Genesis 3:20–6:8: On Cain & Abel, the Nephilim, and the Progeny of George Foreman

Well, you know, later in First Samuel 15, there's that passage where the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king, but then later in the chapter, it'll say that he doesn't regret like a man. And I think that the way to hold these things together is to see that the Lord doesn't change his mind. He is immutable. Welcome to Episode 2 of Bible Talk, a new podcast brought to you by Nine Marks. Nine Marks exist to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches for more, visit NineMarks.org. My name is Alex Duke and with me is Samomodic and Jim Hamilton. Those are nice socks, man. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. This is an audio medium, so no one will be able to appreciate them except for you too. So I heard from a few friends who listened to the first episode that you guys sound very similar in any comments on that. Sam has been imitating me for years. Jim's leader is just stuck. So let's just, let's just practice at the beginning. All right, Jim, say my name is Jim Hamilton. My name is Jim Hamilton. And Sam. My name is Samomodic. So listeners, do your best to figure that out. Episode 1, we covered most of Genesis 1 to 3. We talked about the glorious creation of our glorious God. We talked about how he spoke everything into existence out of nothing. We talked about how the garden is a kind of temple. We talked about the talking serpent. We talked about the fall. Sam brought up Nahosh, the king of the Ammonites. And we ended our time talking about Jesus, who is the seed of the woman who will crush the seed of the serpent. Genesis 3 ends with curses, but there's also Genesis 3 15, that spark of hope. But the consequences for sin are still there. At the end of Genesis 3, we read that they are exiled east of Eden. And God places a cherubim there to guard what Adam had failed to guard. Jim, explain the state of the world and everything in it by the end of Genesis 3. What have we learned so far about man and what have we learned so far about the God who made man? Well, I think about God, we'll start with him. We have seen that he is both just in that he upholds his word. So he gives a warning that in the day you eat of this tree, you will surely die. And then they eat and he doesn't just let it go. He doesn't just act like it hasn't happened. He calls them to account. But even in his justice, he's merciful. Unexpectedly so. And it always strikes me how gentle the Lord is as he asks these questions. Adam, where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree? And then to Eve, what is this that you have done? And it's as though the Lord is inviting them to take an opportunity to confess their sin and repent. So we see God that he's just in merciful with man. I think we see that though created in the image and likeness of God, he's now alienated from God. He hid from God. And he's alienated from his fellow human creature as they hid themselves from one another by making themselves loin claws. And the creation is cursed. And those aspects of difficulty are really encapsulated in Genesis 3, 14 through 19 as enmity is introduced between the seat of the woman and the seat of the serpent indicating that there's going to be this division and humanity between these two groups and there's going to be ongoing conflict between them. And then also there's going to be difficulty between the man and the woman in procreation. And I would, I think we can locate all sexual perversity in Genesis 3, 16. And in their relationship, the the woman's desire will be for the man and he will rule over her. And then the creation is cursed. Cursed is the land because of you. There's new difficulty between between man and man, between man and woman and between man and the setting for the Bible's big story. So you mentioned, you know, God is just and he's also merciful. Genesis 3, 21 says, "The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife, garments of skins and clothes to them." Is that an example of God's mercy? Well, it's interesting and people always ask if the garments of skin came from a sacrifice. And this is one of those places where it does seem that Moses is assuming later information. It would be great. I think it would be even more clear if we had some kind of verbal connection between the description of the skins and let's say a later sacrifice. There isn't that kind of verbal connection, but there is a verbal connection with the words garments and clothed. Those terms are only used elsewhere in the Pentateuch to describe the garments that Moses is going to prepare for Aaron and his sons. And then the words for clothed is that verb is also prominently used to describe Moses clothing the priests. So there aren't necessarily direct verbal links to the sacrifices, but there are direct verbal links to the priestly garments and the priests being clothed with those garments. And I do think that that colors our understanding of what has taken place here. Say, I have anything to add on that. Being clothed is a theme that's going to come up again and again in Genesis, particularly when we get to the story of Joseph. So just tuck that away and keep your eyes open for it. 46 episodes. 