BibleProject - A Symptom of Human Violence – The City E3

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

As the story of the Bible unfolds, humanity grows more and more violent. Cain is more violent than his parents, and his descendants are more violent than him. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss Lemek, Cain’s far more murderous descendant, and humanity’s escalating violence that prompts God to flood the earth.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-18:31)Part two (18:31-36:18)Part three (36:18-51:52)Part four (51:52-1:14:37)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Organized Religion” by Beautiful Eulogy“She Won’t Say” by Psalm Trees & Guillaume Muschalle“Forever Tired” by Psalm Trees & Guillaume MuschalleShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Adam and Eve have two sons, Kane and Abel. Kane becomes jealous of his brother Abel, and he kills him. Kane, the first murder in the Bible, is also the founder of the very first city in the Bible. Cain builds a city as a place of protection, but the city embodies the fear and jealousy and violence of Cain. And so it's no surprise that the next person

that we learn about in the city of Cain is a vicious man named Lamek. What God appointed Adam and Eve to do together, that we learn about in the city of Cain is a vicious man named Lymek. What God appointed Adam and Eve to do together, the tube to be one and a rule together over the animals. How you get one guy who takes two so he begins to treat women like animals to be accumulated and then he mutates or distorts the rule or power that he has to take life instead of preserve life. So he's the anti-Adam.

As the story of humanity continues to unfold, the violence of humanity increases. In Genesis 6, we learned that things get so bad that the whole land is full of violence. That little phrase, the land was full, is a tragic inversion of God's blessing, be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. And humans have multiplied all kinds of stuff, and what they've multiplied is the innocent blood, is crying out from the ground.

God's response to human violence is to flood the earth. And if that response feels complicated, well, it's because it is. God's purpose to rule the world through humans, that's the thing God never gets up on. But now, what he's acknowledging is humans are bad. Humans are a mix of good and bad, but that bad tends to scale. God is saying, okay, if this is the partner I have to work with, I have to concede to the state of their heart, which means that God is going to begin to engage in what look to us, the reader, like moral compromises as he works with these humans. What else is the story of the Old Testament, but God behaving in really complicated ways?

Today, Tim McE and I talk about God's response to the cycle of human violence in the School of Genesis. I'm John Collins and you're listening to Vibal Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey, hello John. Here we go.

Here we go in the city. Yeah, we're talking city. Yeah, we're talking city. We're living in a city. We are having this conversation, right, in the heart of our city. Yeah. There's a little window talking city. Yeah, we're talking city. We're living in a city. We are having this conversation, right? In the heart of our city. Yeah, there's a little window behind us. Yeah.

Some apartments. And if you just keep going, you're down town. Yes. In the heart of it. We used to be able to look out the recording room, a window, and see downtown Portland, like the skyline. And then they built that apartment. And then there was a big apartment building that completely blocked our view

Cities and there you go life in this more people Do you know do you notice that this intersection right here often smells like sewer? Oh, yeah walking by it. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah rises up on a really cold day. You can see the steam from the manhole cover You know, there's little holes. Yeah, it comes up and it smells terrible. It's pretty consistent, like something's wrong right there. You think it's wrong? I don't know. We're also close to the river, which divides Portland between East and West.

And so I think there's a lot of sewer lines that from all the east side of Portland all start channeling together in this, literally, between here and the 10 blocks in the river. Welcome to the city. Welcome to the city. Anyhow, we are in the city.

Or as they used to say in the upper Midwest where I lived for many years, Anyhoo. Anyhoo. Anyhoo. So, yeah, we live in a city and most of the world's population lives in the city. Dude. Yes. And the UN, this is the middle of November 2022, the UN just released a report that's by the end of this year, there will be 8 billion people on the planet.

