Hello everyone. You are watching the second part of the fourth video in a Bible study
video series. Before we get into the second part of this section of Genesis, I want to
say two things. While I won't be praying in the beginning of these videos anymore, I still
want to encourage you (if you intend to study the Bible seriously) to pray on your own before
reading God's word. Asking God for wisdom and the ability to understand what the Bible
is saying will help you. The second thing I wanted to say was that unless you're watching
this video right after the last one (which was part 1), I suggest you quickly read over
the verses I went through in the last video, so it'll be fresh in your mind. In part 1
I covered Genesis chapter 4, verses 1-15. Beginning in verse 16 it says: "And Cain went
out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And
Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and [he]
called the name of the city, after the [. . .] name of his son, Enoch. And unto Enoch was born
Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael; and Mehujael begat Methushael; and Methushael begat Lamech."
The word translated as "Nod" in verse 16 literally means "exile", so he lived in the land of
exile, which is to the east of Eden. This reference to Eden further suggests to me that
it was the name of a region or country and a city. Strong also seems to think Eden was
the name of a region. Because it mentions Cain having a wife in verse 17, he must have
already had a wife when these things occurred. He said himself that everyone would want to
kill him, and where would he find a wife away from civilization? Speaking of his wife, I
want to reaffirm that Adam and Eve were the first humans (if you don't agree, watch the
second video in this series, and maybe the third video too). If they were the first humans,
then where did Cain's wife come from? Well, there's a reason Adam named his wife Eve in
the last chapter (Genesis chapter 3). Cain's wife must have been his sister. Now this sort
of thing is wrong (see Leviticus chapter 18, verse 9, and Leviticus chapter 20, verse 17),
but in the beginning this must have been God's plan for how the immediate descendants of
Adam and Eve would populate the earth. I want to go a little further and point something
out here, but it involves some math. Skipping ahead, in Genesis chapter 5, verses 3-5, it
says that Adam lived 930 years, and that he had Seth when he was 130 years old. Seth was
the third male Adam and Eve had. If they continued to have boys at the same rate for the rest
of Adam's life (assuming Eve didn't die first), Adam would have had 21 boys. That's not counting
any girls Adam and Eve may have had. You may be thinking "3 boys in 130 years? They must
not have had children very quickly back then!" Maybe they had children more frequently than
that normally, but they were mourning Abel's death for a long time (and so the intimacy
was gone and Eve was less likely to conceive)? Another thing to consider is that Genesis
is only mentioning the males. Adam and Eve probably had a decent sized family before
Cain killed Abel (my guess is around 3-5 children total, 2 of those being boys of course because
there was Cain and Abel). The children were probably pretty far apart from each other
in age. Even if Adam and Eve where 70 years old when they had their fifth child (which
is assuming they had five children by the time they lost Abel, and that there were sixty
years between their fifth child and their third boy), that would still leave room for
14 years between each child on average. Basically all I'm saying is that the relationship between
Cain and his sister-wife may have been more like the relationship between cousins than
siblings, because one of them was probably a lot older than the other by today's standards.
As far as the number of children Adam and Eve had, William Whiston (in a footnote in
his translation of Josephus: The Complete Works) said: "The number of Adam's children,
as says the old tradition was thirty-three sons, and twenty-three daughters." I have
a theory about Adam and Eve relating to their children marrying each other. It's probably
not original, but I came up with it on my own anyways. You can read about it in an article
called something like "Adam and Eve's Children; Our Early Roots". You should be able to find
this article on my website by going to the "Topical Guide" page.
Strong says that the name Irad (which [. . .] is in verse 18) means "fugitive" in Hebrew.
Continuing on into verse 19: "And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was
Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: [and] he was the father of
such as dwell in tents and have cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the
father of all such as handle the harp and pipe. And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain,
the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain
was Naamah. Just so you know that the names of these genealogies had meaning and weren't
assigned just so English speakers couldn't pronounce them, I want to give you the meaning
of two names. Strong's Hebrew Dictionary says that the name "Tubal-cain" means ". . . offspring
of Cain . . .". Strong's dictionary also says that Naamah (which may not look like a very
feminine name when it's written in English) means "pleasantness". And by the way, I don't
claim to be pronouncing these names correctly, so I wouldn't quote me on them if I were you.
Continuing on in verse 23, it says: "And Lamech said unto his wives: Adah and Zillah, hear
my voice; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: For I have slain a man for wounding
me, And a young man for bruising me: If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Truly Lamech seventy
and sevenfold. To be honest, these verses are a little confusing
to me, so I'm going to compare different translations to hopefully clear things up a little bit
more for you. While the King James Version footnotes suggests "for I would slay a man
in my wound, and a young man in my hurt.", the American Standard Version footnotes suggests:
"For I will slay a man to my wounding, And a young man to my hurt:". Maybe what Lamech
is saying in verses 23 and 24 is that he would slay someone for hurting him, and that he
(being better than Cain) would be avenged much more? It's still a little foggy as to
what these verses mean to me, but hopefully that helps clear things up a little more for
you. Verse 25 continues: "And Adam knew his wife
again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For, said she , God hath appointed
me another seed instead of Abel; for Cain slew him. And to Seth, to him also [was there]
born a son; and he called his name Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah."
Strong's Hebrew Dictionary says that Seth's name literally means "put", or (according
to Strong) in other words "substituted". The footnotes for the American Standard Version
helps [. . .] clear up what Seth's name means a little more. It gives the Hebrew word that's
translated as "hath appointed" in this verse, which (according to Strong) literally means
". . . to place . . .". So in other words, in Hebrew there's a play-on-words in this
verse, between Seth (which means "put") and the word that's translated as "hath appointed"
(which means ". . . to place . . .". The name Enosh was a word that could be used
generally for man. Some time after Enosh was born, there must have been more than just
a few people on the earth, otherwise Moses probably wouldn't have said ". . . men began
. . ." in this verse. Between Cain, Seth, and Adam, the human race was starting to expand
(although, maybe not very fast at this point).