Chapter 5

God’s “Eternal Purpose” in His Anointed One Is Formed

1. What kind of life on earth is it God’s purpose for mankind to have?

HUMAN life on earth can be beautiful. The life of man’s Creator is beautiful. It is His will that the life of His human creation should also be beautiful. It is mankind that has made a wreck of its existence. Not all members of mankind have done so, however. In spite of mankind’s failure till now, the Creator’s benevolent purpose now is that men and women will yet have the opportunity to make life on earth beautiful for themselves.

2. (a) With what kind of living did mankind start off? (b) What shows whether God planned for man to take the course leading to death?

² At the start mankind’s life was beautiful. It started off nearly six thousand years ago in an earthly Paradise. It was a pleasure to live there, which is why it was called the Garden of Eden, or Paradise of Pleasure. (Genesis 2:8, Douay Version Bible) Our first human parents, the first man and the first woman, were perfect, abounding in health and with the prospect of never dying. Being human, they were mortal, but before them lay the opportunity offered by their Creator of living in the Paradise of Pleasure for all time to come, eternally. Thus their heavenly Life-Giver could become their Eternal Father. He did not plan for them to die by taking the course that would lead to death. His desire was for them to live eternally as his everlasting children. More than three thousand years later He expressed his sincere feelings on the matter, when he said to his chosen people:

“‘Do I take any delight at all in the death of someone wicked,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, ‘and not in that he should turn back from his ways and actually keep living?’”—Ezekiel 18:23.

3. Since God’s desire was for mankind to keep on living in Paradise, what question is forced on us today?

³ So the Creator had no desire that the innocent human couple in the Paradise of Pleasure should turn “wicked” and deserve to die. His desire was for them to keep living, yes, living on to see the whole earth properly filled with offspring just as perfect and happy as themselves, in peaceful, loving relationship with their Creator, their heavenly Father. Yet, today, all mankind are dying off, and our polluted earth is far from being a paradise. Why is this? Man’s Creator has had the explanation recorded in the Bible.

4. Why was it strange for a serpent to make itself observable to a human in Paradise?

⁴ The location is the Paradise of Pleasure, as chapter three of the Bible book of Genesis opens up. All lower forms of earthly creatures are in subjection to our first human parents, Adam and Eve. They do not fear any of these lower earthly creatures, not even snakes. Yes, there were snakes or serpents in the Paradise of Pleasure, and they were interesting to watch. Their limbless way of locomotion was marvelous, a manifestation of God’s diversified wisdom in designing. They are shy creatures, however. Genesis 3:1 makes a comment on this kind of reptile, saying: “Now the serpent [na·hhashʹ] proved to be the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made.” So rather than lying in wait to do harm to a human, it was inclined to withdraw itself from contact with humans. But now, strangely, it was plainly observable, whether on the ground or on a tree. Why?

5. Why was it strange that the serpent asked Eve a question, and why was it not God’s voice indirectly?

⁵ “So,” Genesis 3:1 goes on to say, “it began to say to the woman: ‘Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?’” Well, now, how had the serpent heard such a thing? Or how did it understand such a thing? Also, how is it that it had never before spoken to the woman’s husband Adam? How is it that it could speak with human language at all? Never before had a serpent spoken to a human, and never has it done so since. Eve was not imagining that someone was speaking to her. She was not speaking to herself in her own mind, just thinking. The humanlike voice seemed to come from the mouth of the serpent. How could that be? The only other voice besides that of her husband Adam that Eve had heard in the garden was that of God, but directly, not through some subhuman animal creature. According to what the serpent, to all appearances, said, the voice was not that of God. The voice asked Eve about what God had said.

6. In what way was the inquirer that used the serpent to put the question acting, and why did Eve reply?

⁶ When Eve answered the question, she was speaking, not to that serpent, but to the invisible intelligence that was using the serpent like a ventriloquist. Was this invisible intelligent speaker friendly to God or otherwise? Certainly the method that the unseen speaker used in speaking to Eve was deceptive, leading her to think that it was the serpent that was doing the speaking. That inquiring speaker was hiding his identity behind a visible serpent and was thus acting deceitfully. However, Eve did not discern and appreciate that this serpent-using speaker was maliciously trying to deceive her. Unsuspectingly Eve made her reply.

“At this the woman said to the serpent: ‘Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But as for eating of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that you do not die.”’”—Genesis 3:2, 3.

7. Where did Eve get her information on the tree in the middle of the garden?

⁷ By designating it as “the tree that is in the middle of the garden,” Eve meant the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. But how did Eve know about that tree? It must have been that Adam, as God’s prophet, told her. He is the one to whom God said when Adam was by himself, before Eve’s creation: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.” (Genesis 2:16, 17) According to Eve, God also said not to touch the forbidden tree. So Eve was not ignorant of the penalty for violating God’s law. It was death.

8. What shows whether the unseen inquirer was merely asking for information?

⁸ If the unseen speaker behind the serpent had been asking for mere information, he would have dropped the conversation on being given the information. Whether, at this time, the serpent was at the middle of the garden where the forbidden tree was located, and whether the serpent was on the ground or up the tree, is not stated. At least, the talk was about that “tree that is in the middle of the garden.”

9, 10. How did the unseen speaker behind the serpent make a liar, a Devil, a Satan, of himself?

⁹ How could a mere serpent know or have authority to say what Eve now heard said? “At this the serpent said to the woman: ‘You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.’”—Genesis 3:4, 5.

¹⁰ Here the unseen speaker behind the visible serpent was making himself a liar, for he was contradicting Jehovah God. For blatantly declaring that God had wrong motives in forbidding Adam and Eve’s eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, the unseen speaker was making himself a slanderer, a Devil, toward Jehovah God. He was not lovingly interested in eternal life for Eve, but was scheming to bring about her death. In fact, he was trying to remove the fear of death from her, not death at his hands, but death at the hands of Jehovah God for breaking his known command. The unseen speaker was setting himself in resistance to God and was in this manner making himself Satan, which means Resister. He was interested in getting someone else to resist God and put someone else on the side of Satan. We know who the real speaker of such a lie and slander was. It was no serpent!

11. How did Eve now not show loyalty to God and respect for her husband, and let herself be tempted?

¹¹ Unhappily, Eve did not dispute this lying, slanderous statement. She did not lovingly and loyally come to the defense of her heavenly Father. She did not now recognize her husband Adam’s headship over her and go to him to ask him whether he approved of her acting selfishly on the matter or not. He could have exposed the deception. But Eve let herself be thoroughly deceived. She entertained the wrong idea presented to her by a liar, slanderer and resister of God her heavenly Father. She let the fear of the terrible penalty for disobedience vanish. She let selfish desire begin forming in her heart. She let herself be drawn out by this desire and enticed. God had said that it would be bad for her and Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, but she decided to establish for herself what was bad and what was good. She accordingly decided to prove her heavenly Father and God a liar. So now when Eve contemplated the tree, it became attractive-looking.

12. By eating the forbidden fruit, what did Eve become, inexcusably?

¹² “Consequently the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was something to be longed for to the eyes, yes, the tree was desirable to look upon. So she began taking of its fruit and eating it.” (Genesis 3:6) In this way she became a transgressor against God, a sinner. The fact that she was thoroughly deceived did not excuse her. She lost her moral perfection.

13. By eating, what did Adam fail to do, with what effect on him?

¹³ Her husband was not there to prevent her independent action. When she next joined him, she had to use persuasion to get him to eat, because he was in no way deceived. He did not choose to prove the one speaking by means of the serpent a liar and to vindicate Jehovah God as One using His universal sovereignty in a righteous manner, a beneficial manner. What, then, happened when Adam joined Eve in transgression? Genesis 3:6, 7 tells us:

“Afterward she gave some also to her husband when with her and he began eating it. Then the eyes of both of them became opened and they began to realize that they were naked. Hence they sewed fig leaves together and made loin coverings for themselves.”

14. What led Adam and Eve to condemn themselves before God did, and how did they act at his approach?

¹⁴ They had now become “like God, knowing good and bad,” in that they no longer accepted the standards of good and bad as set by Jehovah God but they had become judges for themselves as to what was good and what was bad. In spite of this, their consciences began to bother them. They felt exposed, needing a covering. Their bodily nakedness was no longer a clean, innocent state in their eyes, in which to appear before Jehovah God. So they began tailoring and covered over their private parts that God had given them for the honorable purpose of reproduction of their kind. Thus under the condemning testimony of their own consciences, they condemned themselves, even before the Sovereign Lord Jehovah did. Hence, we read:

“Later they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden about the breezy part of the day, and the man and his wife went into hiding from the face of Jehovah God in between the trees of the garden. And Jehovah God kept calling to the man and saying to him: ‘Where are you?’ Finally he said: ‘Your voice I heard in the garden, but I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid myself.’ At that he said: ‘Who told you that you were naked? From the tree from which I commanded you not to eat have you eaten?’”—Genesis 3:8-11.

