Here are eight verses from Genesis that I want to discuss this morning. AT Shabbat service yesterday I asked a friend of mine about the possibility of Eve being pregnant in the Garden of Eden. It became a rather interesting conversation and I thought you might find it interesting, too. Please read these verses carefully and I welcome your comments.
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’
Gen 3:17 And unto Adam He said: ‘Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying: Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
Gen 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’
Gen 3:20 And the man called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Gen 3:21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said: ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.’
Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Gen 3:24 So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.
Gen 4:1 And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said: ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.’
Gen 4:2 And again she bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Quick note – “cursed are you above all cattle” might not seem like much of a curse, because cows look rather comfortable, in general. But their destiny is to be eaten. They are food, and all will be chopped up and fed to some other creature, usually humans. So I suppose that a destiny that ended on some dinner plate might in fact be creepy. Not that they know it. Not until slaughter time, anyway. Then they know, and that must be horrible to them. Poor things.
Let’s get right to it. Eve and Adam disobey Yahuah. They listen to a contrary voice and betray their very maker. That’s bad. The very first time they are tempted, the very first temptation (on record, at least), they both fail. This is puzzling, don’t you think? I mean, here is a shining reptile having a conversation with them and giving he and she new and opposite data. A conflict.
And what do they do? Well, we know what they did and Yahuah punished them – Adam with a life of growing food and eve with painful childbirths. Ok. Childbirth is not pretty. It is extremely painful for the mom. And then it’s over and you have a beautiful baby. Some mothers die in the birthing process. My own Beloved X did also come closer to dying or losing our last baby than she knows. I have never told her because why alarm her, but the surgeon gave me “the look” and I could see that he was desperate. Baby momma sensed that something was wrong and was calling out for me loudly, even though I was right beside her, holding her hand.
My curiosity in our section of Genesis today regards the conversation regarding children, or offspring. Tell me just exactly what Adam and Eve knew about sex, procreation and pregnancy before they sinned.
I will wait…..
Well?
Waiting…
Exactly. Cold silence. No one knows, but certainly we are reading the very first mention of “children” in 3:16.
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’
Is this the first mention by Yahuah to Adam? Are Adam and Eve looking at each other asking “What is childbirth? And what is “pain”?
Obviously, since Yahuah is telling them that childbirth will henceforth be painful, He had to have told them earlier what the sex organs were primarily for. They had to have known about copulation prior to the fall, because the text reads quite fluidly and assumes that Adam/Eve obviously knew about sex and pregnancy.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. Yahuah creates Adam, concludes that “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make for him a helpmate…” So He makes Eve, and Adam sees her. They are perfect in every way, so they look pretty good to one another. So being a man, I know that Adam walked up to her, got pretty close and at some point they embraced. All while naked. Any middle-schooler in America can tell you what happened next. All Yahuah had to do was explain the plumbing.
Therefore sex had to have happened prior to the fall. Right? I mean, suppose that you are Adam or you are Eve, and Yahuah just told you and your mate what those unusual objects on your body were primarily designed to do. Yes, sex is their primary purpose. That’s why it feels good. Really good. Its bait 🙂 Make those babies but more importantly, establish a strong bond between a husband/wife pair.
There is definitely a spirit bonding through sex. It is so important that one of my foundational regrets is not being a virgin and marrying a virgin. I wish I had a lifetime partner in a truly loving relationship. But historically I marry women who have no interest in Truth, and in truth, Truth is a relatively recent (2017) passion for me. But it is the shining path, the golden street to heaven. Amen.
Seriously, I have been married four times. Three of them refused to even attend church with me within a few years after we married (except the first, who never attended church with me but went with her mother elsewhere), and the fourth (in no particular order here) had an affair with a co-worker. They divorced me, except the first, who was a wonderful woman and beloved friend (age 20 and 21), but she had problems that were so bad that I did divorce her for her own good, and for mine. I wept over that loss for a solid 10 years. But you know, Paul says its better to marry than to burn so…
But my question is this: Adam and Eve had to have known all about sex and babies before the fall. Eve was probably no virgin when she was tempted.
