Jonathan Edwards · 322 of 409

Genesis · Part 2

Again: It is not likely that Adam would give her a name from that which did not at all distinguish her from him. If persons have not names that shall distinguish them from all others, yet doubtless they ought to have names to distinguish them from those with whom they always live, and from whom there is most occasion to distinguish them. But if it was not the quality of her posterity, but only the universality of her progeniture of mankind, to which he had respect, that was what was common to her with himself.

If it had been only her being the mother of all mankind to which Adam had respect, it would have been more likely that he would have given her this name on her first creation, and on her being brought to him; which was after that benediction, “Be fruitful and multiply;” but we find that this name was not given on that occasion, but then Adam gave her another name, Gen. ii. 23. He called her Ishah, from her being taken out of man; but the name of Chavah, as the mother of all living, is given on another occasion, viz. just after God had promised that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and immediately after God had pronounced the threatening of death on Adam, as in the verse immediately foregoing, “till thou return to the ground, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return:” while Adam is under the terror of this sentence of death, he comforts himself with the promise of life couched in what God had said to the serpent. Adam gave Eve a new name on this occasion, from that new thing that appeared concerning her after the fall: as she had her first name from the manner of her creation, so she had her new name given her from Christ’s redemption, and Adam gave her her name from that which comforted him, with respect to the curse that God had pronounced on him and the earth; as Lamech named Noah, Gen. v. 29. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.”

It was a common thing for the progenitors of Christ to have names given them from something that had respect to him or his redemption, or some of his benefits: so were Seth, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Israel, and Judah, and others named.

And besides, we have no parallel place in the Bible to justify our understanding this expression, all living, of all mankind that shall hereafter live upon the earth, or including them with those that are now living.

[399] Gen. iii. 20. There are also these further arguments to confirm that Adam does not give his wife the name of Eve, which signifies Life, because she was the mother of all mankind, but because she was the mother of Christ, and of his living seed, who are the seed of the woman of whom God had just spoken. 1st. This name is exceedingly proper and suitable to signify the latter, because, “in Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive; by man came death, so by man also came the resurrection of the dead;” “the second Adam is made a quickening Spirit;” “in him was life, and he is the life.“ All mankind by the first Adam are in a state of death, dead in trespasses and sins, but Christ is the bread of life, of which he that eats should live for ever; and he is thus the fountain of life to the children of men, by bruising the head of the serpent, or destroying him that has the power of death, even the devil; which God had just before promised should be by the Seed of Isha, the name that Adam gave his wife at first.

2. It is not likely that Adam would give this name, viz. Living One, as a distinguishing name for mankind, to distinguish them from other creatures; for the same name is, from time to time in the preceding chapters, given to other creatures, as chap. i. 21, 24, 28. and chap. ii. 19. where the word is radically the same; and so afterwards the name is often given to other animals, chap. vi. 19. vii. 4, 23. viii. 1. and in many other passages of Scripture. And especially it is unlikely that he would give this as a distinguishing name to mankind immediately upon man’s fall, whereby he was ruined, and had brought that threatening on himself, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;” and immediately after he had been told by God that he was dead, (i. e. in effect so,) “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Adam could not mean by the phrase all living, what indeed we sometimes use that expression to signify, viz. mankind; but yet we do not intend by it, all that have had, and now have, the human nature, as though life was a distinguishing property of that nature, but we merely mean by it those that are now alive, to distinguish them from those that are dead, or are not yet born. And it is exceeding unlikely that Adam would now first find out this name to distinguish mankind, even those that yet had no life or being, as though life was a distinguishing property and dignity of human nature, on the occasion of so great, awful, and affecting an event, as the first entrance of any such thing as death into the world, to waste, and destroy, and make fearful havock of all mankind, all Eve’s posterity, and that originally by her means. If Adam had meant by all living, all mankind that then had a being in this world, the name was very improper for her; for he that was living of mankind was the only person of all mankind that she was not the mother of: he was rather the father of her. But in the other sense it is true, Eve was the mother of all living universally, of every living one, as it is in the original. There is not one that has spiritual and eternal life of all mankind, who in this sense is excepted, not Adam, nor Christ, no, nor herself, for in this sense, as she was the mother of Christ, she was her own mother.