15. (a) What shows that there was no repentance on the part of Adam and Eve? (b) What did God then say to the serpent?

¹⁵ Let us notice, now, that there is no expression of repentance on the part of Adam and Eve, but, rather, an effort to excuse themselves: Someone else was to blame. “And the man went on to say: ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree and so I ate.’ With that Jehovah God said to the woman: ‘What is this you have done?’ To this the woman replied: ‘The serpent—it deceived me and so I ate.’” (Genesis 3:12, 13) However, excuses did not absolve these willful transgressors. But what about the serpent?

“And Jehovah God proceeded to say to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this thing, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild beasts of the field. Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life. And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.’”—Genesis 3:14, 15, NW; Leeser; Zunz.

16, 17. (a) To whom did God’s words to the serpent really apply? (b) To what did a first-century writer liken this abasement?

¹⁶ This was not a curse upon the whole serpent family. Seemingly God’s words were addressed to that one literal serpent, but He knew that it had only been victimized to serve as an instrument of a superhuman, invisible spirit person, one who had hitherto been an obedient heavenly son of God. This one had also let himself be drawn out and enticed by a desire of a selfish kind. It was a desire for sovereignty over mankind, independent of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. This desire he had let take root in his heart and had cultivated it, till it became fertile and produced transgression, rebellion against the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. This spirit transgressor then made himself a liar, slanderer or Devil and a resister or Satan, right there at the Paradise of Pleasure.

¹⁷ As suggested by the abasement that was pronounced upon that victimized serpent, God abased this newly risen Liar, Devil, Satan. One first-century Bible commentator likens this abasement to a ‘throwing of Satan into Tartarus,’ a disapproved state of spiritual darkness with no enlightenment from God.—2 Peter 2:4.

GOD’S ANOINTED ONE FORETOLD

18. What new thing was here announced, with what features about it?

¹⁸ Here Jehovah God formed a new purpose, and he announced it. The lying Satan the Devil had risen up, and it now became God’s purpose to raise up an Anointed One, a Ma·shiʹahh (Messiah) according to Adam’s language. (Daniel 9:25) God spoke of this Anointed One, this Messiah, as the “seed” of “the woman.” God would put enmity between this Anointed One and Satan the Devil, now symbolized by the serpent. This enmity would also extend itself to being between the Anointed One and the “seed” of the Great Serpent.

19. (a) In what conflict was this “enmity” to result? (b) Why would the Anointed One of Jehovah’s purpose have to be heavenly?

¹⁹ The enmity foretold was to result in a battle that would have painful effects, but it would end with victory for the “seed” of “the woman.” Like a snake that strikes at the heel of the leg (Genesis 49:17), the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, would cause a heel wound to the woman’s “seed.” This heel wound would not prove fatal. It would be healed, to enable the woman’s “seed” to bruise the Great Serpent in the head fatally. Thus the Great Serpent would perish, and his “seed” with him. A vital thing to be noted about this conflict is this: For the woman’s “seed” to bruise and crush the head of the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, the woman’s “seed” would have to be a heavenly spirit person, not a mere human son of a woman on earth. Why so? Because the Great Serpent is a superhuman spirit person, a rebellious heavenly son of God. A mere human “seed” of an earthly woman would not be powerful enough to destroy the invisible Satan the Devil in the spirit realm. So the Anointed One of Jehovah’s purpose must be a heavenly Messiah.

20. Who, then, is the “woman” of Genesis 3:15?

²⁰ Well, then, how about the “woman” whose “seed” the Anointed One or Messiah is? She, too, must be heavenly. Just as the serpent that was sentenced to being crushed in the head was not that literal serpent that had been used to deceive Eve, so the “woman” of Jehovah’s prophecy in Genesis 3:15 was not a literal woman on earth. Eve was a personal transgressor against God’s law and was an enticer of her husband Adam into transgression. So she herself was not worthy of being the personal mother of the promised “seed.” The “woman” of God’s prophecy must be a symbolic woman. It is just as when Jehovah God speaks of his chosen people as being his wife, his woman, saying to them: “Return, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am become your husband.” (Jeremiah 3:14; 31:31, Leeser [Jer 31:32, NW]) In a like manner God’s heavenly organization of holy angels is as a wife to Jehovah God, and she is the heavenly mother of the “seed.” She is “the woman.” It is between this “woman” and the Serpent that God puts enmity.

ORIGINAL PURPOSE NOT TO BE A FAILURE

21. Was God’s original purpose concerning the earth now to fail because of the arising of transgression?

²¹ What, though, about God’s purpose concerning the earth as stated to Adam and Eve at the close of the sixth creative “day”? Was it now to fail because of the transgression by Eve and Adam, meriting their being put to death? This original purpose was to have all the surface of the earth a Paradise, peopled by the descendants of the first, the original, man and woman on earth, Adam and Eve. Failure is a thing that could not happen with God’s stated purpose. No Satan the Devil is able to cause God’s purpose to fail and disgrace him. That God’s original purpose was still to go forward to triumphant fulfillment is indicated in what was now said to the woman Eve by Jehovah God the Supreme Judge.

22. (a) Peopling of the earth by whom was to go ahead? (b) Was it reasonable to believe that bruising of the Serpent’s head would result in benefit to mankind?

²² “To the woman he said: ‘I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children, and your craving will be for your husband, and he will dominate you.’” (Genesis 3:16) This signified that the producing of further inhabitants of the earth from this original human pair was to be permitted. It has continued till now, and today there is worrisome talk about a “population explosion.” Since the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, had induced the bringing of death upon all the descendants of the first human couple, evidently the bruising of the “head” of this Great Serpent was to result in benefit to those descendants who had been hurt by his transgression. Exactly how? That was something for Jehovah God to make plain in due course. This would work toward the success of His original purpose.

23-25. (a) When was the sentence of death pronounced upon Adam for his transgression? (b) In what way, then, was it that Adam died in the day that he ate the forbidden fruit, and what about his offspring?

²³ Now, finally, came the turn of the man, the third one in the order of transgression. God had told him that in the day in which he ate of the forbidden fruit he would positively die. (Genesis 2:17) For his wife Eve to bring forth children in birth pangs, it would require Adam to live on as her husband and father her children. So how was what God had warned him of carried out?

²⁴ Genesis 3:17-19 makes clear how: “And to Adam he said: ‘Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, “You must not eat from it,” cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.’” With those judicial words, Jehovah God pronounced the sentence of death upon the transgressor, and this within the same day in which Adam had transgressed.

²⁵ Judicially, from God’s standpoint, Adam died that very day, and his transgressing wife Eve did also. Cut off from them both was the opportunity and prospect of living forever in happiness in the Paradise of Pleasure. He was now dead in his own transgression. He could henceforth pass on to his offspring by Eve only a dying existence and condemnation, due to inherited human imperfection. All his offspring would have to say, as the psalmist David said thousands of years later: “Look! With error I was brought forth with birth pains, and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5) To all sinful mankind God can say, as he did to his chosen people: “Your own father, the first one, has sinned.” (Isaiah 43:27) All mankind died in Adam on the day that the Supreme Judge pronounced sentence upon him for his sin. After Adam got his sentence, physical death was inescapable for him.

26. Even when a “day” is viewed as a thousand years, how did Adam die on the day of his transgression, and what did he cease to be?

²⁶ Quite appropriately, the “book of Adam’s history” tells us: “He became father to sons and daughters. So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died.” (Genesis 5:1-5) He lived seventy years less than a thousand years. None of his offspring have lived a full thousand years, the oldest one, Methuselah, living only nine hundred and sixty-nine years. (Genesis 5:27) Even from God’s viewing a thousand years as one day, Adam died within the first thousand-year “day” of mankind’s existence. Where did he go at his physical death? Not even his “soul” (nephʹesh) had been taken from heaven, and he did not “return” there. He did return to the dust of the ground, because, as God said, from there Adam had been taken. He then ceased to be a “living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) He ceased to exist. When his wife Eve died a physical death, she, too, ceased to be a “living soul.” There was no soul to live on forever and ever according to the Babylonian religious mythology.

LOSS OF PARADISE

27. To what part of the earth did the cursing of the ground apply, and what did Adam’s working cursed ground mean for him and Eve?

²⁷ The wording of God’s sentence upon Adam, especially the words about the “cursed . . . ground,” meant that Adam was to lose Paradise. He did. Paradise was not cursed because of the transgression of Eve and Adam; it continued to be a place of life, still having within it the “tree of life.” Genesis 3:20-24 informs us:

“After this Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she had to become the mother of everyone living. And Jehovah God proceeded to make long garments of skin for Adam and for his wife and to clothe them. And Jehovah God went on to say: ‘Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—’ With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.”