46 episodes later. We're going to talk about this again. All right. Okay. Sam, what's before we exit Genesis three, what's going on with this this cherubim? Is there a cherubim somewhere in the Middle East that we just haven't found for the last several thousand years? He's got his flaming sword. He's guarding this garden. What's going on with that? He's probably not still there. So my understanding would be, if I had to do some historical reconstruction, the Lord destroys everything in the flood that seems a likely time where this cherubim would be removed. But I think more significant is kind of the theological meaning of all this. This angelic figure, this cherubim is their guarding access to God's presence. Adam and Eve, because of their sin are exiled. They're no longer allowed back into the garden. They're no longer allowed access to God's presence. And here's this angel with a flaming sword, an instrument of execution. And I think the implication is if they try to get back into the garden, this sword's going to fall down on them. They're going to be executed. They're going to be destroyed. Now I think if we read it in context and compare it to what just happened, we've already seen there has been an animal that has died to clothe their nakedness and to clothe their shame. Maybe this sword can fall on someone else. Maybe this sword can come down on someone so they can get access back into the garden. And this image actually sets us on a journey that's going to take us the rest of the Bible to unpack and unfold, because this image of an angelic figure with a sword at the ready occurs a number of times in the Bible. So for instance, in Numbers 22, we see Balum coming to curse the people of Israel. The people of Israel that in Numbers are described like the Garden of Eden. It says, I believe it's Numbers 24, where they're described as kind of an orchard that God has planted. It reminds us of the Garden of Eden. Israel is being described as a new eat in there. So Balum is coming to curse them, but he encounters an angel with a sword that's drawn who stops him. I think we find something similar with the Tabernacle. The entrance to the holy place, into the Holy of Holies faces the east. You have to come in from the east to get into these, you know, this abode of God's dwelling. When the people of Israel are going into the Promised Land, they cross the Jordan River, which is on the eastern side. And what do they meet there at the Jordan River? They meet an angel with a drawn sword, right? This captain of the Lord's army, interestingly there, not to bar them access to God's presence, but to lead them into the Promised Land. It's like the Lord himself is now, you know, coming to take his people back into Eden. And then this is a story that ultimately culminates with, you know, Jesus dying on the cross and the curtain of the Holy of Holies being torn into, which if I'm not mistaken, Jim, doesn't, doesn't the curtain have cherubim woven into that curtain? So it's like that sword has fallen into Jesus. And because of that, that angel's gone. And we can have access to God's presence, which then fast forward to Revelation 22, you know, this angel here in Genesis 3 is guarding the way to the tree of life. We get to Revelation 22, and there's the tree of life, and there's no angel in front of it. We get to have access to it. I mean, I don't feel like we just even need to say anything else that we can quit early. Yeah, that was, that was amazing. I had never put any of that together before. But we must move on. March on, Genesis 4, we introduced the offspring by name of Adam and Eve. Jim, what happened with, with Cain and Abel? I mean, upon just reading the words in the text without knowing how their reference later in the New Testament, it's not immediately clear to me why God is so mad at Cain. I mean, he's a work of a ground, the ground, and he brings his stuff to the Lord. His brother Abel, who is a shepherd, he brings his stuff to the Lord. Why wasn't Cain's offering acceptable? Well, I think that in Cain's response to the Lord not having regard to his offering, we really see the problem, you know. So if, let's say, for instance, that, so here I am at Southern seminary. We're at Southern Seminary recording this podcast. and Dr. Mueller is in many ways my boss. And so if I were to bring some project that I had been commissioned to work on for the seminary, to Dr. Mueller and he were unhappy with it, my response ought to be, well, how can I fix this? How can I make this right? How can I make this pleasing to you? If my response is anger and I'm sullen and my face falls, well, that indicates that in my heart is not an eager desire to please, but a strong sense of self-regard and of entitlement. And so when we read in Genesis 4.5 for Cain and his offering, the Lord had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. This is indicating that Cain did not bring his offering from a heart that's saying, my desire is to please you, Lord. No, rather Cain is, he's about himself, it seems. So it's not necessarily about what the offering looked on the outside, but the Lord sees the heart. That's exactly right. So in 1 John 3 verse 11, John says that Cain is of the evil one. Is John picking up some understanding of what's happening here in the early chapters of Genesis? I think that is definitely the case. There's a word stated in Genesis 3.15 about the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And people often ask, well, what is this bit about the seed of the serpent? How do we understand what that's supposed to be? Is that more than people don't like snakes? And right away, when in Genesis 4.1, Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore Cain saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord, it seems that she's looking