성경 주석서

(19) Dust thou art . . . —It appears from this that death was man’s normal condition. A spiritual being is eternal by its own constitution, but the argument by which Bishop Butler proves the soul to be immortal equally proves the mortality of the body. Death, he says, is the division of a compound substance into its component parts; but as the soul is a simple substance, and incapable of division, it is per se incapable of death (Analogy, Part 1, Genesis 1). The body of Adam, composed of particles of earth, was capable of division, and our first parents in Paradise were assured of an unending existence by a special gift, typified by the tree of life. But now this gift was withdrawn, and henceforward the sweat of man’s brow was in itself proof that he was returning to his earth: for it told of exhaustion and waste. Even now labour is a blessing only when it is moderate, as when Adam kept a garden that spontaneously brought forth flowers and fruit. In excess it wears out the body and benumbs the soul, and by the pressure of earthly cares leaves neither time nor the wish for any such pursuits as are worthy of a being endowed with thought and reason and a soul.

(20) Adam called his wife’s name Eve.—Heb., Chavvah; in Greek, Zoë. It has been debated whether this name is a substantive, Life (LXX.), or a participle, Life-producer (Symm). Adam’s condition was now one of death, but his wife thereby attained a higher value in his sight. Through her alone could human life be continued, and the “woman’s seed” be obtained who was to raise up man from his fall. While, then, woman’s punishment consists in the multiplication of her “sorrow and conception,” she becomes thereby only more precious to man; and while “her desire is to her husband,” Adam turns from his own punishment to look upon her with more tender love. He has no word for her of reproach, and we thus see that the common interpretation of Genesis 3:12 is more than doubtful. Adam throws no blame either on Eve or on his Maker, because he does not feel himself to blame. He rather means, “How could I err in following one so noble, and in whom I recognise Thy best and choicest gift?” And with this agrees Genesis 3:6, where Adam partakes of the fruit without hesitation or thought of resistance. And so here he turns to her and calls her Chavvah, his life, his compensation for his loss, and the antidote for the sentence of death.

(21) Coats of skins.—Animals, therefore, were killed even in Paradise; nor is it certain that man’s diet was until the flood entirely vegetarian (see Note on Genesis 1:29). Until sin entered the world no sacrifices could have been offered; and if, therefore, these were the skins of animals offered in sacrifice, as many suppose, Adam must in some way, immediately after the fall, have been taught that without shedding of blood is no remission of sin, but that God will accept a vicarious sacrifice. This is perhaps the most tenable view; and if, with Knobel, we see in this arrival at the idea of sacrifice a rapid development in Adam of thought and intellect, yet it may not have been entirely spontaneous, but the effect of divinely-inspired convictions rising up within his soul. It shows also that the innocence of our first parents was gone. In his happy state Adam had studied the animals, and tamed them and made them his friends; now a sense of guilt urges him to inflict upon them pain and suffering and death. But in the first sacrifice was laid the foundation of the whole Mosaical dispensation, as in Genesis 3:15 that of the Gospel. Moreover, from sacrificial worship there was alleviation for man’s bodily wants, and he went forth equipped with raiment suited for the harder lot that awaited him outside the garden; and, better far, there was peace for his soul, and the thought—even if still but faint and dim—of the possibility for him of an atonement.

(22) As one of us.—See Note on Genesis 1:26. By the fall man had sunk morally, but grown mentally. He had asserted his independence, had exercised the right of choosing for himself, and had attained to a knowledge without which his endowment of free-will would have remained in abeyance. There is something painful and humiliating in the idea of Chrysostom and other Fathers that the Deity was speaking ironically, or even with insult (Augustine). All those qualities which constitute man’s likeness to God—free-will, self-dependence, the exercise of reason and of choice—had been developed by the fall, and Adam was now a very different being from what he had been in the days of his simple innocency.

Lest he put forth his hand.—Adam had exercised the power of marring God’s work, and if an unending physical life were added to the gift of freewill now in revolt against God, his condition and that of mankind would become most miserable. Man is still to attain to immortality, but it must now be through struggle, sorrow, penitence, faith, and death. Hence a paradise is no fit home for him. The Divine mercy, therefore, commands Adam to quit it, in order that he may live under conditions better suited for his moral and spiritual good.

(23) To till the ground.—This is the same word as that rendered “dress” in Genesis 2:15. Adam’s task is the same, but the conditions are altered.

(24) So he drove out the man.—This implies displeasure and compulsion. Adam departed unwillingly from his happy home, and with the consciousness that he had incurred the Divine anger. It was the consequence of his sin, and was a punishment, even if necessary for his good under the changed circumstances produced by his disobedience. On the duration of Adam’s stay in Paradise, see Excursus at end of this book.

He placed.—Literally, caused to dwell. The return to Paradise was closed for ever.

At the east of the garden of Eden.—Adam still had his habitation in the land of Eden, and probably in the immediate neighbourhood of Paradise. (Comp. Genesis 4:16.)