28. Why was life to time indefinite no longer possible for Adam?

²⁸ Having the power of death, Jehovah God put the man out of reach of the tree of life, in order to enforce the death penalty upon Adam. Adam’s wife went along with her husband in order to become mother to his children. Whether God drove out the snake that had been used to tempt Eve, the record does not indicate. Life to time indefinite was no longer possible for Adam and Eve.

29. (a) How did God now put “enmity” between the “woman” and the “serpent”? (b) What effect did God’s announced purpose have upon his original purpose for the earth, and why may we now rejoice?

²⁹ There is no record that, outside the garden of Eden, Eve brought up her sons to hate snakes. But God’s heavenly organization of holy angels, the true “woman” meant in God’s prophecy of Genesis 3:15, immediately began to hate the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil. Love for Jehovah God as her heavenly husband prompted the womanlike organization to do so. God indeed placed enmity between His “woman” and the Great Serpent. When she was to bring forth the “seed” that would bruise the head of the Great Serpent lay within the purpose of Jehovah God. He had now formed his purpose in his Anointed One, his Messiah, and had made that fact known to heaven and earth, now almost six thousand years ago. That was ages of time ago. This added purpose reinforced God’s original purpose regarding a Paradise earth and made certain its fulfillment. The unchangeable God still sticks to that announced purpose in his Anointed One, His Messiah. We can greatly rejoice that it is now triumphing for man’s good.

Chapter 6

Human Life Outside Paradise Until the Deluge

1. What feature about the “seed” of his purpose did God make known, this raising what question?

IN THE process of time man’s heavenly Benefactor made known a feature of his “eternal purpose” that strikes a sympathetic chord in our hearts. It was that the purposed “seed” of his heavenly “woman” would have a temporary existence on earth among mankind. This immediately raises the question in our minds, since the “seed” would be born into our human race, then through which line of descent from Adam and Eve would the “seed” come?

2. To what mainly did God limit the contents of the Bible, and why do we need to study the Bible?

² The history of the human line of descent of the “seed” is the important thing for us to know. The history of peoples and nations that have nothing to do with the life course of this “seed” is not indispensably important or valuable. That is why Jehovah God limited the contents of the Holy Bible mainly to telling us about the working out of the line of descent of this “seed.” By our getting a knowledge of this Bible history we will be able to identify who this Serpent-bruising “seed” is, and we will not leave ourselves open to being deceived and misled by a pretender, a false seed. Deception could lead to eternal destruction for us. The Great Deceiver, who put lying deceit across in the garden of Eden and who is at enmity with the true “seed,” is still at his old tricks. He would like to deceive all of us away from the “seed” of God’s “eternal purpose.” So we need to study the Bible.

3. Who was Adam’s firstborn son, and so what question is raised about Adam’s son Seth?

³ In the Hebrew Bible, the two books of Chronicles are listed last, and not the prophetic book of Malachi. Now, if we turn to the first book of Chronicles we notice that it opens up with a line of ten generations after Adam, as follows: “Adam, [1] Seth, [2] Enosh, [3] Kenan, [4] Mahalalel, [5] Jared, [6] Enoch, [7] Methuselah, [8] Lamech, [9] Noah, [10] Shem, Ham and Japheth.” (1 Chronicles 1:1-4) Seth was not the firstborn son of Adam outside the Paradise of Pleasure. Cain was, and Abel was the next-named son of Adam and Eve. (Genesis 4:1-5) Why, then, was Seth made the one to be listed in the line of descent down to Noah?

4. What shows that God did not plan that Seth should be the first one listed in the line of descent from Adam?

⁴ Did Jehovah God plan it that way? No, for that would mean that God planned that Cain should murder his younger brother Abel and thus disqualify himself from being the one through whom mankind today could trace its descent. Neither did God plan that, by foul murder, Abel should be cut off prematurely before having the needed offspring and that thus Seth should be substituted for him. (Genesis 4:25) That God did not plan the murdering of Abel in order to make room for Seth is evident from the warning that God gave to Cain that he might not fall victim to gross sin because of resenting it that his offering to God had been rejected but his brother Abel’s sacrifice had been accepted.—Genesis 4:6, 7.

5, 6. Seth’s being born in Adam’s likeness and image meant what for him, and how does naming his son Enosh show realization of this fact?

⁵ No, Jehovah God did not plan it that way, but it took a long time before there was born a son of Adam through whom the line of descent would run down clear to the birth of the promised “seed,” the Messiah, in the flesh. This lateness of beginning the favored line of descent from Adam is shown in Genesis 5:3, where we read: “And Adam lived on for a hundred and thirty years. Then he became father to a son in his likeness, in his image, and called his name Seth.” Being in Adam’s likeness and image, or, being of Adam’s kind, Seth was imperfect, having inherited sin and hence being under condemnation of death. The realization of this fact appears to be borne out in the name that Seth gave to his son, concerning whom we read: “And to Seth also there was born a son and he proceeded to call his name Enosh.” (Genesis 4:26) The name has the sense of “sickly, morbid, incurable.”

⁶ In harmony with this the Hebrew word e·noshʹ, when not used as a proper name, is translated as “mortal man.” For instance, when the sorely afflicted Job says: “What is mortal man [Hebrew: e·noshʹ] that you should rear him, and that you should set your heart upon him?”—See Job 7:17; 15:14; also, Psalm 8:4; 55:13; 144:3; Isaiah 8:1.

7-9. (a) What religious practice was started in the days of Enosh? (b) What indicates whether this practice was beneficial for man or not?

⁷ The lifetime of Adam’s grandson Enosh was marked by something notable, to which Genesis 4:26 calls our attention, saying with reference to the birth of Enosh to Seth: “At that time a start was made of calling on the name of Jehovah.” Enosh was born when Seth was one hundred and five years old, which would mean two hundred and thirty-five years after Adam’s creation. (Genesis 5:6, 7) By then the human population of the earth had increased by the marriage of Adam’s many sons and daughters among themselves and by the marriages of their offspring. Was this starting to ‘call on the name of Jehovah’ among this growing population something favorable to humankind and honoring to God? Was it what modern-day evangelists would likely call a “religious revival”? The ancient Greek Septuagint Version, made by Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, translates this Hebrew passage: “And Seth had a son, and he called his name Enos: he hoped to call on the name of the Lord God.”—Genesis 4:26, LXX, edition of S. Bagster and Sons Limited.

⁸ The Jerusalem Bible translation expresses a similar thought, saying: “This man was the first to invoke the name of Yahweh.” But such a translation leaves out of consideration the acceptable worship that the faithful Abel rendered to Jehovah before he was murdered by jealous Cain. As for The New English Bible, it reads: “At that time men began to invoke the LORD by name.” (Also, The New American Bible) However, the ancient Palestinian Targum takes an unfavorable view of the matter. The famous Rashi (Rabbi Shelomoh Yitschaki, of 1040-1105 C.E.) renders Genesis 4:26: “Then was the profane called by the Name of the Lord.” That is to say, men and inanimate objects had attributed to them the qualities of Jehovah and were called accordingly. This would mean that idolatry in the name of Jehovah began then.

⁹ That the calling on the name of Jehovah was not in a Godward sense is indicated in the fact that it was not until three hundred and eighty-seven years after the birth of Enosh that a man was born who received the recognition of God. This was Enoch.

WALKING WITH GOD OUTSIDE PARADISE

10. Its being said that Enoch walked with the true God reflected how on his longer-living father Jared?

¹⁰ Concerning this great-great-grandson of Enosh, who was born in 3404 B.C.E. (or 622 A.M.), it is written: “And Enoch lived on for sixty-five years. Then he became father to Methuselah. And after his fathering Methuselah Enoch went on walking with the true God three hundred years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch amounted to three hundred and sixty-five years.” (Genesis 5:21-23) This was a comparatively short life for Enoch, whose father Jared lived for nine hundred and sixty-two years and whose son Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years to become the oldest man on record. And yet Enoch was “walking with the true God.” This was not said of his father Jared, who lived on eight hundred years after the birth of Enoch. (Genesis 5:18, 19) Evidently, then, Jared’s faith did not compare with Enoch’s faith in God and he did not walk according to God’s will or announced purpose.

11. What prophecy did Enoch give, and on what condition of the people must this have reflected?

¹¹ It is reliably reported that Enoch was a prophet of the True God. In a letter written in the first century C.E., it is written: “Yes, the seventh one in line from Adam, Enoch, prophesied also regarding them, when he said: ‘Look! Jehovah came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment against all, and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their ungodly deeds that they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the shocking things that ungodly sinners spoke against him.’” (Jude 14, 15) This prophecy no doubt reflects on the religious condition that existed back there in Enoch’s day. Otherwise, what would be the basis for the giving of such an inspired prophecy that warned of Jehovah’s coming judgment against all the ungodly that was as sure as if it had already occurred? Because Enoch was not one of the ungodly of his day, God could use him as a speaker of prophecy. Although living outside the cherub-guarded Paradise that still existed in Enoch’s day, he “went on walking with the true God.”