for the birth of a child. But then as we continue in this narrative, Cain, as we saw, his heart is not right toward the Lord. And then when he kills his brother, the Lord tells him, in Genesis 4.11, you are cursed from the ground. And in Hebrew, the two words that are there in that phrase are "ruer atah" are the same two words in the same order that the Lord had spoken to the serpent in Genesis 3.14. So in Genesis 3.14, God says to the serpent, "Aruer atah." And actually, it's "Aruer atah" plus the men preposition, not that you wanted that detail. But I did, thank you. You are more cursed than all the beasts. And the men preposition is used slightly differently. Cursed are you from the ground, but it's the same wording that God speaks to the Cain that he had spoken to the serpent. And that linguistic tie, Moses intends that to connect the serpent with Cain. And John is picking up on that connection. And he says, we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one. And John is just learning that from Jesus. Jesus said in John 8, you are of your father, the devil, to his opponents. And then he says, he was a liar from the beginning, probably referring to the way that he lied to Eve. Then he also says, you know, your desire is to kill me and your father, the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning, probably referring to Cain's murder of Abel. I think what's important to realize with regard to this is the relationship between Genesis 3 and 4. I think we often have a mental break between 3 and 4. Genesis 1 to 3 is kind of its own thing. And then 4 and following is its own thing. But really, when we look at how Moses structures Genesis, we find something else. So Moses has this phrase that he uses 10 times in Genesis. These are the generations of. Okay, and that phrase is like a chapter heading. Whenever he says, these are the generations of, it's like he's saying chapter 1. I thought chapter 4 was the chapter heading. Well, it is in our modern printing of the Bible. But for Moses, he's signaling chapter breaks with this phrase, these are the generations of. Well, the first time that phrase is used as in Genesis 2, 4. The next time that phrase is used is in Genesis 5, 1. So Moses actually wants you to see 2 and 3 and 4 as its own unit. 3 and 4 are inextricably linked together. And I think what we have is in 3, Sin has caused a rift in the relationship between man and God. And then chapter 4, Sin has caused a rift in the relationship between man and man. You know, expressed in this horrible account of one brother killing another brother. Which is why as we go throughout the gospels, we recognize that the gospel solves the problem, not just of our relationship with God, our hostility to God. Jesus Christ reconciles us to God. But it's also the fact that in the gospel, we become reconciled to one another. Why? Because outside the gospel, we are all came. We are all in hostility to one another. Which in verse 3 is, in context, he's telling us to love one another. That's the point he's making. And we expect to be compared to maybe Abel in that. But we're actually, I think, John is saying, no, you're more predisposed to be like Cain. So you should love one another. Yeah, that's right. So real quickly on the mark of Cain, Sam read for us, Genesis 4, 15 and 16, and explain the best you're understanding. What the mark of Cain is and perhaps why God decided to do that. Then the Lord said to him, not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain. Lest any who found him should attack him. And then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of God, east of Eden. We don't know what this mark or this sign that the Lord put on Cain was. But the way that it's functioning here in this story is that the mark itself is not a curse. It's actually a sign of God's kindness. And his mercy toward Cain. Because Cain says, I'm going to leave this land. I'm going to be a wanderer. And people are going to find me. And they're going to take vengeance on me. You know, they know that I've killed my brother Abel. And I'm going to be an object of revenge. And so the Lord gives him this mark. And I don't know how all the details work out that the text doesn't explicitly tell us. But this is another example of God's grace. It's another example of God's grace. And we see this all throughout these early chapters of Genesis. So the curse in Genesis 3 is met with the promise of this serpent crushing seed of the woman. The flood comes and destroys all of humanity. But God saves Noah and his family in an ark. And then here again, we have God's judgment going out against Cain. But he exercises kindness toward him. So by the end of Genesis 4, Moses introduces us to two new characters. He introduces us to a man named Lamek, who is sort of seven generations down from Cain. And he also introduces us to Seth, who was Cain's brother. He would be Adam's son. So obviously, there's some chronological skewing there that Moses is doing. What's going on there at the end of Genesis 4? - Well, this is a literary strategy that Moses will use throughout Genesis, where he first gives you a sort of run-down, a shorter run-down of the actions of the non-elect before then narrowing in and giving a longer account of the actions and doings of the chosen line. So we'll see this with Cain here, where his generations are quickly summarized. And then we'll see it again with, for instance, Ishmael. His generations will be summarized before Isaac's story is told. And then we'll see it again with