Genesis 4: YHWH Over Warped Earth and Life (2024)

YHWH Embraces Failed Woman and Man

YHWH’s persistent embrace and protection of man and woman in the face of their defiance of Him is the overarching theme of Genesis 4. In this episode of the history of the heavens and the Earth, the narrative seems to emphasize more YHWH’s Personal involvement with His creation, particularly with man and woman and their progeny. The narrative in this episode no longer speaks of “YHWH God,” as in Genesis chapter 3, but of YHWH. As humankind deepen their defiance of Him, YHWH doubles down more to embrace and protect them as His own. For sure, it is not possible for the narrative to tell of a much more directly personal relationship than this of God with His creatures. YHWH’s persistent embrace and protection cannot be more direct and personal than this.

Within this theme of YHWH’s persistent embrace and protection is told the tragic travesty by human “creation” of God’s very good creation. This last episode of the history of the Earth and the heavens thus begins on a high note for Adam’s woman, who at the start is being Eve. Then it shows the many ways Eve’s crushing creation is the opposite of God’s life-celebrating creation: presumptuous “Life” twisting and wasting God-given life.

Genesis 4 highlights the contrast between Eve’s travesty and God’s creation by its use ofמְאֹדmeod, meaning “very,” “exceedingly.” The first time the word is used is in Genesis 1:31, in which God, appreciating the fruits of His labors, declares His creation exceedingly good and pleasing. The second time it is used is in Genesis 4:5, in which Cain, seeing the fruits of his labors unappreciated, becomes exceedingly furious, and dejected and crushed.

At the end, this last episode of the history of the Earth and the heavens shows up man as weak and woman grieved, cleaving to the name of YHWH.

Eve, Man’s Woman, Creates

The chapter opens with one of the most debated verses among Bible translators, particularly its last three words in Hebrew. We cannot here discuss the complexities and debates on the translation of the verse; we shall simply quote what appears to be the closest, most sensitive, most nuanced English translation based (solely) on the most considered research on Old Testament Hebrew and its related contemporary languages. This is the translation by Umberto Cassuto [@cassuto1961commentary, p. 196], adapted in part by the NET Bible, and here modified with “YHWH”:

Now Adam / knew Eve his wife,
and she conceived / and bore Cain,
saying, / I have created a man equally with YHWH.

The verse has knowledge (יָדַעyada) and life (חַוָּהhawwa“Eve”), but these are no longer linked to the Garden of Eden’s Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or the Tree of Life. These are now the banished Adam’s knowledge and life. In the Garden of Eden, knowledge and life drew from or were in relation to the respective Trees; now, Adam’s knowledge and life draw from his wife Eve.

Then, Eve speaks as the being Adam proclaims her to be. Conceiving and birthing Cain, Eve proclaims, “I have created a man equally with YHWH,” which is remarkable (and horrifying) in many ways.

First, Eve proclaims that she (“I“!) conceived and birthed Cain, forgetting Adam, who certainly also had a role in the matter. Then, she proclaims that what she has given birth to is anish, not anadam: the Hebrew word she uses for “man” in “I have created a man” isish, notadamorhaadam. This cannot mean that whatshehas conceived and birthed is a husband, only that it is a male human. By this can be discerned Eve’s sense of superiority over the male human, conceiving of man primarily asishwho owes his existence to her. She here thus forgets Adam still further—she forgets that she is just half (created as the better half, concededly, but still half) ofadam, the male-and-female, God-created human.

By thus forgetting Adam, Eve, this banished “Life,” has effectively torn her communion with the Earth and her fellow living creatures. She has torn herself from Adam, through whom she is bound to Earth, from the ground, and from other earth-bound creatures. She is no longerנְקֵבָה‎neqevah, a female among fellow (female) creatures, responsible for their care.

She is Eve, Mother of All the Living!

Then, she proclaims her achievement as a “creation” (per Cassuto’s argued translation) and names her sonקַיִןQayin“Cain,” which literally means ‘a formed being.’ [@cassuto1961commentary, p. 198] She declares, moreover, that this act of creatingishmakes her equal with YHWH.