3. It is remarkable that Adam had before given his wife another name, viz. Isha, when she was first created and brought to him; but now, that on the occasion of the fall, and what God had said upon it, he changes her name, and gives her a new name, viz. Life, because she was to be the mother of every one that has life; which would be exceeding strange and unaccountable if all that he meant was, that she was to be the mother of mankind. If that was all that he intended, it would have been much more likely to be given to her at first, when God gave them that blessing, viz. “Be fruitful and multiply,” by virtue of which she became the mother of mankind; and when mankind was hitherto in a state of life, and death had not yet entered into the world. But that Adam should not give her this name then, but call her Isha, and then, after that, change her name, and call her name Life, immediately upon their losing their life and glory, and coming under a sentence of death, with all their posterity, and the awful, melancholy shadow and darkness which death has brought on the whole world, occasioned by Eve’s folly, is altogether unaccountable, if he had only meant, that she was the mother of mankind.

4. That Adam should change her name, and call her name Life, after he had given her another name, doubtless was from something new that appeared, that was very remarkable, concerning Eve; and doubtless we have an account of what that remarkable thing was. The scriptural history is not so imperfect as to give us an account of such an event as a person’s name being changed, without mentioning the occasion of that change. We have several times elsewhere an account of the change of persons’ names in Scripture, but always have an account of the reason why; but we have no account of any thing new concerning Eve, that could give Adam occasion thus to change her name, and call her Life, but only what God said concerning her and her seed after her fall. We have an account of this change of her name immediately upon it, and therefore must understand that as the occasion of it. This was an exceeding proper occasion for such a name, and it is natural to suppose that Adam’s mind might now be so affected by the curse of death just pronounced by God, and the promise of life by Eve, as to induce him to change her name from Isha to Life.

It is most probable, that Adam would give Eve her name from that which was her greatest honour, since it is evident that he had respect to her honour in giving her this name. The name itself, Life, is honourable; and that which he mentions concerning her being the mother of every living one, is doubtless something he had respect to as honourable to her. Since he changed her name from regard to her honour, it is most likely he would signify in it that which was her peculiar honour; but that was the most honourable of any thing, that had ever happened, or that ever would happen concerning her that God said that she should be the mother of that seed, that should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the greatest honour that God had conferred on her; and we find persons’ names changed elsewhere to signify something that is their peculiar honour, as the new names of Abraham, Sarah, and Israel.

6. All new names, of which we have an account in Scripture as given prophetically, are given with respect to some great privilege persons have by some special relation to Christ, or interest in him, and his redemption. So Abraham’s and Sarah’s new names were given them of God, on occasion of the promise made to them, that in their seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; and Jacob’s new name of Israel is given because as a prince he had prevailed with Christ in wrestling with him, and had obtained the confirmation of Abraham and Isaac’s blessing to him and his seed, when he and his posterity were in danger of being cut off by Esau.

[466] Gen. iii. 20. “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she is the mother of all living.” To suppose the living here to mean those that are restored to spiritual life, and shall be saved from death, and have everlasting life, is agreeable to the denomination the apostle gives true Christians, 2 Cor. iv. 11. “Greek or Hebrew, the living, or the livers; and again chap. v. 15.

[82] Gen. iv. 1. “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” In Eve’s expressing herself thus, it is probable she had an eye to what God said, that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head: and now seeing she had a son, her faith and hope was strengthened that the promise should be fulfilled.

[453] Gen. iv. 3, 4. Cain’s and Abel’s sacrifice. Abel when he comes before God is sensible of his own unworthiness and sinfulness, like the publican, and so is sensible of his need of an atonement, and therefore comes with bloody sacrifices, hereby testifying his faith in the promised great sacrifice. Cain comes with his own righteousness, like the Pharisee, who put God in mind that he paid tithes of all that he possessed. He comes without any propitiation, with the fruit of his ground, and produce of his own labours, as though he could add something to the Most High, by gifts of his own substance; and therefore he was interested in no atonement, for he was not sensible of his need of any, nor did he trust in any; and so being a sinner, and not having perfectly kept God’s commandments, sin lay at his door unremoved, and so his offering could not be accepted, for guilt remained to hinder. This reason God intimates, why his offering was not accepted, in what way he says to him, verse 7th., “If thou doest well if thou keepest my commandments, thou and thine offerings shall be accepted; but seeing thou doest not well, as thine own conscience witnesses that in many things thou hast offended, the guilt of sin remains to hinder thy being accepted without an atonement, thy righteousness cannot be accepted, whatever offering thou mayest bring to me.” See Bp. Sherlock’s Use and Intent of Prophecy, p. 74, 75. and Owen on Heb. xi. 4. p. 18.