Esau, where his generations will quickly be summarized before Jacob's story is told and so forth. So this is Moses's way of doing things. - And it doesn't appear that Cain's, great, great, great, great, great grandson, is a very good guy, 'cause you get to Genesis 4. He's married to two women, and then you've got Genesis 4, 24, and he's sort of, it's like he's kind of singing a song. I mean, it's broken off as poetry. And he says, if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, Lamex is 77fold. - Right. - So he doesn't seem to be a very good guy. - No, he's proud and vengeful, and he's almost like a foil for Peter asking Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother? And Jesus saying, he asks seven times, and Jesus says, no, seven, 70 times seven. And these 70s and sevens, they show up with these Lamex, because you've got this Lamex in 4, 24, who's talking about sevenfold and 77fold, and then you're gonna have Lamex in 531, a different Lamex, who's gonna live 777 years. - No, that's right, yeah. So it's just an interesting sort of literary touch that Moses adds. - I think something that's interesting about these matching names here in Cain's descendants, and then Seth's descendants is the way it calls us to comparing contrast these two lines. So both lines of descent have someone named Enoch. Both lines of descent have someone named Lamex. When you look for instance at verse 17, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of that city after the name of his son Enoch. So here in Cain's line, you have them building cities and naming it after their own children, right? It's kind of this exercise of hubris and of human wickedness. - It's like George Foreman's children. - That's right, George George George George George George. You know, contrasting that on the godly line that's gonna call on the name of the Lord at the end of this passage. Also in Cain's line, I think another kind of point of contrast we're supposed to see here between these two lines is Cain's line has these engines of cultural creation, right? There's the father of those who dwell intense and have lines livestock, and the father of all who play the liar in the harp, and the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. You know, it almost seems like Cain's line is the line where all the, you know, cultural elites come from, where all the powerful people come from. And I think what what Genesis is consistently calling us to do is, and we're going to see this throughout, especially when we get to Abraham, is that things aren't always as they seem. And God's perspective on what's happening in the world may not be, you know, the perspective that everybody else embraces. You know, these people are the culturally powerful ones. And nothing is said of Seth's descendants being culturally powerful. Yet they're the line of promise. They're the line that God is caring for. And I think this is an important message that Moses would be communicating to, you know, a group of liberated Hebrew slaves who had nothing who are wandering around in the wilderness. You know, that even though they may not look powerful and compelling and mighty compared to the nations around them, they have to trust in the Lord because things aren't always as they seem. And God chooses the name. Exactly. First Corinthians 1. So I just want to be clear what just happened. We just got some application from these generations of people that we tend, are tempted to sort of glaze our eyes over and like, okay, well, I'm going to sort of speed through my Bible reading this morning. But and it's not, you didn't need to know Hebrew to understand those. It's just close attentive reading of the text helps you see these differences. And news to me, hopefully news to folks who are listening that you can, you know, all scripture is profitable for us if we are paying attention. So I think by the end of Genesis 4, we, though we've been introduced to the, to, to Lamek and, and Cain's descendants who are, who are of the seed of the serpent, we, we have the transition, which Sam you've already mentioned, about, about Seth's line. And, and Jim, what, what's going on there at the beginning of the introduction to, to Seth's line and, and going all the way through the end of chapter 5 into Noah? Well, for one thing, when Eve responds to the birth of Seth, when she says God has appointed for me another seed or offspring instead of able for Cain killed him, it, it really reconnects with 4-1 where it's like she's looking for the seed of the woman. So in 4-1 and in 4-25, it looks like the man and his wife, Eve, are looking for the promised seed in Genesis 3-15, as if to say, is this going to be the one? And then, I think that the whole rationale for the preservation of this genealogy, which, you know, as I think about my own family, I mean, I think I know, I know my grandfather's name, and I know my grandfather's father's name. And that's about as far back as it goes for me, for my family, because I haven't done genealogical research. But here we've got 10 generations where they've carefully preserved the names and who we got, who, and how long they lived, and I think that the rationale here is they're preserving the line of descent of the seed of the woman, so that the hope that was introduced in Genesis 3-15 is really informing this genealogy that we have in Genesis 5. Jim, before moving on in the rest of the genealogy, I'm curious this phrase, at that time, people began to call in the name of the Lord. So I've heard that