Yeah. I've been saying seven and a half for a number of years, but... No, it took, I don't know how many tens of thousands of years for humanity to get to one billion Like a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I mean depending on how you count and then three centuries Hmm less than three centuries to get from one to eight. Yeah, it's gonna be ten points something by 2050 point something by 2050. Wow. It's wild. And all these people are living in cities

and there's the urbanization trend is also growing rapidly. So more and more people living in what we call cities and what we call a city goes from anything to like a suburb to like a metropolis, to like mega metropolises. It's blurry in my mind What constitutes a town and when a town transitions to a city? This is the classic thing like with all with everything like what's a stream versus a river? Yeah versus a brook versus a brook or creek or when is a when is a pond become a lake? Yeah, right there go

Yeah, or lake does a pond become a lake? Yeah, right, there we go. Or a lake becomes sea. Yes, exactly. Anyhow, we digress, but not fully. I think the point maybe that you're moving towards with that comment is that the way we conceive of cities is based on some set of blurry criteria that are really different than how the biblical authors thought about what a city is,

and how they describe them. And therefore, the roles that they play in the biblical story is both similar, but also different from how we imagine cities. Yeah, and the simplest form of city is a place where people live where they give a wall, right? Yeah, and the walled enclosure is key. So, in other words, the Hebrew word is ear, and it can refer to what we would for sure call it town,

or even medieval, like a hamlet. That's right, hamlet was the word, yeah. Yeah, but if it has a wall around it, it's ear and Hebrew. So it could be a few hundred people, few thousand, tens of thousands, and tens of thousands is reaching like the upper end. In the book of Jonah, Nineveh is described as a city with 120,000.

And that's huge. That's like Megalopolis. That's like our equivalent of like a Tokyo or something. Yeah, exactly. Now empire is like Babylon is not a city. It's like a lot of cities. Was there a different Hebrew word for kingdom empire like how's our relate to city? We're gonna look at that today actually. Yeah. Once you transcend to networks of cities out of one central hub or capital you just start getting the

language of kingdom in jing through mom la hut or Mamluhut. Yeah, different. Cities are talking about walled enclosures that are hubs of networks of un-walled towns right outside, branching out from the city where all the farming takes place. Okay. So, in these conversations, we're really laser- focused on the city and not as the cities become what we would call kingdom or we're going to get a blurry line between cities become emblematic or icons for kingdoms. Okay.

That's what I was coming. And actually this was in our first conversation, but the whole of the ancient Near East, especially the earlier parts of the Bible, the story is about Abraham and even in T'Jashua, it was a city-state society. So, each large city had its own king and could be called a kingdom. But then it's just scaling up. The Babylon just becomes the kingdom of kingdoms. God. And every king of every city becomes, you know, like a subordinate to the king of Babylon. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So as we started this conversation, you set the stage to kind of say, look,

the way the Bible begins is in a garden, and where people actually thrive is amongst trees and water in a garden settings. And when a city, that is a place where people are going to live and create a wall around, when that shows up, that shows up amidst violence and revenge and like fear and this is a story of Kane. Exactly right. And so cities are a problem. Cities are a symptom of what is not good outside of it. That's good to say. The city is not the problem.

The city is the symptom. It's a result. Yeah. So where we went in the first few conversations was the first thing that is not good in all of God's good world, seven times God pronounces it good after creating this guy in the land and the sea is a human alone because the human alone can't accomplish the human vocation which is to multiply and to steward and have responsibility over creation. So God splits the human and the human, the woman that is the delivering ally for the lone human, she is called the Azer, which

means delivering ally. And so God provides that as the resolution of this crisis, of what is not good, but then that partnership gets fractured through Folly and breaking God's wise command as the humans want to take wisdom for themselves. So they're exiled from Eden, they have children, Cain enable, and then we watched how Cain replace his parents' failure in Folly, not with a tree, but with a brother? Mm-hmm. And he murders his brother, and so God does to cane what he did at a manoeuvre which is exile them to the east. And so Cain is freaked out.

Yeah, he's now like wandering in the east. Mm-hmm. He is worried that someone's gonna like, yeah. avenge. Yeah, whoever finds me will kill me. Yeah, not an unwarranted concern. And so what, Yallis, and what's interesting is how you set this up, the thing that was not good was being alone.