12, 13. According to Jewish thought, and that of Christendom, where was Enoch taken?

¹² Why is it, then, that Enoch lived such a comparatively short life for those times? Genesis 5:24 informs us: “And Enoch kept walking with the true God. Then he was no more, for God took him.”

¹³ Likely Enoch was in some dire predicament when God took him. Was it that Enoch’s enemies threatened to kill him, and so God took him off the scene to spare him from a violent death? We do not know. The question arises, Where did God take him? Some Jewish thought is that God took him to heaven. That is even the thought in Christendom today. For instance, in a letter written to the Hebrews in the first century C.E., a comment is made upon Enoch and this is the way that the A New Translation of The Bible, by Dr. James Moffatt, of this century, renders Hebrews 11:5, as follows: “It was by faith that Enoch was taken to heaven, so that he never died (he was not overtaken by death, for God had taken him away).” The New English Bible reads here: “By faith Enoch was carried away to another life without passing through death; he was not to be found, because God had taken him. For it is the testimony of Scripture that before he was taken he had pleased God.”—See, also, The Jerusalem Bible.

14. What shows whether ‘walking with God’ entitled Enoch to be taken to heaven?

¹⁴ However, Psalm 89:48 asks the question: “What able-bodied man is there alive who will not see death? Can he provide escape for his soul from the hand of Sheol?” So, too, Enoch had received from sinner Adam the inheritance of death, and he too was obliged to die, despite his walking with the true God. It was later written of Enoch’s great-grandson that this one also “walked with the true God”; and yet this latter one did not have his life cut short. He lived longer than Adam—for nine hundred and fifty years, fifty short of a thousand years. (Genesis 6:9; 9:28, 29) Consequently, Enoch’s walking with God for less time than did his great-grandson did not entitle him to go to heaven or to another life any more than Noah’s walking with God for so long entitled him to such an experience.

15. How, then, may Enoch have been transferred so as not to see death?

¹⁵ The prophet Moses died at one hundred and twenty years of age and God buried him, so that no man to this day knows where Moses lies buried. (Deuteronomy 34:5-7) So God suddenly removed Enoch from the scene of his contemporaries, and where Enoch died is not known, or any grave. He did not die a violent death at the hand of his enemies. He being a prophet, it could be that while he was in a prophetic trance he had a vision of God’s new order of things in which God “will actually swallow up death forever.” (Isaiah 25:8) In that new order Enoch expected to live on a Paradise earth. While Enoch was under the power of such a vision of where mankind will be relieved of death by God’s merciful provision, God could have removed him off the scene and terminated his present life, so that Enoch was not aware of dying. In such a marvelous way it would be fulfilled what is written in Hebrews 11:5:

“By faith Enoch was transferred so as not to see death, and he was nowhere to be found because God had transferred him; for before his transference he had the witness that he had pleased God well.”—New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

THE DAYS BEFORE THE DELUGE

16. How do we figure that Adam and Methuselah knew each other?

¹⁶ Enoch’s son Methuselah was born 969 years before the global deluge, and so he died in the year of the Deluge. Although Methuselah was the eighth in the line counted from Adam, did he know Adam his first human parent? Yes. Adam was created 1,656 years before the Deluge. He lived 930 years. If we add his age to that of Methuselah, it comes to 1,899 years. By subtracting 1,656 years from that total, it results in 243 years. So the lives of Adam and Methuselah overlapped upon each other for 243 years.—Genesis 5:5, 21, 25-27.

17. What prophecy did Methuselah’s son Lamech utter at the birth of Noah, and why was this name appropriate?

¹⁷ Methuselah lived long enough to hear the warnings proclaimed about the coming global deluge, and he almost saw the completion of the preparations made for some of humankind to survive that world catastrophe. He was able to see his grandson Noah preaching righteousness and preparing the means for human survival. Of all of Methuselah’s sons, Lamech was the one who became the father of Noah. It was at the birth of Noah that Lamech was inspired to utter a prophecy concerning him. That disclosed that God purposed to use Lamech’s son Noah. On this we read: “And Lamech lived on for a hundred and eighty-two years. Then he became father to a son. And he proceeded to call his name Noah, saying: ‘This one will bring us comfort from our work and from the pain of our hands resulting from the ground which Jehovah has cursed.’” Lamech lived on to within five years of the Deluge. (Genesis 5:27-31) The name Noah was in harmony with Lamech’s prophecy, for it means “Rest” and implies consolation from rest. God’s curse was to be lifted from the ground that He had cursed on account of Adam’s transgression.—Genesis 3:17.

18. When, in Noah’s life, did the deluge start, and thereafter end?

¹⁸ The deluge came within the sixth hundredth year of Noah’s life and continued into his six hundred and first year of life. (Genesis 7:11; 8:13; 7:6) The world catastrophe that occurred in Noah’s day foreshadowed the larger world catastrophe that is shortly to occur within our generation, and for this reason it deserves our consideration.—Proverbs 22:3.

19. How was Noah like Enoch in his course of life?

¹⁹ For centuries Noah, born in 2970 B.C.E. (1056 A.M.), was childless: “And Noah got to be five hundred years old. After that Noah became father to Shem, Ham and Japheth.” (Genesis 5:32) What kind of record did Noah make for himself, even before becoming a father? “This is the history of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. He proved himself faultless among his contemporaries. Noah walked with the true God.” (Genesis 6:9, 10) So Noah was like Enoch.

20. Why does a question arise regarding “sons of the true God” reported on the earth in Noah’s days?

²⁰ Even though Noah was a descendant of Seth and Enoch and also “walked with the true God,” yet Noah was not called a ‘son of the true God.’ If he was not thus called, who else on earth in those days of descent from sinner Adam could be thus called? Who, then, were those who were reported as appearing on earth in the days of Noah, concerning whom we now read? “Now it came about that when men started to grow in numbers on the surface of the ground and daughters were born to them, then the sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good-looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose. After that Jehovah said: ‘My spirit shall not act toward man indefinitely in that he is also flesh. Accordingly his days shall amount to a hundred and twenty years.’”—Genesis 6:1-3.

21. Who were those “sons of the true God,” and what did they go to desiring?

²¹ Those “sons of the true God” must have been angels from heaven, who up till this time had been part of Jehovah’s heavenly organization of holy “sons of the true God,” Jehovah’s symbolic “woman” that was to become the mother of the promised “seed.” At the founding of the earth for human habitation, they had observed Jehovah’s creative work and had shouted in applause. (Job 38:7; Genesis 3:15) Observing marriage practiced among mankind, especially involving good-looking womenfolk, they let themselves go to desiring sex life on earth with women for themselves.

22. How did those “sons of the true God” satisfy their desire and thereby sin?

²² How could they as spirit creatures enjoy sex relations with women of flesh on earth? By materializing in fleshly bodies as desirable men and taking human wives and having sexual intercourse with them. As the Creator and heavenly Father had authorized marriage between fleshly earthly creatures of like nature and not between spirit creatures and fleshly human creatures, these “sons of the true God” did not come and materialize as men of flesh in order to serve as messengers of Jehovah God, commissioned and sent by Him. They proceeded to cause a confusion of natures—spirit and human, heavenly and earthly. (Leviticus 18:22, 23) Manifestly those “sons of the true God” were sinning.

23. With what spirit had God long acted toward sinful mankind, but what did he now declare?

²³ By now more than a thousand years had passed since Adam’s rebellion in Eden against the universal sovereignty of Jehovah God. Jehovah had acted with the spirit of patience and forbearance toward sinful mankind, for even in the days of Noah’s great-grandfather Enoch mankind in general had become notoriously “ungodly.” And now they were entering into a new form of moral corruption and sex perversion by marriages between women and materialized angels. The time deserved to come when the patient Creator should cease to act toward self-degrading mankind with a spirit of toleration and self-restraint. Fully justified, God finally declared: “My spirit shall not act toward man indefinitely in that he is also flesh. Accordingly his days shall amount to a hundred and twenty years.”—Genesis 6:3.

24. (a) Was God there setting man’s age limit, as in Moses’ case? (b) What then set in, and why was there a generous time allowance?

²⁴ That was not a setting of an age limit upon man as in the case of the prophet Moses, who lived to be a hundred and twenty years old. It was a divine decree that the ungodly world of mankind should have only one hundred and twenty years more to exist until the global deluge. So this divine decree was published in 1536 A.M. or 2490 B.C.E. This meant that there the “time of the end” had begun for that ungodly world of Noah’s days. The God of purpose was timing matters. Although he had not planned for such a shocking thing happening in the case of the “sons of the true God,” yet he was still in full control and could handle the contingency. He is all-wise, almighty. His allowing such an extended time period before the end of that ungodly world was very considerate. Why? Because the divine decree was issued twenty years before Noah became a father and yet it allowed for him to have three sons and for these to grow up and get married and to join their father in making due preparations for surviving the threatening deluge.—Genesis 5:32; 7:11.