explained in two ways, I'm just curious if you have a position on it. It's at the end of chapter 4, calling upon the name of the Lord means, calling up to the Lord in terms of like a cry of deliverance for salvation, or calling out in the name of the Lord that these people were, you know, prophets of sorts kind of telling the truth and calling people to repent before the Lord. Yes, the usage of this Hebrew verb and this expression could go either way. So in the Psalms, you know, you can read of David and other psalmists, they're often calling on the name of the Lord in the crying out to you for help kind of sense, but then very prominently in Exodus 34, 33 and 34, when Moses says, "Please show me your glory," and the Lord says, "I will cause all my goodness to pass before you and will proclaim my name." This is the language that's used. It's the same Hebrew verb, Karah, and then the Lord passed before him and proclaimed. And there it is again, and then he sort of outlines who he is. The Lord, the Lord of God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and stepfast, love and truth, and so forth. And so I think there's biblical warrant for both understandings, and there might even be a case that can be made that they're doing both. They're both announcing who God is and they're calling on him for help. Which goes through Genesis 5, which is this kind of anticipatory genealogy. We're like, "Oh, okay, we're zooming in." These people, well, maybe not culturally impressive, they are the chosen line of Adam, and it culminates in this kind of a prophecy about Noah there in Genesis 5, verse 29. Jim, would you read 5, 28, and 29, and then explain what's going on with this prophecy about Noah? So it says, when Lamek had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands." In these phrases, we see, again, the self-referential nature of the book of Genesis, where Moses is constantly using and reusing phrases that he's already introduced. And so the language here of the Lord, Yahweh, having cursed the ground, and the painful toil, this is all language that we've seen in Genesis 3, 17 through 19, so that when Lamek says this, it sounds as though, at the birth of Noah, he's hoping that this child, who's in the line of dissent of the seed of the woman, is going to bring about a situation where the curse is introduced in Genesis 3, 17 through 19, or rolled back. And this indicates, I think, that the hope introduced in Genesis 3, 15 is not merely a hope that the serpent is going to have his head crushed. It's a hope that says, not only is the wicked one going to be defeated, but also the effects of sin and sin itself that is going to be eradicated. And that too, if death comes into the world because of sin, then if they hope that sin and death are going to be rolled back, they're hoping for death to be undone. And there's a sort of intimation of that in this genealogy, in the fact that Enoch doesn't die. He was not for God took him there in 5, 24. So it seems to me that the genealogy is reflecting a wider hope, a hope that's stemming from Genesis 3, 15, but that is beginning to grow and blossom. And it's a hope for triumph, and for life that goes beyond death. And with this prophecy that Lehmeck gives, we could almost just summarize it as saying, Lehmeck is hoping for a new creation. And when we get to 2 Peter chapter 3, and Peter looks to the flood as a type of new creation, Peter's not pulling that up out of nowhere. I think he's carefully reading Genesis. He's reading according to the intent of Moses. And we'll talk about that more as we get to later chapters in Genesis. But if I can just make a couple of other comments about the genealogy, because genealogies are great. Genealogy talk. There's a really good book. Look, it's dense, but I found it super edifying by Jason Hood called the Messiah and his brothers, which is about the genealogy of Matthew. And it's a helpful way of just kind of learning how to profit from the genealogies in the Bible. One thing, P-R-O-F-I-T means a P-R-O-P-H-G-T. That's right. One of the interesting things about this genealogy in Genesis chapter 5 is, well, number one, you know, what's it doing? Genealogies are kind of like hitting a fast forward button on a VHS tape. Nobody really uses those anymore, but you know, you remember, you can kind of, you have to skip, you know, your material by hitting the fast forward button, and it just kind of like takes you through all that material really quickly. That's what a genealogy does. It just kind of pushes you forward through redemptive history. It pushes the story forward without having to go through all the little details of everybody's life. But the second thing that's interesting about this is that this genealogy is 10 members. It takes us from Adam to Noah, and then what does it do? It stops at Noah, and it tells Noah's story. Well, then in Genesis chapter 11, we're going to have another genealogy, which takes us from Shem to Abraham, and then what happens? It stops, and it camps out on Abraham. Is that one 10 as well? And that's a 10-member genealogy. Then we're going to have another 10-member genealogy in the book of Ruth at the end of Ruth chapter 4 that takes us from Paris to David. And it's almost 10 people. 