Eve’s meaning is clear: she has createdishfrom herself, as YHWH created her from man,haadam.

Eve, banished from Eden with Adam (yet distinguishing herself from him) and from the Trees of Knowledge and Life, nevertheless proclaims her attainment of the desire of all desires: she is now, by her own account, like God—and like YHWH Himself, not just Elohim. Nahum Sarna correctly notes, “The most sacred divine name YHVH is here uttered by a human being, a woman, for the first time.” [@sarna1989jps, p. 32]

Alas, you see, this utterance is usurpation.

Eve’s Creation Unravels

How does Eve’s travesty of YHWH’s creation unravel? Genesis 4 counts the ways. These ways show in the names and occupations of Eve’s progeny. The narrative mentions these occupations not so much etiologically—not just to record who started what. These occupations are the respective progenies’ obsessions—desires, that is—which, along with their names, show the ways by which Eve’s travesty precipitately twists YHWH God’s very good designs inadam.

From Creation to Forgery

YHWH God created humankind asadamandnephesh hayya—that is, in view of and in relation to the Earth and the heavens and all the living beings in them, in order that humankind might care for the whole of creation. Eve, in naming her “creation” Cain, betrays the narrowness of her view: “Cain” means “a formed being,” as already mentioned, but formed in a very specific way, the way of the smith, of the artificer. [@cassuto1961commentary, p. 197; @sarna1989jps, p. 32] In contrast to YHWH God’s Adam, Eve’s Cain does not have the organic, life-enhancing character and relationship with the rest of creation that are intrinsic to YHWH God’s way of creating. Eve’s Cain is not of or from the ground, and therefore is not intrinsically bound to the Earth. Most significantly, Eve’s Cain is formed with force, with violence even,[^9] as smiths and artificers use force for their fabrications. Eve’s pain, force, and violence in giving birth to Cain forge their image and likeness into her creation.

From Breath to Vapor

To form man into anephesh hayya, a living being among Earth’s other living beings, “YHWH God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”[^10] In contrast, no life-giving breath is involved in the account of Eve’s creation of Cain. Rather, breath in this account takes the form of Abel: his nameהֶבֶלhevelmeans “breath” in Hebrew, but breath as flimsy, feeble vapor, not as vigorous, life-giving YHWH-breath. (The Bible also appears to make, via similar-sounding pun, a contrastive association between God’s Spirit/Breath,רוּחַruach, in Genesis 1:2 and Abel as keeper of sheep,רֹעֵהroeh, in Genesis 4:2.) Most significantly, YHWH-breath becomes an intrinsic part of man as a living being, but Abel-breath is apart from Cain and is killed by him.

YHWH God’s creation confers life-giving breath; Cain, Eve’s creation, curtails it.

From Bond to Vagabond

YHWH God’s creation forms a caring bond between man, the ground, and the living beings. Eve’s creation bifurcates this bond, with Cain being the carer of the ground and Abel, of living beings. Cain kills Abel, the friend, companion, and neighbor of living beings: a meaning cognate toרֹעֵהroeh, “keeper,” is “neighbor,” as used in Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor[רֵעַrea][^18]as yourself.” In killing Abel, Cain consequently also severs the human bond with other living beings, which are friends, fellows, and neighbors man is supposed to also love and keep. Moreover, in blighting the ground with Abel’s blood, Cain also totally severs the bond with the ground and he is exiled from it.[^11]

Adam and Eve are only banished from Eden; Cain is cut off from all the ground and becomes a vagabond.[^12]

From Keeper to Killer

In YHWH God’s very good creation, man is to be keeper and carer of the Earth (Genesis 2:15). In Eve’s creation, Cain protests being his brother’s keeper (Genesis 4:9) and is subsequently cursed by the Earth. The narrative highlights this contrast by using the same word,שָׁמַרshamar“to keep,” in Genesis 2:15 and Genesis 4:9. The narrative, moreover, connects this “keeping” with the themes of banishment and death: the third and only other time the Bible usesshamarin this story is in Genesis 3:24, where cherubim are stationed to keep Adam and Eve away from the Tree of Life.