No, you do not know where I am going with this.
Read this slowly and ask yourself any logical questions that come to mind. Each sentence and keywords in each sentence – what is Yahuah saying? This isn’t an “are you really saved” test. There is no pass/fail. This is a test for you to learn how deeply to peer into the Words. Because there is one big, fat, obvious question that is outlined in neon and shouted with bullhorns here.
Let’s get to the nut of the matter.
Gen 3:24 So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.
Gen 4:1 And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said: ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.’
Gen 4:2 And again she bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
The scripture says “So He drove out the man…”
Then in Gen 4 – “And the man knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said “I have gotten a man with the help of Yahuah.”
So my question is this: Was Eve pregnant when she sinned? Did the unborn Cain transition from a safe, perfect womb and blood supply to a sinful, imperfect womb and blood supply, and was this transition the catalyst that created the monster?
Was it the intent of Satan to target the unborn human growing in Eve? Was it Satan’s goal to create a bloodline uniquely preconditioned for rebellion by corrupting the soul, or the womb of Eve while she was carrying an unborn human child? Would Eve have known that she was pregnant, having zero experience with pregnancy?
The order of scripture reads that Yahuah drove out “the man” in v24, and in 4:1 “and the man knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain”. That reads as if it all happened in the space of 12 words, outside the Garden. But my opinion on this is driven by the condition of Cain. We all have wondered what happened to make Cain so wicked.
Some speculate that the shining serpent, or Nachash (Nah-kahsh) impregnated Eve, but the words say that Adam knew her and she conceived.
Moses wrote this maybe and roughly 3000 years ago, so maybe also 3000 years after the fall? A long time. I write a lot, and in order to write a lot, one must read even more. I get accustomed to what I call “flow dynamics”. Flow dynamics is how I measure the pace of events in a document when no specifics are given. Its like a telling a story that goes “And then, a long ago…” or “Fast forward to 2046…” and that skips over some important details.
So when I read “”And the man knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said “I have gotten a man with the help of Yahuah.” – that’s a flow dynamic that fairly gallops through time, and its a method of glossing over unknown details. It is completely foolish to even suggest that Adam and Eve did not have sex in the Garden. What better place? Obviously they knew about childbirth because Yahuah cursed the birth pangs. Adam and Eve knew of pregnancy and procreation and vaginas and penises already. They posed no questions, unless Moses left those out. And if he left those out, he certainly could just as easily left out the “already pregnant” part of the fall.
Think about it. Adam and Eve get kicked out of the Garden and there is a flaming sword wielded by a Cherub at the only entrance to the Garden. Where did they go? How far? What did they carry, or did they carry anything? There is a lot of interesting information that does not exist, so when I gallop along on the “And the man knew his wife…” I’m saying “Woah, slow down”.
But no. When Moses wrote Genesis, is it possible that He filled in blank spaces or odd corners with phrases that simply skip over the things that he might not have considered or understood? We do that today. All of us. It is exceedingly difficult to be razor sharp in analysis of every word or phrase or idiom, to be ruthlessly precise in never making assumptions, even dealing with our human affairs. Imagine how Moses had to deal with material 3000 years old when it landed in his in-box.
Yes He was close to Yahuah, but Moses got a little bit testy at times. Striking the rock, smashing the tablets – the man got a bit frustrated sometimes, and that frustration would have carried itself over to writing Genesis, too. Inevitably so, hence the gallop.
What do you think? What essentially drove Cain mad? How many times did Cain hear the story about being thrown out of the garden while Eve was pregnant with him? What drove Cain to such hostility that he killed his brother? Was he broken in the womb? Was he conceived in perfection but then had his DNA corrupted in the womb by his mother’s rebellion?
Is this why she said “I have gotten a man with the help of Yahuah?” Was she trying to co-opt Yahuah into bearing responsibility for Cain’s evil character, which might have long been a concern if she knew she was carrying a child when she fell? Yahuah would have known that she was pregnant in the Garden, and he would naturally have informed her of the pain she would consequently experience during childbirth if she were already pregnant.