THE NEPHILIM

25, 26. What were the offspring of the marriages of angels and women called, and why?

²⁵ The days of the intermarriage between passionate “sons of the true God” and women were numbered. But was any offspring possible from this confusion of natures between materialized spirits and fleshly female creatures with procreative powers? Genesis 6:4 gives us the facts in answer:

“The Nephilim proved to be in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of the true God continued to have relations with the daughters of men and they bore sons to them, they were the mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame.”

²⁶ The sons of these mixed marriages were hybrids and were called Nephilim. This name means “Fellers,” to indicate that these mighty hybrid sons violently felled others or caused weaker humans to fall. It took considerable time for these Nephilim to be conceived and born and then grow up to set out on their violent career. Being hybrids, they normally would not be able to reproduce their mixed kind.

27. What was it that God purposed to wipe off the face of the earth, and why?

²⁷ The human family was not benefited by the intermingling of disobedient materialized “sons of the true God” so intimately with humans. “Consequently Jehovah saw that the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time. And Jehovah felt regrets that he had made men in the earth, and he felt hurt at his heart. So Jehovah said: ‘I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground, from man to domestic animal, to moving animal and to flying creature of the heavens, because I do regret that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah.” (Genesis 6:5-8) Jehovah regretted that man whom He had created had sunk so low morally and spiritually. It was regrettable to have men of such degraded personalities on the earth. These were the ones whom He purposed to wipe off the earth, but not the human race of which Noah was a righteous member.

28. Why can we today be thankful that God purposed to end that pre-Deluge state of violence on the earth?

²⁸ In glaring contrast with Noah and his family, “the earth came to be ruined in the sight of the true God and the earth became filled with violence. So God saw the earth and, look! it was ruined, because all flesh had ruined its way on the earth.” (Genesis 6:11, 12) In those days before the Deluge the world of mankind had entered an age of violence. Today the world has entered an “age of violence,” as observers call it, ever since the year 1914 C.E., the year in which World War I let loose with all its violence. So we might well ask, What would the condition of the world be today if Almighty God had let that “age of violence” before the Deluge continue on without interruption? It makes us shudder to think of the possibilities. Long before now the earth would have been a place too dangerous to live in. We can be thankful that God purposed to halt that pre-Deluge “age of violence.”

A WORLD ENDS, A RACE SURVIVES

29. Jehovah’s instructions to Noah harmonized with what purpose of God for the earth?

²⁹ Jehovah God stuck to his original purpose to have the earth fully inhabited by the descendants of the first man and woman amid Paradise conditions. Also, the line of descent that would lead up to the producing of the Messiah needed to be preserved. In keeping with this, Jehovah instructed obedient Noah to build an ark (or, a floating chest) of such capacity as to contain Noah and his family and basic specimens of the land animals and flying creatures of the heavens like the dove and the raven. No room in the ark was occupied by a steam engine or a diesel engine and fuel supplies in order to propel the ark somewhere; it just floated, with its living occupants and food supplies sufficient for a year or more.—Genesis 6:13–7:18.

30. To make possible such a planetary flood, what was the natural state at and around the earth since the second creative “day”?

³⁰ To understand the possibilities for such a planetary flood of water, we have to visualize the state of things with regard to our globe as a whole. At its surface there were landmasses, large and small, sticking up above the seas. Up above all of this there was a vault or expanse containing the atmosphere that mankind and other living creatures breathed. But out beyond this there was a deep watery canopy that surrounded the earth like a swaddling band and that the Creator had caused to be lifted up to a scientifically accurate height on the second creative “day.” There it remained in suspension like an envelope around the earthly globe, to collapse back to the earth only according to the Creator’s purpose and at His command. (Genesis 1:6-8) An inspired Bible commentator of the first century C.E. nicely described it, saying: “There were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God.”—2 Peter 3:5, NW; Jerusalem Bible.

31, 32. What did Noah’s statistics show regarding the deluge?

³¹ The global deluge is no myth that stems from Babylonish sources. It is a historical fact that has left its effects on the earth to this day. It was dated and timed. According to Noah’s ship log or ark log, it began on the seventeenth day of the second month of the lunar year, in the six hundredth year of his life.

³² Then Noah logged the precipitation of water from the skies as continuing for forty days. Even the tops of the then mountains were covered with floodwaters to a depth of fifteen cubits. On the seventeenth day of the seventh lunar month the ark touched ground at the mountains of Ararat. According to the Creator’s power, new basins were formed in the outer crust of the earthly globe to drain off the floodwaters. On the first day of the first month of the new lunar year the draining process was completed. On the twenty-seventh day of the second month of the new lunar year, or one lunar year and ten days after the deluge began, God told Noah to leave the ark and let all the animal life therein also go forth.—Genesis 7:11 through 8:19.

33. What perished in the Deluge, and what survived?

³³ In this way, under divine protection, the human race from Adam survived the global deluge, but an ungodly world or a world of ungodly people came to an end. This meant also that those infamous hybrid Nephilim were destroyed, they being fleshly like all the rest of mankind. In simple, understandable language the inspired first-century Bible commentator correctly described it, saying:

“He [God] did not hold back from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a deluge upon a world of ungodly people; . . . by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water.”—2 Peter 2:5; 3:6.

34. According to Moses, what happened to living creatures on the earth and to those in the ark?

³⁴ This agrees with the statement of the prophet Moses: “Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died. Thus he wiped out every existing thing that was on the surface of the ground, from man to beast, to moving animal and to flying creature of the heavens, and they were wiped off the earth; and only Noah and those who were with him in the ark kept on surviving. And the waters continued overwhelming the earth a hundred and fifty days.”—Genesis 7:22-24.

35. If we do not want to be reserved for the “evil day” of God’s judgment execution, what should we now do, like Noah?

³⁵ This deluge on a global scale was indeed an “act of God.” It dramatically illustrates a point that we of today ought to take to heart. What point? “Jehovah knows how to deliver people of godly devotion out of trial, but to reserve unrighteous people for the day of judgment to be cut off.” (2 Peter 2:9) “Everything Jehovah has made for his purpose, yes, even the wicked one for the evil day.” (Proverbs 16:4) So, then, if we do not desire to be reserved for the fast-approaching “evil day,” Jehovah’s own-timed “day” for executing his righteous judgments against all unrighteous persons on earth, it behooves us to ‘walk with God,’ as Noah did, and conform to His purpose.

36. (a) At the Deluge, what happened to the Nephilim? (b) Also, what consequences did the disobedient “sons of the true God” undergo?

³⁶ At the Deluge, not just unrighteous men and Nephilim had divine judgment carried out against them, but those disobedient “sons of God” also experienced a deserved judgment against them. True, when the Deluge overwhelmed the whole earth, those “sons of the true God” left their wives and families and dematerialized and did not drown. But what about when they returned to their spirit condition, which was their own proper dwelling place? Did they then resume the former intimacy that they had had with God? Was their relationship with Him the same as before? Did they continue in his holy heavenly organization as still being “sons of the true God”? No; but in these disobedient spirit creatures we see the origin of the “demons” (aside from Satan the Devil) that the prophet Moses speaks about. (Deuteronomy 32:17; also Psalm 106:37) But the first-century Bible commentators are more specific as to how Jehovah God dealt with those disobedient spirits, saying:

“The angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place he has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” (Jude 6) “The spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water.” (1 Peter 3:19, 20) “God did not hold back from punishing the angels that sinned, but, by throwing them into Tartarus, delivered them to pits of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment.”—2 Peter 2:4.

37. On their returning to the spirit realm, what did the status of the disobedient “sons of the true God” come to be?

³⁷ So the dematerializing of the disobedient “sons of the true God” and their return to the spirit realm did not transform them into holy angels once again. They found themselves on the side of Satan the Devil, the original rebel against Jehovah God. They were no longer fit for a place in Jehovah’s wifelike heavenly organization of holy, obedient “sons of the true God.” For this reason they were degraded to the status of “demons.” This low, dishonored state was appropriately spoken of as Tartarus, a name borrowed from the Greek language. The Syriac Bible version speaks of it as “the lowest places.” (See also Job 40:15; 41:23 in the Greek Septuagint Version.) Those disobedient spirits were no more favored with spiritual enlightenment such as God saw fit to bestow upon his faithful angelic sons. In this way they were plunged into dense darkness and were held there as if by “eternal bonds,” to be reserved for the “judgment of the great day.” So they can impart no real enlightenment to mankind.