Eden’s keeper violated the Garden and is kept away from the Tree of Life. The brother’s keeper violated the brother—the keeper becoming a killer and blighting the ground with his brother’s blood—and is kept away from the ground.

From Mate to Master

The Bible highlights still another major theme of the story by using a clause in Chapter 4 that parallels the only other time the narrative uses the same clause, in Chapter 3. Already mentioned in our previous chapter, it bears repeating here: In Genesis 3:16, YHWH God says to the woman,[^16]

your desire shall be for your husband, / and he shall rule over you

In Genesis 4:7 YHWH says to Cain,

[sin’s] desire shall be for you, / but you will be able to master it.

The clause in Genesis 3:16, traditionally, has been taken to mean that the woman is cursed to have sexual desire for her husband and that this sexual desire baits her into submission to him. The parallel clause in Genesis 4:7 shows this traditional interpretation to be misplaced. “Desire” in both verses translates the same word in Hebrew,תְּשׁוּקָהteshuqah. “Rule over” and “master” likewise translate the same Hebrew word:מָשַׁלmashal. Now, the woman’s “desire” for her husband referred to in Genesis 3:16 must parallel sin’s “desire” for Cain in Genesis 4:7, and neither is sexual. Rather, it is, as theNET Biblerenders it, desire to control (Genesis 3:16) and to dominate (Genesis 4:7), which are the essential meaning ofteshuqahin the contexts of these clauses.[^17] In Genesis 4, sin succeeds in its desire to control Cain; in Genesis 3, the woman’s desire to dominate her husband does not necessarily succeed, and he would get to dominate her instead.

The point in both verses, however, is the abrogation—by Eve’s action of touching and eating of the Knowledge Tree and by her subsequent claimed creation—of theezer kenegdo“appropriate help” relationship. In place of it, power and domination now define relationships: between man and woman, between husband and wife, between siblings, and all other relationships. Power and domination now also define relationships even with nature—with the ground and with other living beings or, in the words of Genesis, with the Earth and the heavens and all that are in them.

From Garden to City

Most incisive and evocative is the Bible’s contrasting man’s home in YHWH God’s original creation with that in Eve’s travesty: garden versus city.

The Bible makes us see the connection between the woman and the city by using the same verb in their creation:בָּנָהbanah, “to build.” You have already seen how this word is used in Genesis 2:22 particularly to highlight YHWH God’s special creation of woman. In again using this word in Genesis 4:17, the Bible connects the two creations: YHWH God’s special creation is woman; Eve’s descendants’ special creation is the city.[^19]

Now, here, as elsewhere in the Bible but quite especially here, we must pay close attention to what the Bible is saying: In this section—as in the previous chapter’s man listening to woman instead of to YHWH God—the words “voice/sound,” “word,” “hear/obey,” and “listen” are used not in relation to God but to man.[^20] We must be mindful lest we listen, not to the Bible, but to echoes of our voices, our minds, our cultures, or our desires.

First, then: “city” in the Bible—or at least in this part of the Bible—is not the same as our idea of a city, a highly urbanized, structured, social-political-economic entity. “City” in Genesis 4:17 translatesעִירiyr, which is simply a walled settlement, without regard for size of area or population or for level of urbanization or development. Its essential meaning is that it is walled for protection. This is made very clear in Numbers 32, especially verses 16 and 17.

The city has walls for protection, as the clothes that YHWH God made for Adam and Eve protected them, and Cain’s mark that YHWH made protected him. But, whereas the clothes and mark were made by YHWH, the city is built by man for his own protection. So, whereas Adam and Eve were clothed in YHWH God’s protection, and Cain still sought YHWH for protection, in the city man seeks to protect himself, regardless of God. And whereas their clothes protected Adam and Eve from the elements and Cain’s mark protected him from vengeance, the city protects its inhabitants from undefined and unspecified violence: Building the city is testimony to violence and insecurity now defining human existence.

