Genesis 5 is a connect-the-dots chapter where God draws a line from Adam to Noah. At the surface level it is a list of descendants spanning 10 generations. If we look beneath the surface, the meaning of each name preaches the Gospel message:
Man (is) appointed mortal, sorrow, (but) blessed God shall come down, teaching. His death shall bring, the despairing, rest. As Chuck Missler says, “
You will never convince me that a group of Jewish rabbis conspired to hide the Christian Gospel right here in a genealogy within their venerated Torah!”
Just as the Gospel message relates to every man on earth, it’s interesting to think that these ten men are related to every person on earth. These guys are the fathers - the great(x) grandparents - of the beggar in rural India and the Queen of England, from Napoleon Bonaparte to Napoleon Dynamite. It’s very possible that when God looked upon these ten men, in them He saw you, me, and every person we will ever meet. Seeded within these ten men was the future of all humanity.
This is especially interesting in light of the previous chapter. In the previous chapter, Genesis 4, Cain kills his brother Abel. After the murder God tells Cain, “...Your brother’s
bloods cry out to me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). That’s no typo! In Hebrew, the word “blood” is plural! Abel’s
bloods cried out to God.
The commentators have puzzled over this for years. Its plural form must have implications. One interpretation is that, when Cain killed Abel, he didn’t just end the life of one man. He ended the life of Abel’s entire lineage! Here’s how Matthew Poole’s Commentary puts it: “In the Hebrew it is
bloods to charge Cain with the murder of all those that might naturally have come out of Abel’s loins” (
Source). Leaning into this idea, the murder of Abel was actually a
mass murder. And the victims of Cain––Abel and his unborn descendants––cried out to God.
Maybe we can think of it this way. Imagine that God has carefully arranged a series of dominoes. He taps the first one to set the rest in motion. But you interrupt the sequence. You stunt the fall of a single domino in a long line of dominos. Now all kinetic energy is lost; the rest of the line never knows motion.
So it goes when a young person like Abel is murdered: the person’s progression is stunted, and those positioned to come afterward are forever imprisoned in a state of lost potential. Of course, you and I don’t sense that lost potential; we cannot see the unrealized. But this verse from Genesis 4 suggests that God sees its value whether it goes realized or unrealized. That missing potential cries out to God like forgotten prisoners pleading for attention from inside their jail cell. They cried out from the ground, the very clay that God uses to form man, a ground that could no longer bears God’s image.
This notion may sound far-fetched but look at how Jesus associates unforgiveness with murder. In Matthew 18, we read, “Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” Jesus, a master at the Torah, is borrowing the language from Genesis 4.
In Genesis 4, we read about Cain’s descendant, Lamech. Lamech kills a young man for wounding him. He doesn’t forgive the young man. No, he kills him. And then he says, “...if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech will be avenged 77 times.” With this in mind, can you hear the parallel? Lamech used this language in the context of murder, but Jesus uses it in the context of forgiveness. Jesus wants to lay them side by side so he borrows the same language. His underlying message is that unforgiveness is akin to murder. If I do not forgive you, then I essentially cut you out of my life. Your place in my world ceases to exist. This is murder, in a spiritual sense. And when I do this––when I choose the path of unforgiveness––the relationship between us dies, and the fruit of that relationship never takes life. Like the lost lineage of Abel, the potential between us goes unrealized. But not in God’s purview, for He sees what is lost. He sees what could have been.
Thinking back on Abel’s bloods crying out to God from the ground, I think it goes to show how appalled God is by murder and unforgiveness. Cain’s murder wasn’t just a murder; it was a mass murder. Unforgiveness isn’t just a one-time violation; it’s an ongoing violation that you and I will never understand.
I said earlier that Abel’s descendants were “jailed” in a state of lost potential, crying out behind bars so to speak. Well, in keeping with that analogy, God heard their cries and saw fit to bail them out. By God’s gracious intervention, Abel’s descendants escaped the violence of Cain even though Abel did not. At least, this is how I see it, and I believe this is how Eve saw it, too. Here is why I say that.
Genesis 4:25: “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.’” This amazing verse holds the key. For context, there is an article posted by Creation Ministries that is relevant to Genesis 4:25. The following is an except from that article: “Seeing as Adam and Eve were commanded to reproduce, it might be assumed that Cain was born pretty early, perhaps a year or two after Creation Week. Abel was born after that, but not necessarily next. His name appears next, but this is because he is an important part of the story. Yet even if Abel was the second child, it is unlikely that Seth was the third.
“Since Seth was prophetically named by his mother (his name sounds like “he appointed” in Hebrew), it is reasonable to suspect that he was the first son born after Abel died. This means there may have been sons born between Abel and Seth.”