Does this make sense?
Cain was jealous of Abel because Yahuah accepted his sacrificial offerings and had a good heart. Yahuah spoke to Cain and told him if he offered up sacrifice without his sin of jealousy he would have a blessing Genesis 4:6, 7. Adam was the one held responsible for establishing perfection in his offspring by obedience. Having sinned meant his offspring had to rely on their conscience and had to develop love for Yahuah by keeping obedience to his laws. Cain was jealous and needed to learn to love his brother and conquer his sinful disposition just as the Pharisees and many others who despised Yahusha for being the epitome of love and goodness and for that they had him put to death. So too Cain despised Abel for his good character that was pleasing to Yahuah. See Matthew 23:27-35. As you write also Cain had no remorse over the killing of his brother only he said His punishment was too much to bare always thinking they have freedom to hate, murder be greedy for self… Read more »
Dear Jerry Shalom and Blessings to you but I must interrupt from where you were waiting for a reply for here is my reply on the assertion of Genesis 3:16 re the increase in birth pains. If you look to Genesis 1:28 God blessed. Adam and Eve and instructed them to be fruitful and become many and fill the earth. Obedience would have meant a perfect human race for disobedience would never have been tolerated in human offspring if Adam had obeyed the command given him not to eat of two trees in the garden that belonged to Yahuah, being the tree of knowledge of good and bad and the tree of everlasting life.. The word of Yahuah is there for clearer understanding. Would Yahuah prefer I didn’t show further insight according to scripture for Adam and Eve because refusing to procreate would have been disobedience. Also, it was after banishment Eve became pregnant with the first of her offspring. By Genesis 3:22 it is stated if they ate from the tree of everlasting life… Read more »
Food for thought indeed. I am still wondering how humanity avoided inbreeding starting from only two people. So many questions.
There were no genetic errors early on. Cain probably snagged a sister to be his unfortunate wife. But my question is this: He built cities? For whom? Why? Cities? The dude was the third human being on earth. Cities???
I wonder that too. How did they multiply to have armies and cities so soon after creation of two persons.
I go with Jubilees CH 3 here but even this doesn’t have enough clarity to say so convincingly. It’s a good question though!
Yeah, a lot of speculation. I just thought it was interesting. It came from a conversation I had in the lobby of our church with a good friend of mine. Maybe Yahuah did it to let Adam and Eve experience the fruit of their rebellion. I don’t think He would, but He let Satan kill Jobs’ kids.
This from Brendon to Jerry Davis – “Hi Jerry, there’s also John 8:44 to consider,
“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth”, (CAIN- OFFSPRING).
Gets you thinking , doesn’t it ?
Brendon
(This is a reply to Brendon’s question) Yeah, you know that is a very interesting point you make, and I think about it a lot. Does “of your father” mean a genetic relationship? It certainly is a very strong statement, especially from the mouth of our Savior. “Of” – dna or merely followers of Satan? If they had been mere followers, wouldn’t He have said “you follow Satan and tell his lies” or something like that?
“You want the desires of your FATHER” is plain as day to me. To support the “DNA of the devil” theory, the current Pharisees, circa 2022, demand that any Rabbi who wishes to become a member of the Pharisee sect must PROVE their lineage back to the time Yahusha spoke those words. They have to prove that they had a forefather judging in the court in order to be considered for possible admission.
Cain is root word for the french town of Cannes, meaning the town at the watery reed. Behold the emblem of Cannes Film Festival. In German, reed translates either der Reet or das Schilfrohr. Through a reed one can blow air or a melody. Abel means blow of air in one rather narrow Hebrew translation, see German das Havelland, Avel-> Habelland, a lush green meadowed grass and woodland in the northern heartland of Germany near Berlin. So I would say metaphorically, Abel the swoosh of fresh pastoral winds blew the whistle on his probably well-gifted, yet ethically immature brother Cain who failed to humble himself righteously on time when his sacrifice failed to find favor before Yahuah.
Winged reeds like our daemonic friend from Garden of Eden, X winged serpent god.
Interesting.