We have had in Cain the moral history of man outside Paradise, sin fully developed, not against Jehovah only, but, because his own works were evil and his religious service an offering of impenitent folly and rejected, against his believing and righteous brother Abel. Along side of it the long-suffering yet righteous dealings of Jehovah are of the highest interest and instruction, the manifest foreshadowing of His ways in due time with His people Israel, who would abandon promise by God's grace in Christ for conditions of law which flesh presumes to fulfill to its own ruin. Like Cain too, the Jews slew in result Jesus Christ the Righteous, though He came of them according to flesh, their own Messiah, Who is over all, God blessed forever. Hence they also are gone out from the presence of Jehovah, cursed from the earth for blood-guiltiness, dwell in a land of wandering exile, and, in the evident loss for the present of their divine mission of blessing to all families of the earth, betake themselves to city life, to bold adventure, to the inventions of art and science, and to the amenities of the civilized world. Man's will governs and pursues its onward way, totally indifferent to God's will and glory.
It is therefore not man only, but the firstborn in sin, answering to God's favored people, men religious after the flesh, but in fact unjust and rebellious even to the death of the Righteous One, Whom by the hand of lawless men they did crucify and slay. By fierce imprecation of all the people, His blood is on them and on their children, and their land as yet like the potter's field to bury strangers in, justly called Akeldama, Blood-Field.
This is followed up in the account of Lemech's words to his wives, on which tradition has hung its myths, and theologians have speculated through not seeing the divine mind and purpose to be gathered from the scripture. Either way God's word is not honored by faith; and who can wonder that edification fails?
“And Lemech said unto his wives,
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lemech, hearken to my speech:
For a man I have slain for wounding me,
And a youth for hurting me;
If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,
Then Lemech too seventy and seven[fold]” (vers. 23, 24).
It is the first recorded poetry in the Bible; and God is in no way the object, but self for this life: another and weighty addition to the picture of the world. Whatever the historical circumstances, the aim was to reassure his wives who dreaded the consequences of his violent deeds. Lemech appears to plead that the blood he had shed was shed in self-defense, not murderously like Cain; and therefore he avails himself of the divine shelter of his own forefather as the surest pledge of intervention on his own behalf.
The fact is certain that God watches over His ancient people, guiltier far than Cain, but of blood that speaks better than that of Abel. For if the Jew has been kept, in the face of man ever hostile and ready to slay, in the face of more spiteful Christendom, Greek or Latin, utterly ignorant of God's secret purpose to pardon and bless in the end, neither bloody crusades of old nor cruel ukases now, will succeed to exterminate Israel, but only to bring punishment another day on their adversaries. There they are, wanderers but preserved, as no people ever was, for everlasting mercy when their heart turns to God and Him Whom they cast out. And here in Lemech's words, though he may have meant nothing higher than the sad facts of Cain's deed or his own, can we not hear the inspired image of the Jew's confession in the latter day? Assuredly we know on authority which cannot be broken, that the repentant Jew will yet own, like their forefathers in the analogous case of Joseph, but about One greater and better than Joseph, We were very guilty concerning our brother. For the prophet declares what divine goodness and truth will yet fulfill:— “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look upon ME whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zech. 12:1010And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)).
Lemech's saying, therefore, is an unconscious prophecy like that of Caiaphas, but of the Jews acknowledging, not hiding, blood-guiltiness (Psa. 1), the blood of their own King: and of what a King! Himself, the sacrifice for the sin which slew Him; and those who in their blind unbelief were thus guilty brought to true faith and real repentance, thenceforward to have God blessing them, causing His face to shine upon (with) them that His way may be known upon earth, His saving health among all nations.
“And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Sheth: for God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, for Cain slew [him]. And to Sheth, to him also was born a son, and he called his name Enoch: then it was begun to call on Jehovah's name” (vers. 25, 26).
Abel had been cut off; Cain is not recognized here, save as guilty. All hangs upon the one that God (Elohim) appointed. It is not nature's hopes, but, after all had failed, the intervention of God's grace, and man taking his true place, weak, wretched; for so Sheth called his son. Then too it was begun to call upon Jehovah's name. So it will be in power and fullness another day. It is not Christ come and slain, but the coming Son of man. Jehovah will be owned fully. In that day, says the same prophet, shall Jehovah be one, and His name one. Rivals shall vanish away, false religion no more lift its head. The absurdity of the dovetailed hypothesis is here plain, as is the divine wisdom in the use of designations purposely employed. Men too unbelieving to understand, too conceited or impatient to learn, invented it to throw the blame off themselves on the book. Only think of the credulity of such as believe them instead of God!