| of others' discards, whether it was food, clothing or whatever. He was a marked man. He lived to the east of Eden in Nod. Genesis 2:8-14 may help us see a little better where Nod might have been. "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of the land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hidekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates." The land of Havilah, we will see later refers, to one of Ham's progeny, and we will see that this land is associated with Ophir another relative. This area is west of the garden, as is Ethiopia, which is probably more westerly. It is possible that the river Hidekel describes the Tigris, lying to the east, with the Euphrates to the west of that. The area between the Tigris and the Euphrates is referred to as Mesopotamia ( between the rivers ). It is generally thought, and is logical that Adam and Eve settled in the fertile Mesopotamian area after their expulsion from the garden. There they were living the curse as God had ordained, living off of the land by the sweat of their brow. It is reasonable to assume that they would search out the most productive land to till. Hence Mesopotamia. Can we make some assumptions from scripture about Nod? The description in Genesis 2:10 of the river heads says that 'thence' became four heads, indicating that there was only one stream flow within the garden, which didn't split up until it had exited the garden. East of the garden probably placed Adam and Eve east of the Tigris in modern day Iraq or Iran, near Azerbaidzhan. Their quest for good farm land would have sent them southwest. Cain, however, 53 _______________________________________________________________________________ was doomed to failure at tillage, indicating probably that he remained in that area. Nod could be east of the Tigris, in the area later peopled by the Elamites and north. We see in Genesis 4:17-24, a dichotomous genealogy parallel to the trichotomous genealogy in Genesis 5:3-31. Genesis 4:17-24: "And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such have cattle. And his brothers name was Jubal: he was the father of all who handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah. And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.". Each genealogy has an Enoch and a Lamech, with either a Methusael or a Methuselah. The Cainite Lamech apparently felt he was defiled by a factor of 11 when compared to his great great great grandfather Cain. The Sethite Lamech was blessed with long life to 777 years, a factor of 111 when compared to the Cain 7. I don't know if there is any hidden meaning in those numerical relationships or not, they are mentioned, for what reason I don't know, beyond documenting the death of the Sethite Lamech. Looking at the growth in evil between Cain and Lamech, using a curvilinear projection, with an arbitrary value of 7 for Cain's disapproval rating with the Lord, Lamech's disapproval rating is just over 1.977 billion ( 7 to the 11th power ). Is there any wonder that the Lord was sorely grieved and took action in the form of the flood. Genesis 5:3-31: "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the 54 ________________________________________________________________________________ |