10 people. You have these three 10-member genealogies, and what happens at the end of each one? You stop on a covenant head. You go Adam to Noah to Abraham to David, and then you camp out at those locations because those are the major covenants of the Bible. So I think these genealogies, they're not just pushing the story forward and tracing the line of descent. They're actually giving us a reading strategy for all of scripture. They're showing us where the theological hotspots are. Adam, Noah, Abraham, and David. You know what strikes me about these, I mean apart from just the wonderful reflections on the genealogy. What strikes me about the prophecy about Noah is exactly what you're saying, Jim, how it's so obviously borrowing from Genesis 3, but this is hundreds of years later, which makes me think that these families were just passing down the story. And it wasn't written down yet until we get even 100 years after this with Noah, but they're passing down preserving the story through telling it to their children. You know, what's interesting about these numbers in the genealogies is if you start with Abraham and we have pretty reliable dates for the birth of Abraham and then you work your way back to Adam. A lot of these guys, they, their lives overlapped one another. And according to the numbers in the genealogies, Shem actually out, Shem, the son of Noah, actually out lives Abraham. And I forget all the specifics, but recently I worked through these things and Adam lives down to a time that's not that long before the flood, according to these numbers. And so you know, Adam, Adam would have been around. Shem very likely would have encountered Adam. And then if Shem out lives Abram, which were never told that Abraham and Shem interacted, but had they interacted, that means that Abraham could have had eyewitness testimony about the flood and about the pre-flood world. And, and then also, you know, all those generations that Shem would have encountered prior to himself. So after this optimistic promise, or prophecy about Noah, Genesis 6 kind of joltz us back into the dark reality of the world. Yes, there are some who call upon the name of the Lord, but it seems like what we read at the beginning of Genesis 6, it's like a, it's like a photo negative almost of of Genesis 1, 27, right, where we're told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, but but in Genesis 6, verse 5, we read that the Lord saw the wickedness on man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. And then verse 11, the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and God saw the earth was filled not with the image of God, but with violence. So sad state of affairs. Before we zoom out and sort of see the big picture of this stuff, there are also some tricky parts to these verses, and I think we need to understand them because they kind of precipitate the the promise of the flood. So Sam, who are these sons of God in Genesis 6, verse 2? And do they have anything to do with these Nephilim and the mighty men who are involved, the men of valor, just I mean, what's going on here? Yeah, this is such a weird verse. So there's three possibilities for the identity of these sons of God. One is that these are children of Seth. This is the godly line that's now intermarrying with the ungodly line. Option number two is that these are kind of renowned mighty men and kings who are, you know, forcibly taking women and it's it's an example of the violence that's going on in the pre-flood world. Or the third option is that the sons of God are actually fallen angels, right? Who are taking a physical form and then, you know, engaging in this sexual activity with women. And for a long time, I resisted that third option because it just felt so weird, but I'm convinced that actually is how we should interpret this for a number of reasons. Number one, this phrase, sons of God is used a couple of times in the Bible. It's used in Job. It's used in Daniel. It's used elsewhere in Genesis, I believe. And every time it refers to angelic beings, the second reason and the thing that primarily convinced me is just reading the New Testament. When in doubt, go find a New Testament author that talks about your passage. So one instance, there are two instances where this is discussed in the New Testament. One is in second Peter. You read this in second Peter two four. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserve Noah a herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly and then he goes and he gives other examples. What we see in second Peter is Peter gives two pairs of examples. He does these fallen angels and Noah and then he gives another pair of examples, Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot. And each one, the first one is a negative example than a positive example. So the angels are negative. Noah's positive. Sodom and Gomorrah are negative. Lot is positive. Well, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah goes with the narrative of Lot. Well, what could he possibly be referring to here? This account of the angels that goes along with Noah? I mean, it's here. It's it's it's Genesis six. It's these sons of God. So I think here in second Peter two, I think also in Jude, we find that the New Testament authors are interpreting sons of God as fallen angelic figures. Now, what about these Nephilim? Some people suggest that there's Jim. Do you agree with Sam? Yes, I do. Some people suggest that these Nephilim are the, you know, offspring of not on every point, but on this point. I'm trying to get you guys to disagree. Some people think the Nephilim are, you know, it's the offspring of these sons of God and these human women. So Peter Gentry has a video on YouTube. It's a 20 minute video dedicated to answering this question about the sons