Eve names Seth, but in Genesis 5, the text says Adam does, so the implication may be that they both did. And perhaps that’s the point. We are meant to work together.
Eve knows God will redeem the world through her children, but one is lost by murdering the other. All of her hope is destroyed.
She holds Seth.
How she must have trembled at his first cry. How she must have clung to him and pressed him close to her body, but also feared losing him, just like she lost the others.
Could she trust God with this child? She trusted him with the first two, and we know what happened.
I weep for Eve. For us.
How do we trust after we’ve been let down? How do we hope when everything we hoped for has been dashed?
The story of Eve and Seth is a story of God healing the broken hearted. It will require time. It will require God.
Eve assumes God will use Cain – she says as much when she first speaks. And we, seeing Abel’s sacrifice, assume God will use the younger son to fulfill the blessing of “be fruitful and multiply.” But our assumptions are dashed by murder. Cain leaves the scene, and Abel dies. What will God do to solve this problem?
Perhaps the right name of the story should be “Not Cain, not Abel, but through Seth.”
Seth’s name means “appointed.” As in, selected by God to be used for a specific purpose. God’s purpose.
This is the nature of things.
Cain means acquired
Abel means a breath; vanity
Seth means appointed
“By the work of my hands, I attempt to acquire a name for myself. But this, too, is vanity, a grasping for the wind.
But God appoints another way. God’s way.
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have obtained a male child with the help of the Lord.”
Genesis 4:1 (NASB)
Eve is the first to refer to God by the Name.
Perhaps this points to intimacy. God is not merely “out there” to her, but close enough to call by name. God’s very own name.
In the first 2 verses, I think we’re meant to understand that Eve favored Cain. Perhaps she believed the Promise of Blessing in the instruction to “be fruitful and multiply” was about this first son.
Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.”
Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Genesis 4:1-2 (NIV)
Adam calls his wife the “Mother of Life.”
Genesis 3 seems to separate the man and his wife and put them at odds with each other, right after God brought the together in the previous chapter.
We read that Adam is cursed to die, and that a flaming sword blocks Adam from the Tree of Life.
From Eve? Is Adam separated from both Life and from his wife?
There is so much being said here.
Genesis 1: God names things on days 1-3, but not 4-6.
Genesis 2: The man names the animals, and he calls the woman “isha.”
Genesis 3: The man names the woman “Eve.”
God never gives gives the man a name. Never.
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
Genesis 3:14 (NIV)
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
Genesis 3:17 (NIV)
God doesn’t say this to the woman. Unlike with the Serpent and with Adam, God does not appear to assign blame to her.
After God pronounces death on Adam, perhaps Adam “wrestles” with God as well, defiantly naming his wife Eve… which means “Life.”