38. Whose “seed” did those disobedient spirits become, and how do they operate to man’s deception and enslavement?

³⁸ Such disobedient spirits became the invisible “seed” of the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil. Their being put into Tartarean “pits of dense darkness” along with Satan the Devil was not a bruising of the serpent’s head by the promised “seed” of God’s heavenly “woman.” The holy “seed” had not yet been produced, and those imprisoned wicked spirits were anxious to know who it would be in order that they might join in bruising the “heel” of that “seed.” (Genesis 3:15) For that reason those wicked spirits under Satan their chief kept close to humankind, to deceive them and turn them against the “seed” when it should arrive. They try to communicate with humans through spirit mediums, since they themselves are debarred from further materializing in the flesh. They pretend to be the “disembodied souls” of deceased humans. They obsess or beset and besiege weak-minded persons, and even take possession of yielding persons. The prophet Moses was inspired to warn God’s people against having anything to do with these demonic enemies of God. (Deuteronomy 18:9-13) So beware of spiritism!

39. If not to demons, then to what should we turn for spiritual enlightenment?

³⁹ Since we desire to receive enlightenment on the “eternal purpose” of Jehovah God, we need to avoid those spiritistic powers of darkness that blind the majority of mankind to God’s truth. God’s written Word, the Holy Bible, is the channel of spiritual illumination for us, according to the inspired words of the psalmist, when he said to Jehovah God: “Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light to my roadway.”—Psalm 119:105.

40. Despite rebellion of men and angels, what is there to show for loyalty on the part of God’s heavenly organization and its cooperation?

⁴⁰ In the light of God’s Word we have looked back over the first 1,656 years of man’s existence on earth, from Adam’s creation until the deluge of Noah’s day. Despite the rebellion of both angels and men, the changeless God stuck to his first-formed purpose regarding mankind on earth. Though unstated numbers of angels yielded to selfish desire and sinned and needed to be expelled from his heavenly wifelike organization, these do not compare with those who remained faithful to Him within his holy organization, like a faithful wife to a loving husband. Millenniums afterward the prophet Daniel saw in vision a hundred million loyal angels still ministering to the Most High God, “the Ancient of Days.” (Daniel 7:9, 10) This heavenly “woman,” the prospective mother of the foretold “seed,” was set at “enmity” with the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, and his “seed.” She was firmly determined to cooperate with Jehovah God in the pursuit of his newly announced purpose to produce the “seed” at his chosen time.

41. What point did Satan maliciously aim to prove before all creation, and did he succeed completely even before the Deluge?

⁴¹ On earth and in the Paradise of Pleasure, Adam and Eve had been made a visible part of Jehovah’s universal organization at their creation in human perfection. Under temptation they did not keep their integrity toward their Creator, their heavenly Father. Under sentence of death they were expelled from Jehovah’s universal organization and ceased to be counted as children of His. But what of their offspring? To judge from integrity-breaking Adam and Eve, their imperfectly born, sin-inheriting offspring would be unable to maintain integrity to the Creator under temptation and pressure by the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil. Manifestly, Satan the Devil aimed to prove before all creation in heaven and earth that none of them would do so. Did he prove his point, even before the Deluge? The Bible record that expresses God’s viewpoint on the subject shows that at least three men maintained their integrity, namely, Abel, Enoch and Noah.

42, 43. (a) The cases of Abel, Enoch and Noah established what proof? (b) How was Jehovah’s foresight accurate with regard to the providing of further proof?

⁴² Those three faithful, God-fearing men upheld the universal sovereignty of Jehovah their Creator. They proved that Satan the Devil is a presumptuous liar in arguing that Almighty God cannot put a man on earth that, even in a Paradise environment, will keep integrity to Jehovah when subjected to Satan the Devil’s temptations and pressures. The cases of Abel, Enoch and Noah prove that God the Creator was justified in letting the human race, descended from the sinful Adam and Eve, continue to exist on earth. Other men, besides women, in addition to Abel, Enoch and Noah were sure to appear in the ranks of mankind as human life on earth went on outside Paradise, thus piling up more proof against the Devil’s lie and slander against God.

⁴³ Jehovah’s foresight was accurate, and his purpose was bound to succeed. His Messianic purpose that was announced in the presence of the Great Serpent in the garden of Eden added strength to God’s original purpose and made sure its fulfillment. God’s universal sovereignty over the earth, as demonstrated so mightily in the global deluge, will never cease over mankind.

Chapter 7

Tracing the Human Line of Descent of the “Seed”

1. Why had the cases of Abel, Enoch and Noah made Satan the Devil more desperate in his aim to wreck the promised “seed”?

LYING at the heart of God’s “eternal purpose” is the “seed” to be produced by God’s “woman.” The contest that began in the garden of Eden between Satan and God centered on this mysterious “seed.” This had to be so, because that “seed” was to be brought forth in due time to bruise the head of the Great Serpent, and Satan the Devil knew that the “head” meant was his own. (Genesis 3:15) Satan was determined to break the integrity of the coming “seed” and thereby make him unfit for God’s purpose. At the Deluge the first round of the contest between Satan and God was over, but with a showing against Satan. He had failed to crack the integrity of at least three men who were descended from the first man and woman whose integrity he had schemed to ruin. Abel, Enoch and Noah had weakened the confident position of Satan and had made him more desperate in his aim to wreck the “seed.”

2. Mankind today should be thankful that Noah gave them what kind of a start in life after the deluge? How so?

² The next six hundred and fifty-eight years after the Deluge ended were to prove very revealing concerning details about the “seed” of God’s “woman.” After the deluge all mankind down till today could trace its descent from Noah the builder of the ark that weathered the deluge. So now the world of mankind was given a righteous start, for Noah “walked with the true God.” (Genesis 6:9) Imperfect he was by heredity, but, morally, he was faultless, blameless, before God. How thankful we, his descendants, should be for that! Right after leaving the ark and setting foot on Mount Ararat, Noah led mankind in the worship of mankind’s Preserver, Jehovah God.

“Noah began to build an altar to Jehovah and to take some of all the clean beasts and of all the clean flying creatures and to offer burnt offerings upon the altar. And Jehovah began to smell a restful odor, and so Jehovah said in his heart: ‘Never again shall I call down evil upon the ground on man’s account, because the inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth up; and never again shall I deal every living thing a blow just as I have done. For all the days the earth continues, seed sowing and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, will never cease.’”—Genesis 8:20-22; compare Isaiah 54:9.

3. How did Lamech’s prophecy at Noah’s birth prove true, and of what did the rainbow become a symbol?

³ The prophecy that Noah’s father Lamech pronounced over him at his birth proved to be justified. (Genesis 5:29) The divine curse pronounced upon the ground outside the garden of Eden after Adam’s transgression was lifted, and Noah (whose name means “Rest”) caused a restful odor to ascend from his burnt offerings to God and induced God’s calling for a rest for mankind from the toil of cultivating a cursed ground. God also caused the first reported rainbow to appear in the light of the sun now shining directly upon the earth because of removal of the water canopy. Referring to that rainbow as a sign of guarantee, Jehovah promised that “no more will the waters become a deluge to bring all flesh to ruin.” No more will there be a watery deluge.—Genesis 9:8-15.

4. Noah’s three sons and their wives having survived the deluge with Noah, what question now arose as to the promised “seed”?

⁴ Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives survived with him and his wife. Which one, now, of these three sons was to be the one through whom the line of descent would run down to the earthly appearance of the “seed” of God’s “woman”? The choice that had to be made would affect differently the three races that would descend from the three patriarchs, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The prophecy that God inspired Noah to pronounce over his three sons on a critical occasion set forth in which way the divine favor and blessing would go. What was the basis for this?

5. What caused Noah to pronounce a curse upon Ham’s son Canaan?

⁵ In obedience to God’s command to Noah’s sons to become fruitful in the earth, Shem became father to Arpachshad two years after the start of the deluge. (Genesis 11:10) In time Ham became father to Canaan. (Genesis 9:18; 10:6) Some time after Canaan’s birth there was an occasion when Noah, for some unstated reason, got drunk on wine from his vineyard. Ham entered Noah’s tent and saw him lying uncovered, naked, but he did nothing to conceal his father’s nakedness. Rather, he aired it to Shem and Japheth. With due respect for their father, Shem and Japheth refused to look upon Noah’s nakedness, and moving with their backs turned to their father, they spread a cloth over him. They took no advantage of their father’s nakedness and showed and kept their high respect for him as their father and as Jehovah’s prophet.

“Finally Noah awoke from his wine and got to know what his youngest son had done to him. At this he said: ‘Cursed be Canaan. Let him become the lowest slave to his brothers.’ And he added: ‘Blessed be Jehovah, Shem’s God, And let Canaan become a slave to him. Let God grant ample space to Japheth, And let him reside in the tents of Shem. Let Canaan become a slave to him also.’”—Genesis 9:20-27.