[344] Gen. iv. 7. “If thou doest well, shalt not thou be accepted; and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Cain was not accepted in his offering, because he did not well because, 1. He was a wicked man, led an ill life under the reigning power of the world and the flesh, and therefore his sacrifice was an abomination to the Lord, Prov. xv. 8. a vain oblation, Isa. i. 13. God had no respect to Cain himself, and therefore no respect to his offering, as the manner of the expression (ver. 5.) intimates. But Abel was a righteous man: he is called righteous Abel, Matt. xxiii. 35. His heart was upright, and his life was pious; he was one of those whom God’s countenance beholds, Psal. xi. 7. and whose prayer is therefore his delight, Prov. xv. 8. God had respect to him as a holy man, and therefore to his offering as a holy offering. The tree must be good, else the fruit cannot be pleasing to the heart-searching God.

2. There was a difference in the offerings they brought. It is expressly said, Heb. xi. 4. Abel’s was a more excellent sacrifice than Cain’s: either, 1. In the nature of it. Cain’s was only a sacrifice of acknowledgment offered to the Creator; the meat-offerings of the first of the ground were no more, and for ought I know might have been offered in innocency. But Abel brought a sacrifice of atonement, the blood whereof was shed in order to remission, thereby owning himself a sinner, deprecating God’s wrath, and imploring his favour in a Mediator: or, 2. In the qualities of the offering. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, any thing that came next to hand, what he had not occasion for himself, or was not more charitable. But Abel was curious in the choice of his offering, not the lame, or the lean, or the refuse, but the firstling of the flock, the best he had, and the fat thereof, the best of those best. 3. The great difference was this, that Abel offered in faith, and Cain did not “Abel was a penitent, like the publican that went away justified; Cain was unhumbled, and his confidence was in himself, like the Pharisee who glorified himself, but he was not so much justified before God.” Henry on verses 3, 4, 5.

[“If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.”] Not at Cain’s door, but at God’s door. His wicked doings lay, as it were, at the door of God’s temple, to prevent his admittance and acceptance with God: they stood as a partition-wall between God and him. Wicked men’s sins are a cloud which their prayers cannot pass through, and which hinders their offerings from being brought into the holy place: they are a thick veil before the door of the holiest of all, to hinder their access to God. 1 John iii. 21, 22. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

[51] Gen. iv. 14. It seems to me no way improbable that Cain’s house was intended, and by him understood, not only of him personally, but of his posterity. Such he might learn from his father Adam, seeing the covenant that was made with him was made not only for himself, but for his posterity. If Cain understood it only of himself personally, it seems somewhat strange that he should express himself after such a manner. The inhabited earth was not broad enough for such expressions. The expression, from thy face, may be in the same sense as David was shut out from the face of God when he dwelt in Ziklag, from his altar where his people sacrificed and worshipped him, and where he especially manifested himself. Doubtless there were then such things as well as afterwards.

[323] Gen. v. 29. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” Noah comforted God’s people concerning their labour and fatigue, that was the fruit of God’s curse on the ground.

1. And chiefly as the Redeemer was to be of him, who should deliver his people from all their labours and sorrows, and should procure them everlasting life in the heavenly Canaan, a better paradise than that which was lost, where the ground is not cursed, and shall spontaneously yield her rich fruit every month, where there remains a rest to the people of God, who shall rest from their labours, and their works shall follow them.

2. He first invented wine, which is to comfort him that is faint and weary with fatigue, and the toil of his hands, and which makes glad man’s heart, a remarkable type of the blood of Christ, and his spiritual benefits.

3. To him was given leave to eat flesh, as a relief from the fruit of the curse on the ground, which rendered the fruits of it less pleasant and wholesome. God gave Noah leave to feed on the flesh of other animals, to comfort him under his toil of his hands in tilling the ground. And this is another type of our feeding on Christ, and having spiritual life and refreshment in him: for, in feeding on the flesh of animals, our food and the nourishment of our lives is obtained at the expense of their lives and shedding their blood, as we come to feed on Christ by his laying down his life. And these things in Noah that should be matter of comfort under God’s curse, are the rather taken notice of in him, because in his time the curse on the ground was to be more fully executed than ever it had been before the good constitution of the earth was to be overthrown by a flood, and its wholesomeness and fertility greatly diminished, and so the toil of his hands would be greatly increased, were it not for this relief given that has been mentioned.

