evil one. And then over here in Genesis 7 through 11, we have Noah, who's presented as a new Adam, who has the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

1:01:54 But Ham is going to kind of be the evil brother. And then we're going to have ten generations from Adam to Noah. Remember how we counted ten generations? This is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. And then the tenth generation will be Noah. Noah has three sons. Again, this is over here, so I'm just going to go ahead and write them out here. We have Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And then over here, we have Shem. And Shem, from Noah to Terah, this is in Genesis 11. Genesis 11, starting in verse 10, we have the line of Shem to Abraham. Let's count the generations.

1:02:49 Okay, let's start with Noah. We have Noah. Shem is 2. Ar-Pak-Shad is 3. Shelah is 4. Eber is 5. Pelag is 6. Ru is 7. Surag is 8. Nahor is 9. Terah is 10. So we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. And then Terah. Terah has how many sons? Abram, Nahor, Nahor, and Haran. Three again. We have this curious repetition happening here. Abram, Nahor, and Haran. In all of Genesis, only two firstborn sons get the blessing. They get the covenantal authority.

1:03:43 Jacob and Esau. Who was the firstborn? This is later on, by the way, so those of you who know your Genesis. Who was the firstborn? Esau. Who got the blessing? Jacob, the secondborn. Israel. Who was the firstborn? Ah. No, no, Israel. Not Abram. But let's go with Abram. Abram, who was the firstborn? Ishmael. Who was the secondborn? No. Isaac. Whose name means laughter. Because Sarah laughed when God told him the promise. She's like, ha! I'm not going to have any kids. I'm 90.

1:04:30 What are you talking about? Okay. But who got the blessing? The secondborn. In all of Genesis, the only two people who were firstborn and stayed with the blessing were Shem and Abram. So, again, there's some parallelism happening here. Also, right around the time of Noah, there was a great event to destroy sin. To deal with sin. And that was the flood. Which is also called the deluge. And right before the time of terror, right around then, there was a great event to deal with sin. And what was that? Babylon is named after it. Oh, the tower of Babel. Babel. The tower of Babel. Or Babel. Okay. Which Babylon is named after.

1:05:16 So, we have Babel, which, by the way, that's where we get to Babel from. Oh, is she just babbling again? It comes from the tower of Babel. Again, this is another biblical way how we get our culture from the Bible. Our culture comes from our cult. Our worship. Literally, that's where the term culture comes from. Cult is not a bad word. The idea that people join cults. This is more of a new use of the term. In the same way that we've changed the use of the term gay. Well, cult didn't always mean bad. It meant good. You have the cult. You know? And it wasn't even worship. It could just be honoring. To honor somebody. So, we have the cult of Mary. No. We didn't actually worship Mary. We just honored her. And it was called the cult of Mary. People see that today and they're like, oh, we did used to worship Mary. No.

1:06:03 It's just how we used the word. It was a different usage. It's been the usage of the word has changed. So, we have the flood, the deluge. And we have Babel over there. And we have kind of the evil brother here, Cain. And his sin comes to a certain climax in Lamech. And with Ham, we see this sin continuing in Canaan. So, again, this is literal symmetry happening in Genesis 1 to 11. The first six chapters parallel the next five chapters. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Five chapters. And let's turn in your books to where you have the descendants of Noah. It's a really colorful diagram.

1:06:55 Chapter 7, page 77. Okay, page 77. It's the descendants of Noah. And notice, Noah's son, the righteous son, is named what? Shem. Name. Very important. And in Genesis 11, before we go ahead and stay on that page, but I want to show you in Genesis 11, we have, before the Tower of Babel, we have the Hamite king, Nimrod, moves to the land of what? Does anybody know this? Reading your Bible? It's actually right before 11, I believe. It's in chapter 10. You have Nimrod, the Hamite king named Nimrod. He was a Nimrod.

1:07:49 He moves to the land of, this is in verse, let's see here. S-H-I-N-A-R, Shinar. Where is it? Oh, chapter 10, verse 10. Chapter 10, verse 10. The chief cities of the kingdom were Babylon, Iraq, and Akkad, all of them in the land of Shinar. All right. So, Shinar Bach, Shinar Bach is in the Bible. You can be assured of that. That's where Nimrod, the Hamite king, moved to. And then he built a city with a tower. And the book shows you that this could be compared to the ziggurats.

1:08:39 And we have, and they try to do what? What do they try to do? What do the people try to do? What's the sin? It's in chapter 11, verse 4. Then they said what? So, again, we have the Hamite descendants wanting to make a shim for themselves. God says, no, guys. The covenant, the way, you know, where I want you guys to be is through shim. But you're trying to make a shim for yourselves through Ham. And so, quit trying to make a shim for yourselves and be prideful, you know, and succumbing to the evil sin, one of the seven deadly sins of pride. But be humble and follow shim.

1:09:28 And guess what? God promises Abram in chapter 12. And we're going to look at this next time. Chapter 12, verses 2 through 3. I will make your name great. I will make your shim great. So that you will be a blessing, and by you, all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. Okay? So we have a counter... Again, we have the counter kingdom being built under Ham. We have Nimrod trying to, you know, and we have Babel. And this is the counter kingdom being built to what God's building through shim. And so we have Noah's descendants, on page 77 of the textbook. And in Noah's descendants, we have Shem. And who is Shem's great-grandson?

1:10:27 Eber. Guess where we get the term Hebrew from. Eber. Put an H right here. Eber. And that's where you get Hebrew from. Okay? The descendants of Eber. And what is it called when you're anti-Jewish? Anti-Semitic, right? Guess where we get that term from. You're anti-Semitic. Shem. So, Eber is the great-grandson of Shem. So, all Hebrews are Semites. Are all Semites Hebrews?

1:11:21 No. Why not? Because Shem had other children other than Ar-Faxad, who had Shalon, who had Eber. He also had Elam, Asher, Lud, and Aram. And so, people who descend from them are also Semites. But they're not Hebrews. Because they don't descend from Eber. And so, in the same way, are all Israelites Hebrews? Israel descends from... Israel, remember, the descendants of Israel are the descendants of Jacob, who had his name changed to Israel. And who's Jacob's grandfather? Abram.

1:12:07 And Abram is in the line of Eber. In the line of Shem. So, all Israelites are Hebrews. Are all Hebrews Israelites? Unless if you only had only children, no. In the whole line, no. They're not. And in the same way, out of the descendants of Israel, Israel had 12 sons. Or Jacob was his name. His name changed to Israel. He has 12 sons. He has Dan, Simeon, Levi, Gad, Asher, Judah, Joseph. And Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Where do we get the name Jew from? Judah. Right.

1:12:53 So, Jews come from the tribe of Judah. Are all Jews Israelites? Yes. Are all Israelites Jews? No. And this is going to be big when we get into the New Testament. And this completes today's lesson. So, let's go ahead and close in prayer and get out of here. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, you're so good and gracious. We thank you so much for the scriptures. And especially for Dr. Scott Hahn and for all the people of the St. Paul Center. Who are giving us these clues on how to interpret your most sacred and inspired word. May we not just be readers of your word and listeners. But may we be doers, as James tells us. We love you so much, Lord.

1:13:39 May you have all the glory and the blessing. May we live to glorify your name through our worship of you. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you. We'll see you next time.