6. According to Noah’s prophecy, through which son was the line of descent to the Messiah to run?

⁶ Noah was sober when he pronounced those words. He did not curse the whole race that descended from Ham, because of Ham’s lack of respect, especially for God’s prophet. So God inspired Noah to curse only one son of Ham, namely, Canaan, whose descendants took up residence in the land of Canaan in Palestine. The Canaanites did become slaves to the descendants of Shem, when God brought the Israelites into Canaanland in accord with His promise to Abraham the Hebrew. Shem lived five hundred and two years after the start of the Deluge, so that his life overlapped on that of Abraham by one hundred and fifty years. (Genesis 11:10, 11) Noah declared Jehovah to be Shem’s God. Jehovah was to be blessed, because it was the fear of Him that motivated Shem to show the due respect for Noah as God’s prophet. Japheth was to be treated as a guest in Shem’s tents, and not as a slave like Canaan. Thus, by being a host to his brother Japheth, Shem was ranked as superior to him in the wording of the prophecy. In harmony with this, Shem’s line of descent was to lead to Messiah.

THE FOUNDING OF BABYLON

7. Which grandson of Ham established the first Babylonian Empire, and how?

⁷ Another descendant of Ham that did not turn out well was his grandson Nimrod. Surviving for three hundred and fifty years after the start of the deluge, Noah lived to see the rise and doubtless the downfall of this great-grandson of his. (Genesis 9:28, 29) Nimrod founded an organization that acted like part of the visible “seed” of the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil. Says Genesis 10:8-12: “And Cush became father to Nimrod. He made the start in becoming a mighty one in the earth. He displayed himself a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah. That is why there is a saying: ‘Just like Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.’ And the beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria and set himself to building Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: this is the great city.” According to this, Nimrod established the first Babylonian Empire.

8, 9. (a) Why did Jehovah not choose Babel as the city on which to place his name? (b) Whose language was not changed at Babel?

⁸ It was at Babel (called Babylon by the Greek-speaking Jews) that the confusion of the language of mankind took place, when Jehovah God displayed his disapproval at the building of the city and of a false religious tower therein, because the builders purposed to make a celebrated name for themselves and to keep from being “scattered over all the surface of the earth.” They did not foresee the decay of the cities that is taking place today. (Genesis 11:1-9) Though the first empire on earth, this Babylonian Empire of Nimrod did not become the First World Power of Bible record. Ancient Egypt did. Babel’s political power was weakened, because its builders, now disunited by differing languages, were thus made by Jehovah to scatter over all the earth.

⁹ Jehovah God did not choose Babylon as the city on which to place his name. Noah and his blessed son Shem had no part in the building of Babel and its tower of false religion, and their language was not confused.

10, 11. (a) In Shem’s days the line of descent for the promised “seed” was narrowed down to which of his descendants? (b) This was indicated by what disclosure, to whom?

¹⁰ Two years after Noah’s death in 2020 B.C.E., Abraham was born in the line of Shem, who was still alive. This descendant proved to be a worshiper of Shem’s God, Jehovah. Shem could have had great satisfaction when he learned of the thrilling disclosure that Jehovah made to Abraham. This proved that Jehovah was sticking to his “eternal purpose” that He had formed at the garden of Eden after the transgression by Eve and Adam. It narrowed down the coming of the “seed” of God’s “woman” to the line of Abraham, out of all the descendants of Shem. But what was the divine disclosure to Abraham, who at the time was called Abram?

¹¹ Abram (Abraham) was in Mesopotamia, at the city of Ur of the Chaldeans not far from Babylon (Babel), when the disclosure was made to him. Genesis 12:1-3 tells us: “And Jehovah proceeded to say to Abram: ‘Go your way out of your country and from your relatives and from the house of your father to the country that I shall show you; and I shall make a great nation out of you and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and him that calls down evil upon you I shall curse, and all the families of the ground will certainly bless themselves by means of you.’”

12. For whom was that disclosure “good news,” and what era may be said to have begun at that disclosure?

¹² “All the families of the ground”—that includes our families today in this twentieth century! Those of our families can procure a blessing by means of this ancient Abram (Abraham)! That is good news, indeed! And it broke upon the post-Deluge world of mankind away back there in the twentieth century before our Common Era. What this meant is commented on later in these inspired words: “Surely you know that those who adhere to faith are the ones who are sons of Abraham. Now the Scripture, seeing in advance that God would declare people of the nations righteous due to faith, declared the good news beforehand to Abraham, namely: ‘By means of you all the nations will be blessed.’” (Galatians 3:7, 8) In view of that it may rightly be said that the Era of the Good News (the Gospel Age, as some might want to call it) began back there shortly before Abraham obeyed the divine command.

13. (a) What was the state of Abraham’s flesh when God’s command came to him, and so what was it that counted with God? (b) When did Abraham cross the Euphrates River?

¹³ A fact to be noted here, also, is that, at the time of God’s choice of him to be the channel of blessing to all families and nations, Abraham was not circumcised in the flesh. God’s command to him to get himself and his household males circumcised did not come till at least twenty-four years later, the year before the birth of his son Isaac (1918 B.C.E.). If not Abraham’s fleshly condition, what was it, then, that counted with God? It was Abraham’s faith. Jehovah God knew that Abraham had faith in Him. Not in vain did He issue to Abraham the command to leave his homeland. Abraham promptly left and moved with his household northwestward to Haran, and from there, after the death of his father Terah in Haran, he crossed the Euphrates River and moved toward the land that God was proceeding to show him. His crossing of the Euphrates River occurred on Nisan 14 in the spring of the year 1943 B.C.E., or 430 years before the celebration of the first Passover by Abraham’s descendants down in Egypt.—Exodus 12:40-42; Galatians 3:17.

14. What did Jehovah say to Abraham in the land of Canaan, and after that what did Abraham do?

¹⁴ The prophet Moses made a record of this, writing: “At that Abram went just as Jehovah had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran. So Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot the son of his brother and all the goods that they had accumulated and the souls whom they had acquired in Haran, and they got on their way out to go to the land of Canaan. Finally they came to the land of Canaan. And Abram went on through the land as far as the site of Shechem, near the big trees of Moreh; and at that time the Canaanite was in the land. Jehovah now appeared to Abram and said: ‘To your seed I am going to give this land.’ After that he built an altar there to Jehovah, who had appeared to him.”—Genesis 12:4-7; Acts 7:4, 5.

15. Why would God’s promise of a “seed” to Abraham call for a miracle, this involving what still greater miracle?

¹⁵ Thus, although at that time Abram, at the age of seventy-five years, did not have any children, no child by his sixty-five-year-old wife Sarai, yet Jehovah promised that Abram would have a seed or offspring, to which Jehovah would give the land of Canaan. Abraham accepted that divine promise in faith. For, according to female powers of reproduction by that time back there, this approached onto God’s promising a miracle. Twenty-four years later, when Abraham heard that he was to have a son by his wife Sarah he laughed and said in his heart: “Will a man a hundred years old have a child born, and will Sarah, yes, will a woman ninety years old give birth?” (Genesis 17:17; 18:12-14) If that was “extraordinary,” still more marvelous would be the miracle that would fulfill God’s prophecy in Genesis 3:15. This was because God’s “woman” was heavenly and her promised “seed” would be heavenly and yet that “seed” would be tied in with Abraham’s earthly line of descent. In this way this “seed” of God’s “woman” could be called “the seed of Abraham,” yes, “son of Abraham.”

16. God’s promise to bring nations and kings out of Abraham and Sarah raised what questions regarding the “seed”?

¹⁶ At the time that God, by his angel, assured Abraham that he was to have a son by his wife Sarah, to be named Isaac, God said to Abraham: “I will make you very, very fruitful and will make you become nations, and kings will come out of you. . . . I will bless her [Sarah] and also give you a son from her; and I will bless her and she shall become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” (Genesis 17:6, 16) So, now, which of those “nations” would be Jehovah’s favored nation? Would it have a king over it? Would the “seed” of God’s “woman” become that king? It is but natural to ask such questions.

MELCHIZEDEK

17. What was the most outstanding contact with kings in Canaanland in Abraham’s career, and why did Abraham pay him a tithe?

¹⁷ Before this, Abraham had had contact with earthly kings. The most significant of such contacts was when he met the outstanding king in the land of Canaan. Abraham had just been obliged to rescue his nephew Lot from the hands of four kings who had invaded the land of Canaan and defeated five of its kings and had carried off captives, including Lot. On his return from inflicting defeat upon those four marauder kings, Abraham approached the city of Salem, in the mountains to the west of the Dead Sea. “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine, and he was priest of the Most High God. Then he blessed him and said: ‘Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, Producer of heaven and earth; and blessed be the Most High God, who has delivered your oppressors into your hand!’ At that Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” (Genesis 14:18-20) Since, as Melchizedek told Abraham, the Most High God had delivered Abraham’s oppressors into his hand, it was only fitting that Abraham should give a tenth of all the spoils to the priest of the Most High God, Melchizedek.

18. Why was Melchizedek’s blessing upon Abraham no empty utterance, and how did David show that one’s importance in God’s purpose?

