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We Who Thirst
Delve into the captivating tales of women from the Bible, exploring their lives within ancient cultures and historical contexts. These narratives reveal not only their stories but also the profound love and beauty of the God we worship.
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We Who Thirst
001 Women in Context: Eve (Genesis 2-4)
What if Eve's story is one of redemption and hope rather than blame and shame? This episode of We Who Thirst challenges traditional perceptions by providing a nuanced exploration of Eve's character in the Bible. We'll examine Genesis chapters 2 through 4, shedding light on Eve's role as an indispensable partner to Adam and the emotional and psychological impacts of their choices. Prepare to see Eve not as a mere "helper" but as an essential ally in the divine narrative of creation.
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Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast. We are currently considering women of the Bible in their cultural, familial and historical context. You can support the ministry of we who Thirst by joining us on Patreon For the moments you are wanting to ask questions or discuss these women of the Bible in even more detail. We have a member-only Discord group for the $6 and above tier on Patreon. Now let's get started. Today we are talking about Eve.
Jessica Jenkins:A lot of us especially as I listen to you have heard very negative things about Eve in the way she's been taught. Some of us have been taught that she is the reason for the fall of humanity, that women can't be trusted, that they need men to make choices for them, that if Adam had been a biblical man, he would have stopped her. If she had been a biblical woman those are in quotes she would have submitted to Adam or followed his leadership, rather than eating the fruit. Today, what I want to do in this podcast is walk through Genesis 2 through 4, looking at Eve as a person and a character. We're not today going to deal with whether she is an archetype or whether she really lived. I am going to handle the text of Scripture as though it is accurate to her experience, and we're going to talk about the way she is presented in Scripture. As I have studied Eve over the last couple years, I find her to actually be a very redemptive character and for there to be great beauty in her story, and that's what I want to dive into today. One thing I think is really important for us as we look at Eve is to think about our own lives. We all know the general story of Adam and Eve in the garden and how she ate the fruit and gave it to the man. But we often don't think about how she would have felt in chapter four, where her son murders her other son and she has to process that. And how does she process that? I'm sure all of us can relate to making a mistake and looking at that and seeing the consequences of that and wishing we could take it back. And Eve shows us something interesting about how do you make the biggest mess up in the world, how do you process that and how do you move forward in the future. So let's start at the beginning of the story of Eve.
Jessica Jenkins:We see in chapter one of Genesis that Eve is created in the image of God. It means she is a representative of God alongside Adam. She is created to be his helper, she is created to partner with him and we'll walk through it, little bits at a time as we go through. So God has created a garden. It is the holy of holies. It is his meeting place for his divine heavenly council of rulers and his human council of rulers over the earth. You have both going on in this setting. That is the garden, it is the holy of holies and the cosmic temple of God. God has made the man and he has commissioned the man, the human, to be a priestly representative on God's behalf over all of creation. But God looks at the man who he has just created and he has said it is not good for the man to be alone. I need to make for him an indispensable ally, to partner with him in the task of being a priestly representative over the entire earth. Task of being a priestly representative over the entire earth.
Jessica Jenkins:Our English translations usually say a helper suitable. I'm reading the NIV. That is what the NIV says. And so God creates Eve to be a helper suitable in your Bible, most likely some version of that or I think a better translation would be indispensable ally. Before we dive into Eve and her story, I want to unpack that for us very briefly. I will unpack it in more detail in the complementarian egalitarian cohort. But helper suitable, I think, is actually not the best way to describe Eve or women in general.
Jessica Jenkins:The word helper in English has a lot of connotations that are not the connotations of the Hebrew word ezer, which means helper. In English we think of helper as somebody who's secondary, their role, is assistant. They are assistant to the general manager. They're not doing the work, they are helping someone else doing the work. Typically, a helper is someone who has less experience, expertise, knowledge or ownership of a project. They are often a lower social class and even a juvenile Think about like Mommy's Little Helper. Or for a lower social class, think of the movie the Help that talked about Black women who were just the help for the white women.
