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Genesis and the nature of hate in society
“So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?”
King Théoden in “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” New Line Cinema, 2002. Based on the book “The Two Towers” by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1952.
We can be dismayed by and despair over the hatred, violence, lies, corruption, confusion disease and death that currently grips Israel and Gaza. Why is there such “reckless hate” and violence in the hearts of men?
In 2023, it seems like everybody is at each other’s throats — within our own families, within our own friendship groups, within our own communities, within our own country and between countries. After last week’s heinous attack by the terrorist group Hamas on Israel — and Israel’s pursuit of those who were assaulting her — we watch this on the news or on social media and we are just completely dismayed and in despair. The hatred, violence, the lies, the corruption, the confusion, the disease, the death, the grips this planet repeats these patterns over and over.
Author J.R.R. Tolkien reflected in his character Théoden a bit of his reflection on the horrors he witnessed on the World War I battlefield. You can get a sense of that senselessness if you’ve ever seen any of the footage or read first-hand accounts of those who suffered through World War I. That war — not to mention World War II that followed about two decades later — destroyed entire generations of England, of Germany, of France, of Russia and of the other nations which were drawn into it. Over 20 million souls died in World War I, and many those who survived were physically and mentally destroyed by what they saw, heard and experienced on those battlefields.
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”
Genesis 4:1 NASB 1995
In the Hebrew קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת־יְהוָה, Genesis 4:1 literally quotes Chavah (Eve) as saying “I have created/acquired a man, YHWH.” When Chavah gave birth to Cain, she thought she had given birth to the Messiah who would conquer the Serpent. But Cain did not live up to Chavah’s hopes for him at all.
When Cain killed Abel, he did not spill the blood of one man. Cain killed millions or even billions of people, both male and female who were never born because of Cain’s jealousy and fury.
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. “Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. “When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”
Genesis 4:9–12 NASB 1995
Some speculate that this is why the Hebrew of Gen. 4:10 has the phrase דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ dᵉmê ʾāḥı̂ḵā, literally “bloods of your brother.” Out of the 361 uses of דָם dahm (“blood,” H1818) in the standard Hebrew Bible, 40 of those uses are plural and are translated often as “bloodguilt” or “bloodshed.” Two interesting plural uses relate to Zipporah’s often-mysterious phrase חֲתַן דָּמִים ḥᵃṯan dāmı̂m (“bridegroom of blood,” Exodus 4:25-26) and King David’s unsuitability to build the Temple (1Chr. 22:8; 28:3).
But it isn’t just Abel’s blood or the blood of those who died in the World Wars that cries out to God. In Revelation, we see that the blood of the saints also cried out to God for justice, and God warns these saints that the blood of their fellow believers will also be spilled before the time of the end.
When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.
Revelation 6:9–11 NASB 1995
The importance of listening to God’s voice in a world filled with confusion and disobedience
What is the better explanation of how the universe was created? Is it more logical to believe that the universe basically made itself or is it more logical that our universe was created by an intelligent being.
God’s creation is grounded in matter-of-fact statements. Heaven communicates creation’s existence through “Let there be” statements. God said “Let there be light” and there was light. He said, Let there be this and that and these things came up.
Then He created Adam and Eve and then their generations thereafter. We are here as a result of Adam, Eve, and all of our forefathers and foremothers, not only the ones we can find in an Ancestry.com search. Ever person currently alive has millions of ancestors and if anyone one of those ancestors had not survived to bring forth the next generation, we wouldn’t be here either.
In previous generations, women gave birth at home and women would have 6-12 children but now, women struggle to give birth to one child and often times, these children are brought into the world safely only through emergency c-sections. People also struggle to conceive children and there’s rampant infertility in both men and women. The human genome is deteriorating exponentially through the generations. We simply are not as genetically healthy as our ancestors were. We are witnessing the degradation of not only humanity’s genome but also that of the animal world, and the earth cries out for restoration.
The nature of sin and its impact on humanity
Adam and Eve only had one command: Do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge. The fact that Adam and Eve had never witnessed death is no excuse for them to take the word of the serpent rather than following the instruction God gave them regarding the Tree of Knowledge.
God said they would die if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, yet, the devil twisted God’s words to imply otherwise. When the Maker tells you “If you do this, you will no longer work the way you were created to work” that should be the end of the conversation. Eve admitted to being deceived but Adam refused to accept any responsibility, and instead blamed God Himself for his sin. When faced with a difficult situation, people tend to blame others rather than taking responsibility for their actions.
The Age of Ignorance is over, as God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, making it impossible for people to claim ignorance as an excuse.
Gender and marriage in Genesis
Elohim created this planet and the heavens fashioned them “good” and made humanity “very good” in His image and likeness. He made them male and female, there are only two genders. We see this in the animal kingdom, we see this in the genetic code of animals and humans. We even see this pattern in many languages. Genetic abnormalities do not negate this. We need to trust the Creator’s design for gender.