From Creature to Commodity

After telling of the creation of the city in Genesis 4:17, the narrative rushes through verse 18 to name the generations from Enoch to Lamech, without bothering to say anything about them beyond their names—until Lamech, the seventh in the line from Eve. The narrative appears interested only in telling of the final fruition of Eve’s creation, Lamech’s children, the seventh generation from Cain.[^21]

So, Lamech (the name means “strong young man”) marries Adah (“ornament”) and Zilla (“sweet voice/music”):[^22] power owning beauty, delight, and pleasure.

Adah’s first son, Jabal, the Bible describes asאֲבִי יֹשֵׁב אֹהֶל וּמִקְנֶהavi yoshev ohel umiqneh(literally, “father of sitting tent and cattle”). The common translation of this as “father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock” misses its point. The proper translation and understanding must note that this is the first time, in Genesis 4:20, that the Bible usesמִקְנֶהmiqnehto refer to domesticated animals. Before this, the Bible usesבְּהֵמָהbehemahfor “livestock/domestic animals” and, in the case of Abel,צֹאןtsonfor “sheep/goats/small livestock.” Proper translation must bring out a meaning ofmiqnehthat is not inbehemahortson, given thatmiqnehappears to be specially chosen here. That meaning is “purchaseabledomestic animal,”[^23] “somethingbought, i.e.property, but onlylivestock,”[^24] and “purchase,possession.”[^25] Before Genesis 4, in YHWH God’s creation, in the context of the Garden of Eden, the domestic animals are regarded as biological beings,behemah, and as beings with life and breath,nephesh hayya, just like humans. To Abel, outside of Eden, the domestic animals,tson, are for him to tend. To Jabal, in the context of the city, livestock are nowmiqneh, commodities to buy and sell.

The Bible, therefore, says that Jabal is the father (that is, the first) of those who treat animals as property for purchase, who commodify living creatures.

The other part of the clause,yoshev ohel, should also be understood more properly than it has been commonly translated, as “living/dwelling in tents.” Proper understanding of the phrase must take note of its use in the only other place in the Bible it appears, in Genesis 25:27. This verse is intriguing in understandingyoshev ohel, because it is part of the story of how Jacob treats Esau’s birthright as something to buy and sell—commodification of something that is biological and natural. The verse contrasts Esau, who is a skillful hunter-outdoorsman, with Jacob, whoיֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִיםyoshev ohelim.[^26] Most English translations render this “living/dwelling in tents.” The NLT comes closest with, “preferring to stay at home,” approaching the essential point of the phrase:preference, that is,specialization.Yoshev ohel umiqnehare not just people who “live in tents and have cattle”; they are not even strictly cattleraiserswho live in tents. They are cattletraders, people (in the city) who buy and sell cattle, and who do their business in tents. They are, you might say, the precursors of “trading/commercial houses.”

The Bible illustrates the destructive potential of such commodification in Judges 6:1-6, which tells of how God punishes erring Israelites with Midianites who come like locusts with their cattle (miqneh) and their tents (ohelim) to devastate the land and oppress the people. “Land” here isאֶרֶץerets, usually rendered “Earth” as in Genesis 1. Though more appropriately rendered “land” in the present passage referring to the land of Israel, its use in Judges 6 also serves to highlight how commodifying creation, particularly in the context of colonialism, ravages the Earth.

From Desire to Violence

It is to the point that the Bible refers to Tubal-Cain, Zilla’s son, asלֹטֵשׁlotesh, which means “hammerer”[^27] or “sharpener.”[^28] Unlike Jabal and Jubal who each is called afather(אֲבִיavi) of all those who follow their respective trades, Tubal-Cain ishammererof all “the workers in bronze and iron.” [@cassuto1961commentary, p. 237] The Bible seems to contrast the care of a father with the violence of a hammer; and Tubal-Cain, both in forging his wares (bronze and iron) and in molding his trainees (smiths), wields the force of the hammer.