And here's Cain out alone. Now, yeah, he's out of wander again. Yeah, yeah, it's not good. And so God also provides something for Cane, what he provides him is an oat in Hebrew, which is the word for sign or symbol. And so this is the last conversation that we just had. But Cane apparently doesn't find that symbol trustworthy enough. And the symbol was a sign that God will protect him. Actually, that God would avenge anybody who kills him.

The way you put it actually made me think of it in a new way, which is kind of like a, so, how about just preventing me from being killed? That's what I would prefer. Because I have to do that for myself. Yeah, so Cain goes out from that, and in this very not good situation of being alone, he goes out, and two things happen. He finds a wife for himself, which is what God provided for the not good situation in

Eden. Now, here's Cain in a not good situation outside of Eden, and he obtains a wife. We're not told who or how, he just does. And then we're told that they had a baby together, and then he builds a city. And building of a city, that little phrase, build, the last time it got used is when God builds the woman. Right. And what God built was the Azer, delivering ally, and what Cain builds is an Eir, a city, which is the words look almost identical graphically to the word Azer.

And for him, it's a delivering, like fortress, ally. But the contrast is that in this not good situation, God gave him something. A sign. A sign, a symbol. And what he decides to do is build his own means of deliverance, which is the city. So you're saying if we just trust God, we don't need cities.

That, and remember, the primary association with cities is a walled enclosure to prevent people from attacking and killing you and taking your stuff. Yeah. So you know, you wouldn't need that inside of Eden. And we talked about fences and like getting stuff. Oh yeah, exactly right. Yeah. So cities are a symptom of that things are not good outside of Eden. Because we can't trust each other. You might have a different idea of good and bad than I do. Your knowledge of good and bad might be different than mine. And your version of good might involve like beating me up and taking my stuff.

So I'm gonna build an ear and protect myself because I can't depend on God to do that. And so this idea of the protection of the city and who the city of man versus the Garden of God is this unwalled place that's safe and secure these become contrast wall, but there's like a bouncer. Oh Yeah, totally. Yeah, there's the fiery sword. Yeah, it's got its own type of yeah, you know wall I suppose yeah, but the point is that it's it's a wall of God's own Security

God's presence and his messengers are the security. Whereas here, it's a human providing security for themselves. So what we're going to track in this conversation is two parallel stories that flow out of Cain and his city. The narrator of Genesis follows the genealogy of Cain down through the generations and what we see as intensifying a human murder and spilling of innocent blood in the land. And that leads God to deal with it. So, I'm sorry. So we have a YouTube channel And have you seen the YouTube channel called the Hydraulic Press channel? Yes.

It's this guy. You introduced this to me years ago. You said you watched it with your kids. Yes. And so I started watching with my kids. So we watched them recently. Okay. So I forget where the guys from.

He has a thick Eastern European accent. Uh-huh. And. There's a couple of these, but I know the guy you're talking about. Yeah, and so basically he has this hydraulic press in his shop, and he just... Smash his things. Yeah, and now he has people send him suggestions, and then he smashes them in films with super high-resolution gopros from every angle, and then you just watch it in super slow motion like get crushed and explode and it's I don't

know why it's so entertaining. Half an hour and go by and we'll watch it doesn't things get smashed and it's mesmerized. So every time he smashes an object what he says is like he'll be like here and here is the bowling ball. We're about to press. So we shall have to deal with it. It is Scottish accent. Well, no, it's like Eastern European. Or Eastern European. Yeah, totally. And we shall deal with it.

And so God has to deal with, deal with the overflow of my mind. Yeah, and it all flows out of the city. The whole thing is that everything bad that leads up to the flood in narratively flows out of this city. And then that leads to the flood. And then what we'll see is the moment, no, and his sons get off the flood, one of his sons, his youngest son, Ham.

