The Discovery of Genesis (58 page)

“And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, for Cain slew him’” (Genesis 4:25). God’s original command to Adam and Eve was that they be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28). After this, during their long lifetimes of nearly 1,000 years, in the perfection of newly created mankind, the time of childbearing for the women doubtless continued for hundreds of years, instead of the approximate 30 year fertile period of women today. The world was consequently rapidly populated and a fantastic population explosion resulted. The word
posterity, descendants, afterwards
depicts the first
couple
with something
small, tender
(a baby),
following, one after another
. They begat posterity afterwards, one after another.

Cain afterward built the world’s first city. “Cain knew his wife [his sister], and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch” (Genesis 4:17). In the fifth generation of Cain’s descendants, the Bible records a man who was not only a polygamist but also a murderer. Thus the earth, very early, became divided into two factions. The wicked descendants of Cain arrogantly despised and rejected God. But the line of Seth were God-fearing. Of them it is written, “To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time men began
to call upon the name of
the Lord” (Genesis 4:26).

This term, “to call upon the name of the Lord,” is very significant and has been used in a special way throughout the Bible to indicate those seeking godliness. 1 n the Old Testament it was closely connected with the sacrificial services initiated at the time when God first provided garments of skins and expelled Adam and Eve from their garden home. Often the supplicant was rewarded by the manifestation of fire from heaven consuming the offering.
⁴

The
sheep
was the first sacrificial animal to be specified, and as previously mentioned, represented the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, the promised Seed of the woman, who was to come in the line of the faithful descendants of Seth. The Chinese and the Hebrews, who were to come years later as the descendants of Abraham, presented these specific animal offerings to one Supreme God.
⁵
For the Hebrews this God was
Elohim, Yahweh
, or
Shaddai.
His appellation by the Chinese was
ShangTi
, meaning very literally, the
emperor
above
. Note the interesting phonetic similarities between
ShangTi
(also pronounced ShangDai in some dialects) and
Shaddai
!