Jessica Jenkins:When I think of helper, I think of maybe my husband's best friend coming over to help him build a deck. My husband's best friend may have more knowledge and expertise on how to build a deck than my husband, but he does not have ownership of that deck. It is our deck, it's not the best friend's deck. So, whereas he has greater knowledge and expertise, he lacks ownership. If you have equal ownership, equal knowledge and equal expertise, then the word in English we would use to describe you is rarely helper, but it is often partner or even ally, and it is this picture that the Hebrew has for Eve.
Jessica Jenkins:Helper also has connotations in English for a subordinate status, and help is often nice but it's not necessary. I like having help around the house. It would be great if someone would help me do the dishes. But are any of those things necessary? Not in the slightest. I can do it. Would I like help? Sure, it's nice, it makes my life easier, but it's not necessary. But when you look at Genesis 2 and 3 in the Hebrew, what you see is that the creation of woman, the creation of Eve, is absolutely necessary. She is a necessary ally to partner with man in the task of being a priestly representative.
Jessica Jenkins:In 2.15, genesis 2.15, it says NIV, the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Those terms work and take care of. When used together, those Hebrew terms indicate a priestly function. Throughout the rest of Moses' writings, the first five books of the Bible and most of the Old Testament. So what, in 2.15, god is doing is instilling the man as a priestly representative in the Garden. He is a priestly function taking care of the holy of holies of God's cosmic temple.
Jessica Jenkins:God looks at the man and he says this job of being a priestly representative is too big for you to do alone. You can't do it by yourself. You need an indispensable, because you can't do it without them. I lie, because you need someone equal to you to do this. And so, therefore, god makes woman. So just pause for a second and imagine your woman, regardless of the literature or whether she's a real person.
Jessica Jenkins:We're just going to go through the text as though what it says is how it happened for Eve. So imagine you're Eve and you just wake up. God has taken the side of the man. That's not his rib and that's not splitting him in half. That Hebrew word side literally means like put the sticker on the side of the box, that kind of side. It's a directional term indicating the side of a structure, a box like the Ark of the Covenant or a building. So God has taken part of the side of the man and he has crafted a woman.
Jessica Jenkins:And she wakes up, she opens her eyes and she is in the Holy of Holies of the Cosmic Temple. There are flowering trees surrounding her, rabbits hopping slowly through the grass, maybe a deer foraging off to her right. She sits up and they're gazing at her. An absolute wonder and awe is her man, from whom she was creative, and he bursts out in joyous song, verse 23,. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. She hears these words from Adam and her heart thrills. He is the one to whom she is connected. They intrinsically belong together. They are one flesh, created from the same thing. She walks with him and they become one flesh. They are united together. They are both naked and they feel no shame whatsoever. This is how it began for Eve. Then the story moves on a little bit farther. It introduces a new character. It says now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. This is chapter 3, verse 1.
Jessica Jenkins:Now, if you recall some of the Genesis posts, serpents in the ancient world were considered beings of chaos. They are chaos agents, often related to the sea, and they would bring chaos and typically gods like Baal or Marduk have to defeat the serpent of chaos. So now we have a serpent in the garden and the original audience is going to be like, oh dear, what's going on with the serpent? Think dragon. Think like Chinese dragon kind of serpent, not like little cute snake. Some of you may not think snakes are cute. I think they're kind of cute, but think like ferocious Chinese dragon. Think the serpent in Revelation, the red serpent that wants to eat Mary. That kind of serpent, dragon-esque kind of animal. It's not a little garter snake, it's not a boa constrictor, it is a dragon, it is an possible and this idea comes from Michael Heiser in the Unseen Realm that this serpent was at one time a throne guardian for God.
Jessica Jenkins:I mentioned very briefly the divine counsel God has. He made a spiritual realm that we are not fully aware of and we struggle to understand and in the spiritual realm he made angels and seraphim and messengers, and there's bunches of different names for these different spirit beings. Some of them fell, some of them rebelled against God and got kicked out of heaven at some point in all of the biblical and creation story. One of these was a beautiful angel and he I'm using angel generically for spirit beings and he decided he was as good as God and God said no and kicked him out of heaven. And so this serpent may or may not be that exact angelic divine, not as in God, god, god but a spirit being. This serpent may be that. I'm not going to go into the whole spirit realm, but you have this serpent who appears in the garden.