Enlightening, too, is the fact that all of the only four other uses ofלָטַשׁlatash(root word oflotesh) in the Bible are in contexts of violence and destruction.[^29] So, even if we concur with Cassuto that Tubal-Cain did not produce weapons but ornaments of bronze and iron, [@cassuto1961commentary, p. 237] we still see the Bible pointing to violent hammering as involved in Tubal-Cain’s instruction and production processes. As Eve forged Cain, so does Tubal-Cain his wares—in the violence of the smithy. As Eve’s pain, force, and violence in birthing Cain forged their image and likeness into her “creation,” so does the violence at the heart of the city mold its image and likeness into Tubal-Cain’s processes and products.

Beauty, delight, and pleasure were natural, organic, and inherent in YHWH God’s creation and in the Garden of Eden; they are now forged, fabricated ornamentation in Eve’s creation and in the City of Enoch.

This calls to mind E. F. Schumacher’s plaint against “violent technology” inSmall is Beautiful. Violent technology involves not just weapons but those “which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself.” In contrast is nonviolent technology, “technology with a human face,” in which “people have a chance to enjoy themselves while they are working,” and which is oriented “towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.” [@schumacherSmallBeautifulEconomics1973, pp. 10, 20]

Tubal-Cain seems to be surrounded by beauty (Adah), sweetness (Zilla), pleasantness (Naamah), music (Jubal and Naamah [@cassuto1961commentary,p. 238]), and plenty (Jabal)—all the nice things about culture and civilization in the grown city. Yet, the Bible points out the violence that underlies all this—the “hammering” involved in Tubal-Cain’s trade, and the commodification in Jabal’s. And, as Cassuto points out, Jubal’s and Naamah’s music are, after all—being rooted in Cain—dirges, laments for the dead. [@cassuto1961commentary, p. 235]

The woman’s original desires in the Garden now have taken their twisted shapes in the City: creation is now forgery, creatures are now commodities, and the Mother of All Life is now Mother of All Death.

From Life to Death

Eve’s usurpation of YHWH takes full force in Lamech, the seventh in Eve’s line. The Bible tells of the climax of this usurpation in Genesis 4:23–24, two verses packed with meaning and in a form Sarna says “is the first true example of biblical Hebrew poetic style.”[@sarna1989jps, p. 38] We have to constrain ourselves against the temptation to unpack all the exegetical treasures in these verses, and limit ourselves to those easiest to pick.

Genesis 4:23–24:

And Lamech said to his wives:
Adah and Zillah, / hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, / give ear to my speech;
For a man I slew, / as soon as I wounded (him)
Yea, a young man, / as soon as I bruised (him).
If sevenfold / Cain shall be avenged
then Lamech / seventy-sevenfold.[^32]

You notice, first, that this Lamechian poem, Sarna’s first true example of biblical Hebrew poetry, is truly silent about God. Instead, it is full of Lamech and Lamech’sI‘s andmy‘s. The woman, Eve, starts with desiring to be like God; the pinnacle of her line, Lamech, ends up totally discarding God for self.

You notice, second, that “And … said” in, “And Lamech said,” is the very same word,וַיֹּאמֶרwayyomer, used repeatedly in Genesis 1 of the Creator God speaking things into existence. Moreover,קוֹלqol“voice,” “sound,” is used in Genesis 3 and 4 of and by YHWH God in contexts of judgment. Lamech is here acting like YHWH God, pronouncing a new state of affairs into existence, in which his word is law.

You notice, third, that in telling of the murder he has committed, Lamech, unlike Cain, shows no fear or guilt. Indeed, he crows about it, vaunting his strength, such that just a blow (“wound/bruise”) from him felled a strong, young man to death. Murder is now a matter of pride.

You can imagine the effect this has on his wives, and why he needs them to listen to his boast of his murderous strength: “if a young, strong man cannot stand my slightest blow, then how about you, my sweet jewels?”

