What is your guess
as to how many years transpired between Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the Israelite's conquest of Canaan? The number should be quite large, I would think. No one knows but most OT scholars reject Usher's dating schemes which come up with about 3000 to 4000 years or so. Realistically, the number is a lot higher. Whatever it is (and I think a number like 100,000 years is not without its merits) that number of years is how long God's common grace institution of the state had been in operation prior to Canaan's fall. In other words, God's providence had enabled man's ability to govern with normal due process. It was God's care of mankind, both the reprobate line of Satan's seed (starting with Cain) and the elect line of the seed of the woman (starting with Seth) that brought stability and normalcy to the human project, more and more wicked though it gradually became.
Archaeological discoveries have shown that nations with sophisticated governmental processes existed and formed numerous treaties (covenants) among themselves. An attack by a single nation like that of the Israelites on Canaan (and the other -ites) was from the perspective of common grace due process an unjust war. It was a holy war. It was an intrusion upon the common grace stage of the consummation's dual function of curse/blessing. Curse for the doomed seed of Satan and blessing for the elect in Christ.
My use of the term savage is warranted only from my contention that God's providence is what made possible the common grace state institution in the first place. It was his own law that he was upholding in the affairs of men for thousands of years that permits us to step back and see what was happening from an upper level.
The phrase: might makes right actually seems to fit very well here.
5 comments:
100,000 years just doesn't seem to fit. It raises many more questions than answers. But I guess it's really insignificant in the overall context of this musing. I can't seem to figure out where this is leading. Somehow I think that God didn't consider it an unjust war.
This is leading back to where I started: intrusion. God himself defined what a just war (or jusified killing) is by establishing the common grace institution called the state. And it had been in operation, regulating human relationships for many years. The Israelite attack was a violation of God's own prescribed arrangement. Therefore, something very unusual had to have been going on.
As for the 100,000 years, what questions do is raise in your mind? What is your number?
After 100,000 years, can you imagine what the population of the earth must have been? Unless the flood wiped them out. I suppose alot could have occurred between Adam and Noah. Not alot of documentation for that period.
Maybe an easier question: which is longer: Cain->Noah, or Noah->Abraham?
Here's an observation from my favorite Jewish commentary about the timeframe between Adamand Noah with which he begins a long explication of how humans failed to live without explicit divine guidance after their expulsion from Eden: ,,,from Adam to Lamech, are alive atthe same time,with all their myrian descendants. Then, suddenly, in theyear 930 Adam dropsdead. Next in 987 Enoch"was not, for God took him." And in 1042 Seth also dies. ... wisdom-seeking reader learn[s],in the sequel, how human beings--especially the men--react to the discovery of their unavoidable finitude....Cain's actofmurder had shown that death might occur by violence, but not thatdeathwas necessary by nature...The deaths of Adam and Seth must have shattered men's expectations and sent them reeling. ... Noah, born in 1056, isthe first man born into the world after Adamdies. Noah is therefore the first man who could nave not direct contact with thefirst man and, therefore, with a living memory oftheGardenof Edenandits prospect of immortal life. More imprtant, Noahisthe first man whoenters a world in which death is already present, the first manwho grows up knowing that hemust die. ...thus, Noah (not Adam or Cain) is the prototype of self-consciously mortal man. Fittingly, the name that Noahcarries, received from his father, Lamech, means both comfort" and "lament," a perfect name for new life seen in the light of inevitable death. These facts may explain, in part, whyNoah would, uniquely, rather find grace in the eyes of the Lord.
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