Jessica Jenkins:Now it's interesting because we look at this and say she's not surprised. No, one's surprised. A snake is suddenly talking to her. Wouldn't that be shocking? Well, if you consider the garden as the holy of holy of God, it is his meeting place where God would meet with both his spiritual, divine council of spirit beings who later on he gives them power to rule over nations, these spirit beings, and his human council, which is Adam and Eve. The garden is the meeting place. Eve could have been used to interfacing with these spirit beings all the time. It is not unusual for her to be seeing these spirit beings, and they might need to take a corporeal form to interface with Adam and Eve, and who knows what different forms they would take. And so she sees a talking serpent.
Jessica Jenkins:Okay, one of God's messengers is here, somebody part of the divine council, that's fine, I'm going to have a conversation, but this conversation does not go the way she expects. She starts to engage him and he immediately starts questioning her about the covenant that God gave both to her and Adam before she was created. And that covenant was back in verse 16 and 17,. The Lord, god, commanded the man and said you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die. So God has given this covenant to the man. The covenant is you must not eat. If you eat you will die. That's the whole thing. So the serpent eat, you will die. That's the whole thing. So the serpent, this spirit being, starts talking to Eve and he questions it. He said did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent we may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that's in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die. She adds to God's command here as she's trying to process and think this through. The serpent replies you will certainly not die.
Jessica Jenkins:Verse four the serpent said to the woman for verse five you know that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And here Eve pauses. She knows she's in the garden, she knows it is a beautiful place, she knows she has perfect communion with God and perfect communion with Adam. But she hears what the serpent says and she wonders knowing good and evil, this is something the serpent knows about. The divine creation of God's divine counsel, this is something obviously God knows about. Did God fail to give his human representatives the same kind of knowledge he gave his divine representatives? And again, divine is not like God there, it's more like a spirit being. So she's questioning this and she wonders. So she's questioning this and she wonders. And that plants in her heart a seed wondering is God really good? Am I missing out on something? And verse six then the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and it was also desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were open and they realized they were naked. So imagine this for a moment.
Jessica Jenkins:Eve listens to the serpent. Whatever is going on in her thought process? We don't know. Scholars will give you answers. They'll say she wanted knowledge, she didn't trust God. We are not told what is going on in her heart. We know she listens, we know she sees the fruit, that it is good and it is pleasing and desirable for gaining wisdom. She wants that wisdom, so she takes and she eats.
Jessica Jenkins:Imagine with me that moment. You were in the garden. It is beautiful. Think about that feeling in your chest or wherever in your body. You feel this emotion, the most joyous moment you can imagine. Just that feeling of delight and ecstasy in your heart and in your body, the lightness of your spirit. You have no weight, no concerns. It's just this joyful moment. If you have one of those in your life, conjure up that feeling in your body. That is where Eve is at. She's just living in that space all the time because she's in perfect communion with God and her husband. And then she wants the wisdom and she decides to disobey God and the moment her teeth crunch into the fruit.
Jessica Jenkins:Everything changes. She crunches the fruit, she hands it to Adam, who is with her, and we'll talk about that in a second. He takes a bite and then they look at each other. Everything changes. They look down at themselves. They realize they're naked. The wonderful light, free feeling of joy is gone and it's replaced with terror. It's replaced with shame. They look at each other and they almost recoil. They want to dive into the bushes to hide themselves. Everything shifted in a moment. She and Adam. They are looking at each other, maybe hiding in separate bushes. Not sure how do we commune with one another Now we're naked. What's going on? I want to hide. I'm terrified.
Jessica Jenkins:They start gathering leaves, trying to sew them together with bits of vine. They don't know what's going on. They just they feel this terror, this shame. They have to cover themselves. They have to. They don't know how they need to figure this out and they're looking at each other with distrust.
Jessica Jenkins:Eve woke up to a face of ardent admiration, and now those same eyes glare at her with blame and concern. Arms that once wrapped her up in safety and love now are frantically sewing leaves together to hide his shame, something that she cannot be a part of and though she bears her own, she cannot understand his and she cannot connect with him. That connection that they had. That instant beautiful oneness of flesh is now severed. And she looks at the fruit laying on the ground where they dropped it. And she looks at her husband and she looks at the leaves she's trying to patch together to make clothing, and sorrow, for the first time, enters her heart and she cannot process this feeling. She has no tools. She's never felt it before. She just sits there in this hiding, trying to cover up what has happened, and she is afraid. Then they hear God's voice.