4. Before Noah, God’s people did not know how far this curse would proceed; they probably foresaw that God intended to execute the curse on the ground in a much further degree than ever yet he had done. God had not comforted his people by any limits set in any promise made to them, but to Noah God made a gracious promise, setting limits to the curse, promising in some respects a certain measure of success to the labour of their hands, promising that seed-time, and harvest, &c. should not cease.

[5] Gen. vi. 4. The monstrous births that arose from the conjunction of the sons of God with the daughters of men, typify unto us what an odious monster results from the conjoining of holy things with wicked, as of a holy profession with a wicked life in hypocrites, and what powerful enemies against religion such are, whether they are particular persons or churches, as the church of Rome, that monstrous beast, in whom are joined the profession of the name of Christ and many of his doctrine with the most odious devilism, who has horns as a lamb, but speaks as a dragon: and their bulk and huge stature denotes their pride, as none are so proud as hypocrites. Vid. 257.

[257] Gen. vi. 4. And their great bulk, and strength, and renown, besides the pride of such persons and churches as join the religion, doctrine, and worship, and profession of his church, with the deluding glories and bewitching pleasures of this world, and of the heathenish and other human and carnal churches and societies of it, here typified by the beauty of the daughters of men. I say, besides the pride of such churches, these things seem to denote the earthly pomp and splendour, and worldly renown and glory, and great temporal power, that such churches affect, and are commonly in providence suffered to arrive to, as the church of Rome and others.

[428] Gen. vi. 4. “And there were giants in the earth in those days,” &c. Pausanias, in his Laconics, mentions the bones of men of a more than ordinary bigness, which were shown in the temple of Esculapius, at the city of Asepus: and in the first of his Eliacks, he speaks of a bone taken out of the sea, which aforetime was kept at Piso, and thought to have been one of Pelops. Philostratus, in the beginning of his Heroicks, informs us that many bodies of giants were discovered in Pallene, by showers of rain and earthquakes. Pliny, b. vii. ch. 16. says, “That upon the bursting of a mountain in Crete, there was found a body standing upright, which was reported by some to have been the body of Orion, by others, the body of Aetion. Orestes’s body, when it was commanded by the oracle to be digged up, is reported to have been seven cubits long. And almost a thousand years ago, the poet Homer continually complained, “that men’s bodies were less than of old.” And Solinus, chap. i. inquires, “Were not all that were born in that age less than their parents?” And the story of Orestes’s funeral testifies the bigness of the ancients; whose bones when they were digged up in the 58th Olympiad at Yegea, by the advice of the oracle, are related to have been seven cubits in length. Other writings, which give a credible relation of ancient matters, affirm this, that in the war of Crete, when the rivers had been so high as to overflow and break down their banks, after the flood was abated, upon the clearing of the earth, there was found a human body of three and thirty feet long: which L. Flaccus, the legate, and Metellus himself, being very desirous of seeing, were much surprised to have the satisfaction of seeing what they did not believe when they heard.” Grotius de Verit. b. i. sect. 16. Notes.

Josephus, b. v. chap. 2. of his ancient history: “There remains to this day some of the race of the giants, who by reason of the bulk and figure of their bodies, so different from other men, are wonderful to see or hear of. Their bones are now shown far exceeding the belief of the vulgar.” Gabinius, in his history of Mauritania, said that Antæus’s bones were found by Sertorius, which, joined together, were sixty cubits long. Phlegon Trallianus, in his 9th chap. of Wonders, mentions the digging up the head of Ida, which was three times as big as that of an ordinary woman. And he adds also that there were many bodies found in Dalmatia, whose arms exceeded sixteen cubits. And the same man relates out of Theopompus, that there were found in the Cimmerian Bosphorus a company of human bones twenty-four cubits in length. Le Clerc’s Notes on Grotius de Veritat. b. i. sect. 16.