It is not important whether or not Seth is the third son. More importantly, Seth is the son born after Abel’s death, because that would explain Eve’s peculiar connection as she links her lost son Abel to her newborn son Seth. In her eyes, it is like God had predestined one to replace the other. No matter what, Eve saw in Seth something special: he wasn’t just another child; he was an in place of child.
This will take some Hebraic understanding. And stay with me, because I promise to return to the subject at hand. In Greek thought, a substitute is different than the thing being substituted. (A substitute teacher is not the real teacher, for instance.) But in Hebraic thought, a substitute for something becomes the something! So the substitute teacher is acting as the teacher. The two are one in the same. If this concept remains unclear, I am going to have to press the language. Examples from Scripture will be helpful. Genesis 22: When the ram became a substitute for Isaac, the ram was sacrificed as Isaac. Understand: Isaac died that day! And yet, he didn’t. Because the ram died in his place. Isaac’s substitute died on Isaac’s behalf; it died as Isaac. Take and apply this idea to Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus died in your place. He took the punishment of sin instead of you. But that’s you on the cross! Then again, it’s not. Because He died in your place. He died as you, even though it was Him. You now continue on, a living sacrifice, dead to your sins.
The Hebrew word is tachat (תחת): it means
instead of. I am about to give you a chunk of information condensed into a few paragraphs, so I encourage you to study it out for yourself. All of this can be second and third verified through other sources online. But
tachat is the word used in Genesis 22:13b: “Abraham went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering
instead of his son.” It’s the word used in Exodus 21:23-24: “If there is harm, then you shall pay life
for life, eye
for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand
for hand, foot
for foot, burn
for burn, wound
for wound, stripe
for stripe.” The principle here is restitution, and the word translated “for” is the word
tachat. You might say,
“eye instead of eye, tooth instead of tooth...” Here’s what it means: if I damage your eye, then I must pay you what is equivalent to the value of an eye. The money will be
in place of your eye. If I damage your hand, then I must pay you what is equivalent to the value of a hand. The money will be
in place of your hand. Again, the idea is restitution. If I do you harm, how can I substitute something for your loss and make it right? The money will stand
in place of what was damaged. The word
tachat is the word used in Genesis 30, when Rachel offers her husband to Leah
in exchange for Rueben’s mandrakes. Genesis 30:15 reads: “But Leah said to Rachel, ‘Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?’ Rachel said, ‘Then he may lie with you tonight
in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.’” In the past,
mandrake was often thought to cure sterility, and Rachel, at the time, was sterile. So mandrake represents Rachel’s greatest hope (which was to have children). Rachel was willing to give her husband to Leah
in exchange for mandrake. In other words, Rachel would give the life of the father (Jacob) in exchange for the hope of the life of the father. She would give
the reality in exchange for
the hope. This is heavy stuff. We’ll come back to it.
Look at the word tachat in Hebrew, and a meaningful picture is revealed:
All Hebrew letters have a meaning, and all Hebrew letters are a number. In Hebrew, the letter chet is the number 8, and the number 8 represents new beginnings, or new life (click here to see that connection made). In Hebrew, the letter tav represents a cross (online reference). This is so even in the grammar textbooks of Orthodox Jews (The Hebrew Teacher, Hyman E. Goldin, Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, 1923). So get the picture: to the left and to the right, we have a cross. And between them, in the middle, we have the number 8 representing new life. The word tachat is a picture of Calvary, where Jesus died instead of you. Where He made restitution for what was lost in the Garden. Where He exchanged the life of the Father for your hope for the life of the Father. A picture of Calvary is hidden right there in the very letters of the ancient Hebrew word. What an amazing thing!
Returning to our subject at hand: Genesis 4:25, “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.’”
It’s our word: tachat! You see, as far as Eve was concerned, every child that Abel was supposed to have, Seth had instead. For Seth was appointed to be in Abel’s place. The Messiah would have come through Abel’s bloodline. But Satan murdered the Messiah when Cain murdered Abel. But God is the Ultimate Restorer. He appointed a man named Seth to take the place of Abel. And so Seth, in Abel’s place, had children who had children who had children who gave birth to the Messiah. We might say that Genesis 5 lists Abel’s descendants, those born to Seth instead. The bloods that cried out to God in Genesis 4 are the very people born to Seth in Genesis 5. We see that God answered their plea. He used a substitute to reach them. And in Abel’s bloods was the very voice of Messiah! Messiah Himself was calling out to God! What an interesting thought to think, that God used a substitute to save the Messiah, so that Messiah, through the act of substitution, could save the whole world, and bring the despairing rest.