Jessica Jenkins:The man and his wife verse 8, heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man where are you? Adam, in this text, is the first representative, she is the second representative. They partner together to represent God as priests, but Adam is the first representative and God calls to him. And God says Adam, where are you? And Adam answers I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.
Jessica Jenkins:Eve's listening to this exchange and she hears the Lord's voice, she hears the sorrow, she hears the distance and she's afraid. She's never been afraid of God before, but now she's afraid of God before, but now she's afraid. She hears his voice, as the Lord says, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? And then she hears the man, the one with whom she is one flesh, the one who is supposed to care for her and hold her and partner with her. But now he acts as an enemy and he says the woman you put here with me, she gave me some of the fruit from the tree and I ate it. A voice who once sang over her with joyous celebration now points an accusing finger at her and says it's her fault. She did it. We are in this mess and it is because of her. The man ate just as willingly.
Jessica Jenkins:Some people would say oh, the man. He was being passive. He didn't do his manly duty of leadership and protection, and that's why they're in this mess. Or the woman didn't do her womanly duty of following and submitting to the man's rule. Rather than talking to the serpent, she should have gone and got Adam to talk to the serpent, because a woman shouldn't do that. The text doesn't say any of this For the original audience, women handing food to a man is normal.
Jessica Jenkins:They wouldn't have seen those sorts of connotations in the text. And if you're going to go to the woman failing to act as a godly woman and the man failing to act as a godly man, then you're jumping the original sin to something pre their disobedience. You're saying original sin didn't really start with them choosing the fruit to eat the fruit. It really started when man was passive and didn't lead and when woman stepped up and didn't follow. And you're making the issue of Genesis about a manhood and womanhood decision. That is circumsposed upon the text rather than what the text says, which is disobedience. They both chose to disobey. It never says the man was passive.
Jessica Jenkins:We do not know what he was doing. We know he was there with her. He could have been cheering her on, he could have been agreeing with her. They could have even had a side conversation. That's not recorded. We don't know. We simply know that she ate the fruit and he ate the fruit and they disobeyed. And now that man who made a conscious choice to eat the fruit he may have even let her eat first, out of gentlemanliness or kindness. He could have had her eat the fruit first to be like oh God said, this fruit would kill us. Well, I'm going to test it out on her before I eat it myself. Oh, she didn't die, I'll eat it. We don't know what he was thinking either. It's dangerous to assume their thoughts.
Jessica Jenkins:But we do know here that he now turns on her. He made a conscious choice and, rather than taking responsibility, he blames the woman. And he says to God the woman you put here with me. So not only does he blame the woman, he blames the creator, he blames God. You gave me the woman. She's the one who did this. She gave me from the fruit and I ate it.
Jessica Jenkins:And now, the moment the woman has been absolutely dreading since her teeth pierced, the skin of the fruit, has come. The Lord, god, looks at her and I imagine Eve just breaking down in sobs. She doesn't even know how to respond. And as God's heart breaks, he says to the woman what is this that you have done? The woman said serpent deceived me and I ate. She points to the serpent trying to explain the story and she admits I ate. I was deceived, I am to blame.
Jessica Jenkins:So then God turns to the serpent. Adam and Eve breathe a sigh of relief. Now he's no longer looking at them. And God says to the serpent because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock, all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.
Jessica Jenkins:As Adam and Eve sit and listen to this, she's pondering and she hears God say that the serpent will hate her, there will be enmity between her and the serpent, and that this will be for their offspring as well. And that feeling of terror that she has had is now amplified. She sees the serpent staring at her with hatred, with anger, and she senses that from now on she and her children will never be safe. There is a spiritual being out there that has it out for them. Particularly this being desires to harm Eve and all of her daughters. He desires to harm her children because there will be an offspring. And as she ponders, a tiny flicker of hope resurrects in her heart. She has a tiny flicker of hope with an avalanche of terror. And the hope is, one day, an offspring of hers. She's seen baby animals born. She knows someday she will have a child. This offspring will crush the head of the serpent.
