Genesis 3-4, Moses 4-5
“The Fall of Adam and Eve”
January 19 - January 25
scriptures
commentaries
Abel Keeps the Law of Sacrifice; Cain Perverts It
<p><strong>5:17; 4:2. “keeper of sheep.”</strong> Abel is followed by Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David in his vocation.</p> <p><strong>5:17; 4:2. “Cain was a tiller of the ground.”</strong> The first-century Jewish historian Josephus reported the tradition that “Cain was not only very wicked in other respects, but was wholly intent upon getting; and he first contrived to plough the ground.”<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> Thomas W. Franxman saw this as a condemnation of those who dishonor God by offering him “products forced from nature by the ingenuity of grasping man,”<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> and Louis H. Feldman noted that Josephus’s statement “connects Cain’s name, which means ‘acquisition,’ . . . with this quality in his character.”<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> The descriptions recall Doctrine and Covenants 59:18, 20, which warns that the “things which come of the earth . . . [are] made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.” The term “extortion” has the sense of forcible extraction or wresting out, as when money is obtained through coercion or threats. Hugh Nibley explained, “From the wine and olive presses we get the word ‘extortion,’ meaning to squeeze out the last drop, another way to make a margin of profit—putting the squeeze on, wringing out the last drop.”<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a></p> <p><strong>5:18. “Make an offering unto the Lord.”</strong> Nibley commented, “Notice [that Satan] says, ‘Make an offering unto the Lord.’ He doesn’t say, make an offering unto me, or make an offering unto devils. . . . Cain is being obedient . . . but not following the law of God. . . . He’s being obedient to Satan.”<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a></p> <p><strong>5:19; 4:3. “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground.”</strong> Speaking of the reason Cain’s sacrifice was rejected, the Prophet Joseph Smith explained that “ordinances must be kept in the very way God has appointed”—in this case by “the shedding of blood . . . [as] a type, by which man was to discern the great Sacrifice which God had prepared.”<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a> Not only must the form of the ordinance comply with the heavenly pattern but also the performer’s heart must be filled with the spirit of sincere repentance since “the shedding of the blood of a beast could be beneficial to no man, except it was . . . done with an eye looking forward in faith on the power of that great Sacrifice for a remission of sins.”<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a></p> <p><strong>5:21; 4:5. “Cain was very wroth.”</strong> Cain’s brooding fed self-pity and resentment that turned outward and soon sparked flames of violent passion, igniting an explosion of murderous aggression. Of Cain’s ugly transformation, Elder Spencer W. Kimball wrote, “It is doubtful if Cain had murder in his heart when his first jealous thought crossed his mind, when the first hate began to develop; but ounce by ounce, moment by moment, the little parasite developed to rob him of his strength, his balance, and his peace. The evil took over, and Cain . . . changed his appearance, his attitudes, his life, and became a world wanderer, vicious and desolate.”<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Flavius Josephus, “The Antiquities of the Jews,” in<em> The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish Historian. Translated from the Original Greek, according to Havercamp’s Accurate Edition</em>, trans. William Whiston, rev. ed. (1737; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1980), 26.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Thomas W. Franxman, <em>Genesis and the “Jewish Antiquities” of Flavius Josephus</em> (Rome, Italy: Biblical Institute Press, 1979), 67; see also page 66 and note 5.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Louis H. Feldman, “Hellenization in Josephus’ Portrayal of Man’s Decline,” in<em> Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough</em>, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1968), 346.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Hugh W. Nibley, “Work We Must, but the Lunch Is Free,” in<em> Approaching Zion</em>, ed. Don E. Norton, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 9 (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989), 216–217.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Hugh W. Nibley, <em>Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price</em> (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS], 2004), 238–239.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Joseph Smith Jr., October 5, 1840, in Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., <em>Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith</em> (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1969), 169.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Joseph Smith Jr., January 22, 1834, in Smith, <em>Teachings of the Prophet</em>, 58.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> Spencer W. Kimball, “The Mistletoe,” in<em> Faith Precedes the Miracle</em> (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1972), 229.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author:</strong> Jeffrey M. Bradshaw<br /><strong>General Editor:</strong> Taylor Halverson<br /><strong>Associate Editor:</strong> Morgan Tanner<br /><strong>Senior Editor:</strong> Sarah Whitney Johnson<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Sam Lofgran<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Verlanne Johnson</p>