Cherubims.—The cherub was a symbolical figure, representing strength and majesty. The ordinary derivation, from a root signifying to carve, grave, and especially to plough, compared with Exodus 25:20, suggests that the cherubim were winged bulls, probably with human heads, like those brought from Nineveh. We must not confound them with the four living creatures of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 1:5), which are the “beasts” of the Revelation of St. John. The office of the cherub here is to guard the Paradise, lest man should try to force an entrance back; and so too the office of the cherubs upon the mercy-seat was to protect it, lest any one should impiously approach it, except the high-priest on the Day of Atonement. The four living creatures of the Apocalypse have a far different office and signification.

IV.

THE FOUNDING OF THE FAMILY, AND COMMENCEMENT OF THE NON-PARADISIACAL LIFE.

(1) She . . . bare Cain, and said . . . —In this chapter we have the history of the founding of the family of Cain, a race godless and wanton, but who, nevertheless, far outstripped the descendants of Seth in the arts of civilisation. To tillage and a pastoral life they added metallurgy and music; and the knowledge not only of copper and its uses, but even of iron (Genesis 4:22), must have given them a command over the resources of nature so great as to have vastly diminished the curse of labour, and made their lives easy and luxurious.

I have gotten a man from the Lord.—Rather, who is Jehovah. It is inconceivable that eth should have here a different meaning from that which it has in Genesis 1:1. It there gives emphasis to the object of the verb: “God created eth the heaven and eth the earth,” that is, even the heaven and even the earth. So also here, “I have gotten a man eth Jehovah.” even Jehovah. The objection that this implies too advanced a knowledge of Messianic ideas is unfounded. It is we who read backward, and put our ideas into the words of the narrative. These words were intended to lead on to those ideas, but they were at present only as the germ, or as the filament in the acorn which contains the oak-tree. If there is one thing certain, it is that religious knowledge was given gradually, and that the significance of the name Jehovah was revealed by slow degrees. (See on Genesis 4:26.) Eve attached no notion of divinity to the name; still less did she foresee that by the superstition of the Jews the title Lord would be substituted for it. We distinctly know that Jehovah was not even the patriarchal name of the Deity (Exodus 6:3), and still less could it have been God’s title in Paradise. But Eve had received the promise that her seed should crush the head of her enemy, and to this promise her words referred, and the title in her mouth meant probably no more than “the coming One.” Apparently, too, it was out of Eve’s words that this most significant title of the covenant God arose. (See Excursus on names Elohim and Jehovah-Elohim, at end of this book.)

Further, Eve calls Cain “a man,” Heb., ish, a being. (See on Genesis 2:23.) As Cain was the first infant, no word as yet existed for child. But in calling him “a being, even the future one,” a lower sense, often attached to these words, is not to be altogether excluded. It has been said that Eve, in the birth of this child, saw the remedy for death. Death might slay the individual, but the existence of the race was secured. Her words therefore might be paraphrased: “I have gained a man, who is the pledge of future existence.” Mankind is thus that which shall exist. Now, it is one of the properties of Holy Scripture that words spoken in a lower and ordinary sense are often prophetic: so that even supposing that Eve meant no more than this, it would not exclude the higher interpretation. It is evident, however, from the fact of these words having been so treasured up, that they were regarded by Adam and his posterity as having no commonplace meaning; and this interpretation has a suspiciously modern look about it. Finally, in Christ alone man does exist and endure. He is the perfect man—man’s highest level; so that even thus there would be a presage of immortality for man in the saying, “I have gained a man, even he that shall become.” Grant that it was then but an indefinite yearning: it was one, nevertheless, which all future inspiration was to make distinct and clear; and now, under the guidance of the Spirit, it has become the especial title of the Second Person in the Holy Trinity.

(2) Abel.—Of this name Dr. Oppert imagined that it was the Assyrian Abil, a son. Really it is Hebel; and there is no reason why we should prefer an Assyrian to a Hebrew etymology. An Accadian derivation would have been important, but Assyrian is only a Semitic dialect, and Abil is the Hebrew ben. Hebel means a thing unstable, not abiding, like a breath or vapour. Now, we can scarcely suppose that Eve so called her child from a presentiment of evil or a mere passing depression of spirits; more probably it was a title given to him after his untimely death. Giving names to children would become usual only when population increased; and it was not till a religious rite was instituted for their dedication to God that they had names given to them in their infancy. Even then Esau was changed to Edom, and Jacob to Israel, while previously such names as Eber and Peleg, and earlier still Jabal and Jubal, must have been given to those who bore them from what they became. Such names too as Esau, Jacob, and most of those borne by Jacob’s children, seem to have been playful titles, given them in the women’s tents by quick-witted nurses, who caught up any chance words of the mother, until at length it became the Jewish rule for women to name their children. Probably, therefore, it was only after Abel’s death that his sorrowing relatives called him the Breath that had passed away.

Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.—As Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3), there was a long period for the increase of Adam’s family (comp. Genesis 4:14-17), and also for the development of the characters of these his two eldest sons. In the one we seem to see a rough, strong nature, who took the hard work as he found it, and subdued the ground with muscular energy; in the other a nature more refined and thoughtful, and making progress upwards. Adam had already tamed animals in Paradise: to these Abel devotes himself, tends them carefully, and gains from them ample and easy means of sustenance, higher in kind even than the fruits of Paradise. Round these two the other sons and daughters of Adam group themselves, and Cain seems already to have had a wife when he murdered his brother (Genesis 4:17).