Jessica Jenkins:Maybe she straightens her shoulders a little bit and glares back at the serpent, thinking your end is coming and I will have a hand in bringing you down. Then God turns to her and he said I will make your pains and childbearing very severe. With painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. The interpretation of verse 16 is varied and it's all over the board. It's outside the scope of this podcast episode to go into it. We will dive into it much more deeply in the complementarian egalitarian cohort.
Jessica Jenkins:But in brief, her desire to be for her husband. In church history. The interpretation of that is that this God says this to the woman that her desire will be for her husband. In church history, the interpretation of that is that this God says this to the woman that her desire will be for her husband. She will need his protection, she will need his provision, she will need him to watch over her while she has children and she will have sexual desire for him because he just told her she's going to have pain in childbirth. So she needs to have a bigger desire in her heart than her fear of pain in order for her to want to have children.
Jessica Jenkins:And God is saying I'm going to work all that out.
Jessica Jenkins:It's going to hurt. The world is now shattered. It's broken. Having kids is going to hurt you like nothing else. Not just the conceiving, not just the bearing, not just the carrying in pregnancy, not just the giving birth. Having children is going to hurt, and any of us who are mothers know a snippet of that pain. When our children turn on us, maybe they even say the words mommy, I hate you when our children do something wrong, like we can see. If you do that, it's going to hurt. But I have to let you make some mistakes, because you're going to learn more from messing up and falling and scraping your knee than you are from me telling you don't do that or you'll scrape your knee. I have to let you hurt, but when I let you hurt, it hurts me too.
Jessica Jenkins:The reality of the broken world is that as Eve watches her children and her children's children and her children's children's children, it's going to hurt. We see something similar to this when Simeon in the temple talks to Mary and he says Mary, your son is destined for the rise and fall of nations, but a sword will pierce your heart as well. There is pain that goes along with mothering, because the world is broken. But there will be a child that comes from woman who will crush the serpent. The chaos dragon of old will have power no longer. His head will be crushed by the foot of an offspring of the woman. And Eve stares back at the serpent, clinging to that thread of hope. She was perhaps first to disbelieve God of the human race, but now she has a hope to hold on to. Then the Lord turns to the man. To Adam, he said because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you that you must not eat from it.
Jessica Jenkins:Cursed is the ground because of you. God doesn't actually ever curse Adam and Eve. He curses the serpent and he curses the ground. Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil. You will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow. You will eat your food Until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return. Adam was created from the ground, the Adamah, and so from the Adamah you were taken dust, and to dust you will return. God speaks over them. I believe these often shorthand called the curses.
Jessica Jenkins:But even though only the serpent and the ground are cursed, I think for Adam and Eve, he spells out for them the results. This is the results of the brokenness that they ushered in. The result for the woman is that the serpent has an extra special hatred for her and he's going to be trying to hurt her in every way possible. The result is having children in every way is going to be a painful experience. The result is she will have a desire for her husband that will motivate her to have children and her husband will rule over her.
Jessica Jenkins:I believe this is where hierarchy comes into gender relationships. It is because of the fall that man will rule over women. We see cultures from here on out that are primarily patriarchal. There are almost no truly matriarchal societies ever in the history of the world, and we can point right back to this verse, because he, the man, will rule over you, the woman. Ergo patriarchy for the rest of known history. The man work is going to be hard. It's not going to be fulfilling, everything's going to go wrong. You're going to have printers that aren't working. You're going to have fields that grow thorns. You're going to have buildings fall on top of laborers. You're going to do this until you finally become the ground from which you were made.
Jessica Jenkins:In response to this, adam turns to Eve. She might be waiting. What is he going to say? He's already blamed me. He said it's my fault, but Adam was listening too, and Adam heard the promise and he heard the hope. And so Adam turns to his wife and named her Eve, and this is a name that is a recognition of her role and her status. Think about how beautiful this is. She in many ways did lead humanity into sin. Her husband immediately turns on her and blames her, when he is just as culpable. But now he looks at her and he recognizes, according to God's promise, that there will be a seed from you that will crush the serpent. Now Adam looks at Eve and says you will be the mother of all living. He gives her a name that is the embodiment of hope. It is from you, eve, that God's promise will be fulfilled. And Adam gives this to her as a gift after their entire world falls apart.