God also established the status of matrimony as “one flesh” but adultery and idolatry divide what Heaven unites. Yeshua taught that marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman (Matthew 19:3-12; Mark 10:2-12). God also united His people to Himself and parents and children (1 Cor. 6:12-20; Eph. 5:25-33). The covenant of marriage and the children they bring into the world are a key glue for humanity, made stronger by the Creator.
Israel’s origin and purpose
God did not create the world in or out of chaos and confusion. He is not the author of confusion. When God spoke of Israel’s origin in Isaiah 45:18-19, it uses language similar to what’s found in Gen. 1:1-2. Rather than informing what “actually” happened at creation, God is making the point, seen from the context of the chapter, that He did not create the people of Israel to be absorbed by the world, but to be a light to the world.
When God sent the people of Israel into exile in Babylon, heroes such as Esther and Daniel found themselves in a situation where they had to serve foreign kings but they did not assimilate. Daniel still prayed to His Creator three times a day facing Jerusalem because even though he lived in the capital of the superpower of his generation, his heart was still in Jerusalem, because that is where God said, He would put His name and God made Jerusalem the center of the entire earth.
Jerusalem was to be a beacon for the entire world. The entire world was to be drawn to Heaven, through a particular place and through a particular people.God created Israel to be a light, but also a carrier for the lights of the world.
Why is nakedness shameful now but not originally?
The reason that we wear clothes is because nakedness without divine covering is shameful, thus the Serpent was the most shameless creation.
The word nachash has many meanings that only can only understand in context.
Nakedness without divine covering is shameful, thus the Serpent is the most shameless creation (Gen. 2:25–3:24).
- naked = עָרוֹם ʿarom (H6174)
- ashamed = בּוּשׁ boosh (H954)
- serpent = נָחָשׁ nachash (H5175)
Nachash comes from the root verb נחשׁ n.ch.sh: “to hiss” (Brown Driver Briggs lexicon). A homonym is נָחַשׁ nachash (H5176, 5904): “practise divination, divine, observe signs” (BDB).
Here are homonym derivations from נחשׁ, which Arabic means “goad, prick”:
- nechoshet (H5178): “lust, harlotry” (BDB)
- nacheyt (H5181): “go down, descend” (BDB)
All of these meanings of ‘arom, boosh and nachash are expressed in Heaven’s dressing down of the wayward hearts of the leadership of Israel around the time of the Babylonian conquering of the southern kingdom of Israel (Judah/Yehudah).
“How languishing is your heart,” declares the Lord GOD, “while you do all these things, the actions of a bold-faced harlot. “When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every square, in disdaining money, you were not like a harlot. “You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband! “Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers to bribe them to come to you from every direction for your harlotries. “Thus you are different from those women in your harlotries, in that no one plays the harlot as you do, because you give money and no money is given you; thus you are different.”
Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD, “Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your harlotries with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your sons which you gave to idols, therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, even all those whom you loved and all those whom you hated. So I will gather them against you from every direction and expose your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness. “Thus I will judge you like women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. I will also give you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare.”
Ezekiel 16:30–39 NASB 1995
The people of Israel had mixed the idolatry of the pagans around them into the worship of God, using pagan rites and rituals right in the Temple itself. God condemned the people for their harlotry and adultery, exposing Israel’s nakedness to her lovers and judging them with blood and wrath.
God created Adam and Chavah naked and without shame, but when they sinned, their nakedness became a source of shame — something they futilely tried to hide from Heaven. The grave, the pit and the final judgment will expose everything. There will be no more secrets, no more pretensions.
Seed of hope: From 2 trees in Eden to 1 tree in Zion
We will not see the Tree of Knowledge in the world to come. We will only have the Tree of Life. The choice between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad is repeated throughout the Bible, with the fruit of the latter leading to death and the former bringing healing to the nations (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19; Ezek. 47:1–12).
The only hope for humanity against the kingdom of the serpent is the prophesied Seed of the woman.
“And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Genesis 3:15 NASB 1995
The text suggests that Chavah thought her son Cain would be the one who would crush the serpent, not understanding that the Messiah would come many centuries after her death.
This theme of enmity between the serpent and mankind comes up again in the wilderness, when the serpents came into the camp and many people were bitten and died. But many were also saved after God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and mounted it onto a pole for the people to look at and be healed from their wounds.
Centuries later, Israel had to get rid of the bronze serpent because it had become an object of worship. Instead of it being a a reminder of where your help truly comes from, they treated the bronze serpent as a deity rather than a reminder of the real source of healing and salvation.
When you start to replace the focus of worship from God to the Temple, that is when glory departs. You have a desolation that happens until the people get the reset. They had to realize that their help will never come from Egypt, Babylon or Persia but only from the Creator.
The Israelites’ 40-year journey in the wilderness, and their occupation of the Promised Land was to be Israel’s spiritual training. All of us need to ask God for tender hearts and discernment in hearing His voice particularly in the context of a community called to a higher order.
Summary: Tammy