of God and the Nephilim. And if people haven't watched it, you should go watch it. It's 20 minutes. There are Netflix. It's phenomenal. And one thing that Dr. Gentry points out is that this phrase, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward indicates that what Moses is doing is actually saying that the Nephilim are not the progeny of these sons of God and these human women. They were on the earth in those days already and also afterward. Now, why is Moses even mentioning this? I think what he's trying to do is de-mythologize the Nephilim for his original readers. So they're coming out of Egypt. They would have had access to all of these false myths and false religions that talk about, you know, men of might and great men and kind of superhuman people. And I think what Moses is saying is he's de-mythologizing these people and saying, you know, these people aren't the product of angels and gods with human women. These are just normal people. Yeah, I would agree with that. So the Lord promises destruction here at the end of Genesis 6. And again, it looks bleak. It looks very bad. Indeed, it is very bad, but then we have one of those happy, surprising contrasts in Scripture. Genesis 6, verse 8. Similar, it's almost like in Ephesians 2, right? It says, but God, here we have, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. We've already seen Adam fail. We've seen Adam's kids fail. And again, we have this anticipation, well, okay, could Noah be the one who finally fixes everything? Sam, real briefly, why was Noah so so special? Why did God find favor in him? Well, I think this passage shows another example of what Jim discussed earlier, this literary device of the description of fallen humanity, followed by the work that the Lord is going to do through the line of promise, we have these sons of God in this description of fallen humanity, the beginning of these verses, and then, you know, but Noah. In one sense, Noah is not special. And I think, you know, we see that in this verse, Noah found favor grace in the eyes of the Lord before it ever says in the next verse that, you know, Noah was a righteous man. First, we see he's the object of God's grace. Like, that's the ultimate reason Noah gets on this boat that Noah is saved. It's because the Lord sovereignly chooses to have grace on him. What we're going to see in these next chapters is that Noah is on the scene as a new atom of sorts, that he is recommissioned as a priest king in the way the atom was, that the Lord makes a covenant with him in the way that he does with the atom, you know, regrettably Noah's going to have a fall like Adam did, but this is kind of the next step forward in redemptive history, which is why Noah's such a prominent figure in the Bible. So, more on that next week. Jim, anything to add? Yeah, I would just point out that, you know, six, five, it says every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And then after all flashes wiped out and the only people left are Noah and his sons, we still read in 821, the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. So it's not that Noah is somehow absolved from the general sinfulness of humanity. It is the case that God set his grace and favor on him. And again, we're up against there or we're confronting the self-referentiality of Genesis. That phrase to find favor in the eyes is going to be used of Abraham in Genesis 183. And then in this passage, God is going to tell Noah, build this boat. Noah's going to do it. And it's a massive boat. So the building of that boat is probably going to require all of Noah's resources and his full-time employment, not only of himself but of his sons. So they're going to devote everything to this massive project. And I think you have to understand that as an act of faith. Do this. Okay, because I believe that you're, you have the authority to tell me this and you're telling me this for a good reason, I'm going to build the boat. So Moses doesn't spell out in the Noah story what he states in Genesis 156. Noah believed the Lord and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. But I think it's implicit there. And again, later information is shedding light back on this earlier story. We will talk more about that next week. Friends, thank you so much for listening. And remember, Psalm 111 verse 2, "Great are the works of the Lord study by all who delight in them." Jim, thanks Sam. Thank you. Thanks brother. Thank you. All right, here we are for a few rapid fire questions. Just other stuff we didn't cover. Remember brief answers, friends, brief answers. Moses tells us in chapter 6, verse 6, that the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth. It says that even it grieved his heart. Later in the in the Pentateuch in Numbers 2319, Moses tells us that God is not man that he should lie or a son of me. man that he should change his mind. Again, just reading on a surface level here, it seems like Moses is contradicting himself. It seems like he's saying that God in fact has changed his mind about this whole human enterprise and he's going to kill everybody and start over. So two questions based on this. Two questions. Number one, does God grieve like us and how should we understand language like grieves his heart in Scripture? And then the second question, does God change his mind like us and how should we understand language like here in Genesis 6 that he was sorry he had done something and how should we understand language like that in Scripture? Jim. Well, you know, the later