Jessica Jenkins:Then the Lord, god, made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. I think this is such a beautiful picture. In the New Testament it talks about how God clothes his people, how, as new believers, we long not to be further unclothed but to be further clothed. And here God clothes them. This had to be a moment of both sorrow and terror, as well as hope, as they watched God kill an animal maybe that deer she saw earlier grazing. Now God strikes it dead, skins it and crafts clothing for them. Now, this clothing that God makes for Adam and Eve, remove from your mind all every single picture you've ever seen of the clothing of Adam and Eve.
Jessica Jenkins:Most of the time in children's storybook Bibles you see Adam and Eve running from the garden in caveman-esque hides. Cobbled together, they look like something from a cave painting from 20,000 years ago. No, that is not what these clothes were. The God, who just created the heavens and the earth, is now making a garment for Adam and Eve out of leather, to picture for them and to point towards the covering Jesus' blood would have over them Far off in history. This clothing is a symbol that God is the only one who covers our shame. It is a symbol of a future hope tied up in the seed of the woman. This clothing, I imagine, is the most supple, soft, beautiful, long-lasting decorative ornamental leather you can ever imagine. It is this clothing God crafts for Adam and his wife.
Jessica Jenkins:The Lord God, verse 21, made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. This is rich and full of symbolism. Hope upon hope upon hope. Then the Lord God said and he's saying here he's speaking, I believe, to his divine counsel the man has now become like one of us. This is an inter-conversation in the Trinity. That's not what's going on.
Jessica Jenkins:Remember, this is the Garden of Eden, the Holy of Holies, the meeting place between God, the one true God, the only God, his spiritual counsel of angelic beings and his human counsel that have now fallen into sin. And God speaks to his spiritual counsel and says the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. So the Lord, god, banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken and after he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve were set in the garden to guard. They were priests. One of their roles was guarding. Now a cherubim, a spirit being, does it in their stead. They chose to disobey God and their role has dramatically shifted.
Jessica Jenkins:And again, unlike children's storybook Bibles that show a thunderous God wrathful towards Adam and Eve, casting them out of the garden, I view God removing them from the garden and disallowing them the tree of life to be another instance of God's great mercy. God could not fathom a life for Adam and Eve where they would have to live forever as immortal beings broken by sin. As immortal beings broken by sin, death is a mercy, because then they can be redeemed and go into their eternal rest with God the Father. He did not want them to live for eternity, eating the tree of life in their broken state. He casts them out of the Holy of Holies because they are broken, but also because he does not want them to exist in this sin, in this pain, in this brokenness of relationship forever. He knows their pain. God's heart is severed and breaking and he has already foreseen and foreknown and planned that the only way to make this right is for himself to die.
Jessica Jenkins:The mystery of the incarnation is what is needed to make things right. And God looks at Adam and Eve and says I have to carry. I got the father. I, jesus, have to carry this pain forever because I am outside time. And so, whereas a skinned knee for you is a moment, for me a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. And whereas I am eternal and I long to be united with my people, I will carry this pain forever. But I do not want that for you. So I remove you from the tree of life so that you do not have to carry this pain forever.
Jessica Jenkins:So God sends Adam and Eve out of the garden with hope, hope that there will be a promised child to someday defeat the chaos dragon who deceived them and drug them into his rebellion and they walked there by choice. And so we move to chapter four. They are now outside the garden trying to make sense. Adam made love to his wife Eve she knew, he knew her, the text says and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain and she said with the help of the Lord, I've brought forth a man. Most recountings of the story of Eve stop at the end of chapter three, with them being removed from the garden, and then they stop considering Eve when it comes to chapter four and they start talking about Cain and Abel, which most of the chapters about Cain and Abel and Cain's sons, and that's appropriate to talk about. But we cannot miss the end of Eve's story and we so often do.
Jessica Jenkins:There's a principle in Bible study and it's not an all-the-time principle, but it is something you pay attention to and it's called the principle of first speech, and there are times it does not matter, but there are times where I think it's highly significant and it shows a lot of character development. The first speech that happens after they are removed from the garden is Eve. We never hear Adam talk again. The only thing we see Adam do is have sex with his wife. That's the only thing he does from here on out.