¹⁸ Melchizedek’s blessing upon Abraham was not an empty utterance. It counted for something, and was in line with Jehovah’s own promise that Abraham should be a blessing to all the families of the ground—all families should procure a blessing by means of him. (Genesis 12:3) This mysterious King-Priest Melchizedek, although given such scant mention in history, was not lost to sight. Nine hundred years later the Most High God inspired another king of Salem, King David of Jerusalem, to prophesy and show just how significant Melchizedek had been within the purpose of the Most High God. According to this, Melchizedek was the prefiguring of a still greater king, one even greater than David, one whom even David would be obliged to call “my Lord.” This prefigured king could be no one else but the Messiah, the “seed” of God’s “woman.” So, under the power of God’s holy spirit, David wrote, in Psalm 110:1-4:

“The utterance of Jehovah to my Lord is: ‘Sit at my right hand Until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.’ The rod of your strength Jehovah will send out of Zion, saying: ‘Go subduing in the midst of your enemies.’ Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day of your military force. In the splendors of holiness, from the womb of the dawn, You have your company of young men just like dewdrops. Jehovah has sworn (and he will feel no regret): ‘You are a priest to time indefinite According to the manner of Melchizedek!’”

19. The one prophesied to wield the rod of strength on Mount Zion had to be whose descendant, and why was David not prophesying about kings from Solomon to Zedekiah?

¹⁹ Note what those inspired words signify. The fact that King David said that Jehovah would send out the King’s rod of strength from Zion indicates that the King would be a fleshly descendant of David. According to Jehovah’s covenant with David for an everlasting kingdom, no one would sit as king on Mount Zion and wield the rodlike scepter of strength except a fleshly descendant of David. (2 Samuel 7:8-16) Hence, this one whose rod of strength would be sent out of Zion would be called a “son of David.” But in this case David was not referring prophetically to his son, King Solomon, who was the most glorious king of David’s line to throne on Mount Zion and reign over all twelve tribes of his people. David never addressed his son Solomon as “My Lord,” neither any other of the kings on Zion who followed Solomon all the way down to King Zedekiah. Furthermore, neither Solomon nor any of the succeeding kings on Mount Zion were priests as well as kings, as Melchizedek was.—2 Chronicles 26:16-23.

20. How would this prophetic one, although being David’s son, yet be David’s “Lord”?

²⁰ However, since this promised ruler was to be a “son” of King David, why would David refer to him as “My Lord”? This was due to the fact that this outstanding “son of David” would be a king far higher than David. Although David sat on the “throne of Jehovah” on earthly Mount Zion, he never, even at his death, ascended to heaven and sat down on the “right hand” of Jehovah. But the one who would become David’s “Lord” would do so. His royal position at Jehovah’s right hand in heaven could be referred to as a heavenly Mount Zion because it was pictured by the earthly Mount Zion, which used to be enclosed within Jerusalem’s walls but is not so today. As Jehovah himself said, in Psalm 89:27, with regard to the Messiah: “Also, I myself shall place him as firstborn, The most high of the kings of the earth.” Not alone would he be a lordly King higher than David, but he would also be forever a “priest” of the Most High God, like Melchizedek the king of ancient Salem.—Psalm 76:2; 110:4.

21. Why, then, would Abraham’s name become great?

²¹ Little did the patriarch Abraham, back there in the twentieth century B.C.E., realize that the “kings” to whom he and his wife Sarah were to become the ancestors would include the Messianic king who was foreshadowed by Melchizedek, to whom Abraham paid tithes of all his spoils of conquest. No wonder that Abraham’s name was to become great because of its association with such a King-Priest! No wonder that, through this Priest-King like Melchizedek, all the families of the earth would bless themselves or procure a blessing by means of Abraham!—Genesis 12:3.

THE “FRIEND” OF GOD

22. How did God illustrate that His chosen nation would come through Abraham’s natural son and heir?

²² After Abraham’s victorious encounter with the four invading kings, God promised Abraham the needed protection and also that his “heir” would be a natural son of his. That God’s chosen nation would come through this son and heir, God assured Abraham by means of an illustration: “He now brought him outside and said: ‘Look up, please, to the heavens and count the stars, if you are possibly able to count them.’ And he went on to say to him: ‘So your seed will become.’ And he put faith in Jehovah; and he proceeded to count it to him as righteousness.”—Genesis 15:1-6.

23. On the basis of what was righteousness counted to Abraham, and to what was he justified?

²³ Let us not forget that, at this time, Abraham was still an uncircumcised Hebrew. Hence, righteousness could not be counted to Abraham due to his being circumcised in the flesh; it was counted to him because of his faith in Jehovah, who was revealing part of his purpose to Abraham. So Abraham was counted righteous before God; he was thus justified to friendship with Jehovah God. Centuries later King Jehoshaphat of Jerusalem called Abraham the friend or “lover” of Jehovah. Still later, through the prophet Isaiah, Jehovah spoke of him as “Abraham my friend.” (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8) This proves how valuable, how vital, faith in Jehovah in connection with his “seed” really is.

24. How did Abraham become father to Ishmael, and then how to Isaac?

²⁴ In the year 1932 B.C.E., at the suggestion of his barren, aged wife Sarah, Abraham had a son by means of her Egyptian slave girl Hagar and called his name Ishmael. (Genesis 16:1-16) Thirteen years thereafter, in 1919 B.C.E., Jehovah told Abraham that Ishmael was not to serve as the true “seed,” but a son by his true wife Sarah would be the chosen “seed.” It would be a son by a free woman. And so, in the succeeding year, Isaac was born when Sarah was ninety years of age. “And Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac his son was born to him.” On the eighth day of life Isaac was circumcised, just as his father Abraham had been just the year previous.—Genesis 21:1-5.

25. What does the account show as to whether Jehovah made a nation including all the natural sons of Abraham?

²⁵ It is interesting to note that God did not now make a nation out of his two sons, Ishmael the firstborn and Isaac, a two-tribe nation. No, but five years later, at the urgent request of his wife Sarah, Abraham dismissed Hagar and her son Ishmael from his household, to fend for themselves, to go wherever they wanted to go. (Genesis 21:8-21) Neither afterward, after the death of Sarah in 1881 B.C.E., did God make a nation out of Isaac and the other sons that Abraham had by means of a concubine, Keturah, a seven-tribe nation. “Later on Abraham gave everything he had to Isaac, but to the sons of the concubines that Abraham had Abraham gave gifts. Then he sent them away from Isaac his son, while he was still alive, eastward, to the land of the East.”—Genesis 25:1-6.

26. For what admirable demonstration of faith did Abraham receive a special blessing in the land of Moriah, and what did it state?

²⁶ A very admirable demonstration of faith on the part of Abraham led to a great blessing for this “friend” of Jehovah. It came after a penetrating test of Abraham’s faith and obedience toward the Most High God. The blessing of divine approval was pronounced at a mountaintop in the land of Moriah, thought by many to be the location where King Solomon built the magnificent temple of Jehovah centuries afterward. (2 Chronicles 3:1) There, at the place designated by Jehovah, and on the wood spread out over a newly made stone altar, lay the form of a growing boy. It was Isaac. Beside the altar stood his father Abraham with a slaughtering knife in his hand. He was just about to carry out God’s command to kill Isaac sacrificially and offer him up as a burnt offering to the God who had given him the boy miraculously. Then:

“Jehovah’s angel began calling to him out of the heavens and saying: ‘Abraham, Abraham! . . . Do not put out your hand against the boy and do not do anything at all to him, for now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.’ . . . And Jehovah’s angel proceeded to call to Abraham the second time out of the heavens and to say: ‘By myself I do swear,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘that by reason of the fact that you have done this thing and you have not withheld your son, your only one, I shall surely bless you and I shall surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand that are on the seashore; and your seed will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves due to the fact that you have listened to my voice.’”—Genesis 22:1-18.

27. What did this divine statement show as to the choosing of the “seed” and as to the procuring of the blessing through it?

²⁷ This meant that the promised “seed” by means of whom all the nations would procure a blessing would come through Isaac’s line of descent. Thereby Jehovah God showed that he was doing the choosing of the line of descent, and that all the half brothers of Isaac would have no part in furnishing that “seed.” Nevertheless, the nations that descended from Isaac’s half brothers could procure for themselves a blessing by means of that “seed.” All nations of today, that is, people of all nationalities of today, can likewise procure a blessing through Abraham’s “seed.”

28. Shem lived long enough to learn of what events in connection with his line of descent?

²⁸ The patriarch Shem, a survivor of the global deluge, lived on to learn of that divine blessing pronounced upon Abraham; in fact, Shem lived on to learn of the marriage of Isaac to the beautiful Rebekah from Haran in Mesopotamia. Shem lived on to 1868 B.C.E., ten years after that marriage, but did not live to see the offspring of that marriage. But Abraham did so.—Genesis 11:11; 25:7.