You notice, then, that this is only the third passage in which the Bible uses imperative verbs. In the first two passages (Genesis 1:22, 28), God commands His creation. In this third imperative passage, Lamech commands his wives. Man is now as god to woman who first desired to be like God: “Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall dominate you.”

You realize, lastly, that in the first two instances the Bible uses imperative verbs, God commands His creatures to produce more life—to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the earth—and humankind to preside over this celebration of life. This third time, however, uses the imperative in relation to death and violence and to the threat thereof. The command to joy and life has been twisted in Lamech into a command to fear and death.

Genesis 4, the denouement of the history of the Earth and the heavens, begins with “Life’s” joyous boast of creating a man,ish; it climaxes here in Lamech’s murderous vaunt in killing a man,ish. Life and delight unravel into death and violence stemming from the heart of man:

Then YHWH saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.[^30]

This unraveling leaves Eve in the end spent, in shame, in grief, and in pain. As Genesis 4:25 says,

And again Adam knew / his wife
and she bore a son / and called his name Seth:
‘For God has appointed for me / another seed [she said]
instead of Abel, / for Cain slew him.’[^5]

In the end, she is no longer called Life, Eve; she is even no longer named at all, but only referred to as Adam’s wife. The denouement begins with her proud proclamation of equality with YHWH; it ends with her speaking of Elohim: Shame, it seems, now precludes her from imagining a personal relationship with God as the Fatherly YHWH, but only an impersonal relationship with God as Elohim.

The unraveling of her coveting has humbled her, and now she no longer speaks of creating, only of receiving from God. You can discern grief in her mention of her dead son, Abel, even as she names her newborn son Seth. You can just feel her mother’s pain as she recalls Cain murdering his brother, her Abel. Yet, through all this, you can sense her desperate hope of rescue from the rot she and the serpent have created: She names her son Seth, which means “foundation.” And, referring to him as “seed,” she looks to Seth for a new, God-given foundation for the hope in YHWH God’s pronouncement that her seed shall crush the serpent’s head.[^6] You can discern, moreover, that in using the word “seed,” she now, at the end of her story, finally has taken YHWH God at His (untwisted) word.

This may be the end of her story—she is no longer mentioned at all after this point in the Old Testament. However, this is only the beginning of the history of the Earth and the heavens that she has torn from their very good roots. Her shame, grief, and pain are but her personal foretaste of the pain and suffering that hence have made the whole of creation groan.

From Death to Life

The groaning of creation is now more plaintive than ever, shaking the whole earth to its very roots. Many voices, like Greta Thunberg’s, are raising last-minute alarms and calling for urgent action about Earth on the brink and the sky tumbling down. Proud humanity’s vaunting of boundless “development” via violent technologies is only leaving in its wake a ravaged Earth and a devastated humankind. Humanity’s braggadocio, lifting itself up as alamech, “a strong young man,” has, in the end, only exposed humanity to be really only anenosh, a Hebrew word for “man,” but man as a weak, naked, helpless mortal:

And to Seth was also born a son
and he named him Enosh.
Then began calling upon the name of YHWH.[^31]

Calling on YHWH began at the point of Adam and Eve’s lowest desperation, at fully realizing—albeit only courtesy of their son Seth—that man isenosh. There is yet hope for humankind. Yet, this hope entails the realization that we are frail, vulnerable, and helpless. This hope is not in calling upon ourselves—upon humankind, with its violent, crowing, Lamechian heart—to hear our voices and to listen to our speeches. There is hope for Earth and humankind only in YHWH.

YHWH God clothed the treacherous Adam and Eve. He gave a protective sign to fratricidal Cain. Even now, YHWH is a Father who remembers weak, helplessenosh. And He does. The New Testament gospel proclaims that YHWH has acted in Jesus, the Christ, as His promised Seed to crush the Serpent’s head.

We shall see in Part 2 how Jesus began to reclaim woman and redeem the Earth.