Genesis 5: More interesting than you might think!

Genesis 5 is a connect-the-dots chapter where God draws a line from Adam to Noah. At the surface it is a list of descendants spanning 10 generations. 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 these ten men are related to every person on earth. These guys are the fathers - the great(x) grandfathers - of the beggar in rural India and the Pope in Rome. 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 every storyline history would ever know. 

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). In a Hebrew Torah scroll, 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). And now the victims of Cain––not just Abel but also his unborn descendants––cry out to God from the ground. 

Perhaps we can think of it this way. Imagine that God has carefully arranged a line of dominos. He taps the first one to set the rest in motion. But somewhere along the way, you snatch a domino before it has a chance to touch the next one in line. This creates a void in God’s arrangement. What does that void do to the rest of the line? Those dominos remain there, yes, but they never come to life so to speak. 

So it goes when Abel is murdered: his line is stunted, and those set to come through him are forever frozen in a state of potential. Of course, you and I don’t see this unrealized potential, but can God see it? Genesis 4 suggests He does. In fact, the unborn descendants cry out to Him like prisoners in a jail cell. They cry out from the ground, the very thing God used to form man, a thing that can bear God’s image no longer. 

This idea 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 chooses violence over forgiveness when he kills a young man for wounding him. And Lamech says, “...if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech will be avenged 77 times.” Whereas Lamech uses this language in the context of murder, Jesus uses it in the context of forgiveness. Jesus borrows the same language to associate unforgiveness with murder. For example, if I do not forgive you, then I essentially cut you out of my life. Your presence 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 because 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 didn’t end the life of a single man; it ended the life-possibility of many after him. Unforgiveness isn’t just a one-and-done violation; it’s a violation that eliminates more possibilities than you and I will never understand. 

I said earlier that Abel’s descendants were “jailed” in a state of potential. Well, in keeping with that analogy, God hears their cries and sees fit to bail them out. By God’s gracious intervention, Abel’s descendants escape the violence of Cain even if Abel does not. At least, I believe this is how Eve sees it. Here is why. 

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 verse holds the key. 

“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” (Source).

It is not meaningful whether Seth is their third son or their 15th. It is more meaningful to see that Seth is the first son born after Abel’s death. This would explain why Eve links the two of them together. In her eyes, God had predestined this newborn son (Seth) to stand in the shoes of the son she just lost (Abel). Seth isn’t just another child; he is an in place of child. 

As far as Eve is concerned, every child that Abel was supposed to have Seth will have instead. Seth has been appointed by God to live in Abel’s place. 

In this way, God does His first great work of restoration. He appoints Seth to take the place of Abel. And so Seth, in Abel’s place, goes on to have the children that Abel never would. We might say Genesis 5 follows Abel’s descendants that were born to Seth instead. The unnamed bloods that cried out to God one chapter earlier are the very people born to Seth in Genesis 5. And so, we see then that God answered their plea. He introduced a substitute to restore their lives. 

And one thing I so love about this idea: Jesus comes out of the line of Seth. If Seth is the replacement of Abel, then 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 would use substitution to save the Messiah so that Messiah, through an act of substitution, would save the world and bring the despairing rest.