Jessica Jenkins:In Genesis, eve, however, speaks and she says with the help of the Lord, I've brought forth a man. Even the commentators I read though there's not a lot of writings on this even the commentators I read said this shows Eve's renewed hope. This shows her clinging to God. She is outside of the garden. Maybe they could even see the garden from where they're living. She could look up God's holy mountain and see the garden on the top, with the rivers flowing down, as they've created a small little hut and they're trying to eke out a small farmland. She has this baby and she says it is only because of the Lord that I was able to do this hard thing of giving birth. With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man. And she names the child just as Adam named her. Adam named the animals, which was the finalizing of God's creation, him showing his priestly representative nature that he is partnering with God in the finishing of creation. In the ancient Near East, something was not fully created until it was named. So God created and then he gave Adam the job of naming all the animals. God made them, but Adam had to finalize that creation. And so now Eve finalizes the creation of humanity. She gives birth to a son and she names him Cain. And she said it's because of God I can do this. And her heart reaches back to the Lord. Though she was the one who ate the fruit, though she was the one who was deceived, though in many ways the dominoes started because of her, she is now the one to reach back to God. We don't know what Adam did we see nothing more of him in the story but we see Eve speaking hope, speaking truth and clinging to the Lord. Then she gave birth again to his brother, abel.
Jessica Jenkins:You're familiar with the story of Cain and Abel. Cain murders Abel. God speaks to Cain, sends him out to wander. Eve watches Sorrow upon sorrow. That happy, joyous feeling that once was her entire being is now fleeting. She might have had it in between pain of recovering from childbirth, as she looked at these babies and wondered will one of these be the seed that will crush the head of the serpent? Will one of these be that which saves us? But then she watches. No, these will not be the eldest murders, the youngest, and the pain she felt in the garden is now once again amplified as the children she bore slaughter each other in jealousy and rage. I imagine Eve praying how do I process this? How do I get through this, this burden, this pain? And it is my fault, I did it. Well, we see how eve processes it. We see how she gets through it.
Jessica Jenkins:At the end of chapter four it says adam made love to his wife. Again there we have his contribution. And she gave birth to a son and she named the son Seth. And once again this name is full of rich theological meaning. She's the first human theologian in scripture saying God has granted me another child in the place of Abel since Cain killed him, the first theologian since they were removed from the garden. I think Adam was a theologian in his naming of Eve and now Eve echoes that first theologian after they were removed from the garden. God has granted me another child in the place of Abel since Cain killed him. She once again sees God's hand in her pain. She sees God's hand at work among humanity, she recognizes her role in the midst of it and she breathes hope over her children. Seth also had a son and he named him Enosh, and at that time people began to call on the name of the Lord, official worship, people worshiping God. And I wonder this is Jessica's musings where did these boys learn to worship the Lord? Maybe it was their mother?
Jessica Jenkins:She is the one we see after they are removed from the garden calling out to God in prayer. Maybe Adam did as well, we don't know, but the text describes Eve doing it. So, dear ones, as you walk away from our study of Eve and as you ponder her as a person, I want you to be able to reframe how you view Eve. Yes, able to reframe how you view Eve. Yes, she helped bring sin into the world, but she is also a vehicle of redemption and hope. Her very name, eve, is a living image of God's promise in 3.15 that the seed of the woman will crush the chaos serpent.
Jessica Jenkins:She clings to God after they are removed from the garden when we see no one else doing it that way.
Jessica Jenkins:We see her praying, we see her clinging, we see her theology.
Jessica Jenkins:And she wasn't completely right. She was hoping maybe one of her physical babies would be the promised seed to crush the serpent, and it's Jesus, it's pointing to Jesus, it's thousands of years in the making. She doesn't know, she has no one to teach her theology, save for God, and she is clinging to him and she is hoping. So, as you ponder Eve, think about her entire story, think about the depths of pain she went through and think about the one place she put her hope Because, yes, she messed up no one is going to deny that and we see consequences for that all throughout Scripture. Scripture is one big book on the consequences of her decision, but it is also one big book pointing to Jesus, the Messiah, who came from her. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Eve clung to that promise. Every child birth, maybe this is the son. I'm clinging to the promises of the Lord and that, I believe, is the legacy we have to keep in mind as we consider this woman of God.
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