Old Testament Minute: Genesis by BMC
Cain Swears a Pact with Satan
<p><strong>5:28. “Cain took one of his brothers’ daughters to wife, and they loved Satan more than God.”</strong> The mention of Cain’s brothers in verse 27 coupled with the statement that the couple loved Satan more than God (see also verse 13) makes it reasonable to suppose that Cain’s wife was the daughter of one of the unbelieving sons of Adam rather than of the righteous Abel. Note the later Old Testament custom for men to marry someone in their kin network, often a niece, as in the case of Nahor, brother of Abraham.</p> <p><strong>5:29. “Swear unto me by thy throat.”</strong> Anciently, discretion in the revealing of sacred religious knowledge was solemnly accompanied by the symbolic enactment of self-cursing. For example, in the Aramaic Sefire treaty, an eighth-century BC document drawn up between two kings of the Assyrian empire, we read a description of the consequences of treaty violation: “As this calf is cut up, thus [the one making the oath] . . . shall be cut up.”<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> BYU professors Richard D. Draper, S. Kent Brown, and Michael D. Rhodes observed, “The throat is one of the most vulnerable parts of the body to an ancient weapon such as a knife or a spear. Hence, it is vital to the continuation of life. In addition, cutting the throat of a sacrificial animal began the process of a sacred offering. It seems plain that Satan’s oaths gain credibility not through his name but only through repeating the divine name [‘swear . . . by the living God’] and, possibly, mimicking genuinely sacred covenants made in God’s name.”<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></p> <p><strong>5:29. “by the living God.”</strong> Nibley commented, “Notice . . . , who do they swear by? By the living God. They don’t swear by anybody else.”<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> Similarly, we read in 1 Enoch 69:13 that the wicked angel “Kasbeel . . . requested [the archangel] Michael to show him the hidden name, that he might enunciate it in the oath, so that those might quake before that name and oath who revealed all that was in secret to the children of men.”<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a></p> <p><strong>5:30. “Satan sware unto Cain.”</strong> Nibley pointed out the illusory nature of Satan’s seeming subservience: “Cain rule over Satan? Yes, that is the arrangement—the Devil serves his client, gratifies his slightest whim, pampers his appetites, and is at his beck and call throughout his earthly life, putting unlimited power and influence at his disposal through his command of the treasures of the earth, gold, and silver. But in exchange the victim must keep his part of the agreement, following Satan’s instructions on earth and remaining in his power thereafter.”<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a></p> <p><strong>5:31. “Truly I am Mahan.”</strong> Draper, Brown, and Rhodes commented, “Cain takes a new name as an indicator of his new status, also a later characteristic of righteous persons (Abram becomes Abraham; and so on).”<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a></p> <p><strong>5:31. “that I may murder and get gain.”</strong> The essence of the great secret of Cain is what Nibley called “converting life into property. Cain got the degree of Master Mahan, tried the system out on his brother, and gloried in its brilliant success, declaring that at last he could be free, as only property makes free, and that Abel had been a loser in a free competition.”<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Sefire treaty, cited in Nahum M. Sarna, <em>Genesis:</em> <em>The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation Commentary</em>, The JPS Torah Commentary, ed. Nahum M. Sarna and Chaim Potok (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 114–115.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Richard D. Draper, S. Kent Brown, and Michael D. Rhodes, <em>The </em><em>Pearl of Great Price: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary</em> (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2005), 67–68.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Hugh W. Nibley, <em>Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price </em>(Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS], 2004), 242.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Hugh W. Nibley, <em>Enoch the Prophet</em>, ed. Stephen D. Ricks, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 2 (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1986), 182.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Nibley, <em>Enoch the Prophet</em>, 175.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Draper et al., <em>Pearl of Great Price</em>, 68.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Hugh W. Hugh, “How Firm a Foundation! What Makes It So,” in<em> Approaching Zion</em>, ed. Don E. Norton, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 9 (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989), 166.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author:</strong> Jeffrey M. Bradshaw<br /><strong>General Editor:</strong> Taylor Halverson<br /><strong>Associate Editor:</strong> Morgan Tanner<br /><strong>Senior Editor:</strong> Sarah Whitney Johnson<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Verlanne Johnson</p>
Old Testament Minute: Genesis by BMC
