Cain went out and found a wife, or perhaps took her with him, and they had children. And Adam and Eve continued having children who went out and did the same. And on it went until there were lots of people everywhere, doing the things that people do.
God had said they’d be like him, and they certainly were like little gods. Lording it over the earth and one another, but not to serve and bless, as God did. Like Adam and Eve they were snatching whatever they desired and hiding from God and one another. And, like Cain, they were slaying their siblings.
Jabal, we’re told, was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother, Jubal (think “jubilee”) was the father of all who play the harp and flute. And Tubal-Cain was the first to forge tools out of bronze and iron. (Genesis 4:20-21)
If this sounds to us like a naive oversimplification it surely is. But this is how we deal with mysteries. Your daughter plays music just like the grandfather she never knew and you say, “She inherited that.” Your son or sister has a knack for building, hunting, painting, or just being funny and we observe, “It runs in the family.” Though naive and over simple, this is a profound insight. Those who do these things are part of a lineage (genetic, cultural, whatever), and they share a great heritage that reaches back to a beginning in the dark and distant past. But there is more. Lest we imagine that this is a guarantee of human progress, we are also told that the father of these three great innovators was Lamech, a vain and violent man who boasted of killing a young man (perhaps a child) for injuring him, and arrogantly declared that for him vengeance would be limitless.
The ability to accumulate knowledge and skill from generation to generation is a great human distinctive. In fact it has been said that human beings have moved beyond evolution, replacing it with innovation. But this story is a warning that all things human are cumulative. If the benign accumulates, so also the malignant. If not excised, like cancer, eventually the malignant will destroy everything. The earth is a little place, an oasis of order in a sea of chaos. If we do not fulfil our purpose as stewards of the earth, the havoc we wreak will eventually sink us. How contemporary is that?
And there is yet another question. How long can a loving God stand by and see his creation pillaged and raped, tortured and slain by those he created to love and nurture it? Are there limits beyond which mercy is not mercy, but negligence and even complicity? And is there a point at which death ceases to be the problem and becomes the solution?
... the LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them." Genesis 6: 7
How can God be grieved or even disappointed? Did he not see this coming all the time? Was it not planned out step by step? But here you have it just the same. God, at his wits’ end.
Can mercy stay God’s hand of judgement when only judgement can end the suffering of creation? So judgement becomes mercy, and mercy is at war within itself. There are no good choices here. This is a predicament, a quandary, a dilemma. But this was a chancy project from the beginning. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, if we should practice to conceive.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Genesis 6:8
In the end God will not utterly destroy the earth. Love finds a way through one faithful servant. But if this is mercy, it is a severe mercy.
Next... A BETTER IDEA
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