in in 1 Samuel 15, there's that passage where the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king, but then later in the chapter, it'll say that he doesn't regret like a man. He is immutable, but he's not a block of wood and we shouldn't so logically work these things out that we have this this sort of concrete, you know, face of a stone wall or something view of God where he can't actually interact with people. I mean, the text presents him grieving and the text presents him actually really engaging in the flow of events. Now, yes, the Lord is eternal. He is outside the moment by moment development of things. Yes, he also interacts with people in an authentic way. And so I think that what what the Bible on the one hand is, is trying to guard against is he doesn't regret the way that we do. And when we regret something, it's because we look back and we say, if I had that to do over again, I would do it differently. That's not how the Lord regrets. He would do nothing differently. Everything that he does is altogether perfect and righteous and good, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't grieve. And so somehow we have to hold together these things that are intention where God is immutable and he never changes. And the Bible tells us that he regretted that he had made man on the earth. And this is one of those places where we're up against the mystery, we're up against a God who transcends us, a God that we can't necessarily get all of our logic around. He is he is accommodating himself to our finite capacities. Would it be incorrect to say that God does does not experience emotions? I think it would depend upon what you're what in the kind the the wider context in which you make that statement. I mean, on the one hand, I don't want to deny something that the Bible asserts. And the Bible says things like the Lord hates the wicked. And hatred, it can be an intense ongoing fury. It can also be a violent and passionate emotion. And the Bible says the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth. I don't I don't think that that regret should be something that we understand as being always there in God's heart. Now, as I say this, I'm not trying to deny the immutability and the unchangeable ness of God. I'm saying these are these are things that go beyond us that we have to hold intention with one another. I think of a verse like Malachi 3 verse 6 where he says for either Lord do not change. Therefore you, the children of God are not consumed. So the unchangeableness of God, the immutability of God is here. Therefore the ground for their salvation, their eventual restoration and rescue by the Lord. Because if, if we serve a God who can, can change and who does change, then we would have reason to worry, right? That he would one day change his affections for his people. But we know that he doesn't. That's right. Sam, anything to add about these questions? I'm just going to recommend a resource that if anyone wants to learn more about this, that they check out Kevin De Young's work on immutability and impassibility. What is impassibility? It's that God is not no passions. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that God has no passions in the way that we do. He doesn't just flare up with an unbidden emotion in the way that you or I might. And you can find that material by looking at the breakout sessions and then some of the plenary sessions that Kevin has done at T4G together for the gospel. Jim, why do people live so long? Ultimately, we don't know. Maybe there was a different situation before the flood and after the flood, the environment, the atmosphere was fundamentally changed. I don't know. Oh, I would say though, they almost live a thousand years. So it's like you've got the original creation, thousand year life, life spans and then the flood and the creation we live in. And then you're going to have the millennium, thousand year period and then the New Heavens and New Earth. So the Bible is chastically structured by the thousand years at the beginning ahead. I'm all for that structure world you got. Doesn't say anything about how to interpret Revelation 20, but I'm okay with saying there's a structure there. Sam, let's say you're, you, actually, no, we're not going to do that one. Let's do this. I do want to ask about Genesis 3.22 because it's so interesting that the Lord, it's like he's talking and then he stops himself. Do you, any of you have interesting comments or reflections on this verse? It's just so strange that he. I've always taken this to indicate what J R R Tolkien indicates in a number of places in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, which is that death is a mercy that God is mercifully allowing people's lives to end. And so it seems to me that Genesis 3.22 indicates that lest he reach out his hand and take of the tree of life, I'm going to drive him out and I'm going to give him the gift of death so that he can rest from his labors. I like that. Can I use Sirp your question and ask him a question? All right, Jim, here's my rapid fire question. The Lord says, you know, we're going to drive the man from the Garden of Eden, lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever. So is there some sort of, you know, property in the tree of life that is going to create for Adam an unending life? It sounds that way and it seems that the Lord doesn't want him to live forever in this sinful state that he wants to allow him to die so that he can redeem him and make him new. It seems to me.