We almost every where in the Greek and Latin historians meet with the savage life of the giants mentioned by Moses. In the Greek, as Homer, Iliad 9th, and Hesiod, in his Works and Days. To this may be referred the Wars of the Gods mentioned by Plato in his Second Republic, and those distinct and separate governments taken notice of by the same Plato, in his third book of Laws. And as to the Latin historians, see the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and the fourth book of Lucan, and Seneca’s third book of Natural Questions, Quest. 30. where he says concerning the Deluge, “that the beasts also perished, into whose nature men were degenerated.” Grotius de Verit. b. i. sect. 16.

[199] Gen. vi. 14. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood.” The word in the Hebrew language seems to imply that the wood was of a bituminous or pitchy nature, and consequently more capable of resisting wet or moisture, and St. Chrysostom particularly calls it Greek or Hebrew, square wood not liable to rot. The learned Fuller rightly concludes it to be the cypress, from the affinity of the word for cypress in Greek, which is Greek or Hebrew; from whence, if the termination is taken away, Cuphar, or Gopher, consists of such letters as are often changed into each other; neither is there any wood less subject to rottenness and worms than this is, as all writers do allow. Pliny saith that the cypress-wood is not sensible of rottenness or age, that it will never split nor cleave asunder except by force, and that no worm will touch it, because it hath a peculiar bitter taste; and therefore Plato advised that all records that are to be preserved for the benefit of future generations, should be written upon tables of cypress. Martial says that it will last for a hundred ages and never decay. Thucydides saith that the chests were made of cypress in which the Athenians carried away the bones of those who died in war for their country, and the Scholiast gives this reason for it, because it would never decay; and the Pythagoreans abstained from making coffins of cypress, because they certainly concluded that the sceptre of Jupiter was made of this tree, and no reason can be assigned for such a fiction among the poets, but because it was the fittest resemblance of that eternal power and authority which they attribute to him. Theophrastus, speaking of those trees which are least subject to decay, adds this as a conclusion, that the cypress-tree seems to be the most durable of all, and that the folding-doors of the temple of Ephesus being made thereof, had lasted without damage for four generations. In this Pliny is more particular, and saith that those doors were made of cypress, and they had lasted till his time, which he saith was near four hundred years, and still looked as if they were new. And Vitruvius speaks both of the cypress and of the pine-tree, that they kept for a long time without the least defect, because the sap, which is in every part of the wood, hath a peculiar bitter taste, as is so very offensive that no worm or other consuming animal will touch it. He also tells us that such works as are made of such wood will last for ever. And therefore he advises that the beams of all churches should especially be made of cypress-wood, because such as were made of fir were soon consumed by the worm and rottenness; and as it was such a lasting wood, so it was also very fit for the building of ships. Peter Martyr, as cited by the learned Fuller, saith that the inhabitants of Crete had their cypress-trees so common, that they made the beams of their houses, their rafters, their rooms, and floors, and also their ships, of this wood. Plutarch saith that the ship-carpenter in the first place useth the pine from Isthmos, and the cypress from Crete; and Vegetius adds, that the galleys are built chiefly of the cypress, and of the pine-trees, or of the larch and fir; and in the epistle of Theodoricus to Abundantius, the prefect, in which he gives him a commission to build a thousand barks for fetching provisions, or bread-corn; he commands him to inquire throughout all Italy, for proper artists, for wood for such work; and wherever he should find the cypress or pine-trees near the shore, that he should buy them at a reasonable price. Neither was it thus only in Crete and Italy, but Diodorus proves that in Phœnicia there was timber sufficient to build ships, because Libanus, near Tripoli, and Biblus, and Sidon were full of cedar-trees, and larch-trees, and cypress-trees, which were very admirable for show and greatness; and Plato, among the trees that were fit for ship-carpenters to use, places the cypress next to the pine and the larch-trees. And even in latter years, we are told that the Saracens did hasten from Alexandria to Phœnicia to cut down the cypress-wood, and fit it for the use of the ships. And as the cypress-tree was very fit for this use, so it grew in great plenty in Assyria and Babylonia, and therefore Arrian and Strabo speak particularly of it, and that the numerous fleet which Alexander the Great built in those parts, was made of the cypress which he cut down, and which grew in Babylonia. For there was, as they say, a great plenty of these trees in Assyria, and that they had no other wood in the country which was fit for such a purpose.