Well, also we began a lineage from him that leads to yet the building of another city that God will have to deal with it. And we're going to look at these two parallel stories, the city of Cain, that leads to the flood, and we're going to look at the city of Nimrod that leads to the great scattering. And these are two parallel stories that the other Genesis has put next to each other. And that's all a study in the nature of human cities and how they scale and escalate human evil to systemic and corporate levels is really fascinating. And this is a

relevant set of meditations, I think, to understand human life, that it's not just a city isn't just like a conglomeration of individuals When you put a bunch of individuals together it becomes something bigger and more that is its own category of thing Yeah, that can only be dealt with on a corporate or a communal level We mean dealt with, deal with it. It's sort of like, if you and I have a problem individually, you and I can sit down and, you know, we can talk about it. We're business partners in the Bible project, like we've been. And so, like if you and I had a conflict, it may come that we have to like deal with it. But get some papers out and like talk about,

well, here's what we just said yesterday or no to, I don't know, whatever. But what if there's a hundred of you and a hundred of me? Like it's just different. Now we're getting judges and we're getting, yes, like the body politic is happening. Systems, yeah, systems, politics. And the biblical authors are very, very interested

in the relationship between individual, folly and, and moral, compromise, and systemic, evil, and folly. And they are, you know, they're similar to each other, but they're also different. And the city is the image of systemic, corporate, human evil. That's what we're looking at. Okay. human evil. That's what we're looking at. So in the last episode we actually tracked with Cain building his city. Yeah.

And he names after his firstborn son, Inak. Yeah. So all of a sudden, the story about Cain stops and he just disappears. He's gone from the story. Yeah. We just get a short genealogy going down the generations to Inak was born Irahad, Iirad Mahulia el Mahulia el birth, Mathusha el Mathusha el birth, Lemek. Lemek.

Is that Lemek? Seven generations. It's the Lemek is the seventh from Adam. Seventh from Adam. Yeah, from Cain's dad. All right. Here we go. Seven.

Lemek. And this is old, like years ago, little detail, but it's worse noting, there's two Lemek's in the Bible. All right. This guy. And then if you follow through Adam and Eve's other son, Seth, Lemek is the father of Noah. Yeah, this gets so confusing.

There's so many repeat names in those two genealogies. The line from Cain, son of Adam, and the line from Seth, son of Adam, are all filled with names that are full of the identical letters But just yeah like switched around yeah because they're mirror images of each other the line of the snake like line This one mm-hmm and the line Seat of lemon. Yeah, versus Seth's line is about the snake versus the woman and they're hard to tell apart even their names Just like the tree of knowing good and bad was hard to tell because it looked like all

the other trees. It's like it's hard to separate wheat from Jeff or the weeds from the like in Jesus Paraclet. Yeah, it's exactly right. So Lemmex all of a sudden, right there, his name is King spelled backwards just the Hebrew word for King, mellic, Lemek. And Lemek took for himself two wives. Now just right there.

Yeah. It's like if it's good to have one wife, it's double a good to have two wives. It's very interesting. But in the little poem about the union of the man and the woman in Eden, it says that the union in Eden, let's kind of set this paradigm for that a man and a woman, the two become one. And now here is one, not becoming one with another one. But like taking two. But one taking two.

Yeah. Yeah, and you're like, oh, I don't think that's good. Like that's not what God provided. He takes more for himself than what God had provided in Eden. This is where like, this guy's kind of like Cain. In a very fundamental way of like, what does it mean to be the image of God? Yes, that's right. Immediately goes like, the image of God is presented as male and female together as one. And he's saying, actually, I'm going to like take women and almost making himself more of the image of God.

Yeah. So this is a great example of the biblical narrator doesn't say, and what he did was bad in the eyes of the Lord. But that's the conclusion you're supposed to draw based on comparing the Eden ideal and also by looking at the kind of character who does this thing and what happens to them or what they cause in the world. So he took for himself two wives. The name of one was ornament, Adah, and the name of the other was Shelter, Zila. Now Adah gave birth to Stream. Yaval. Yaval?

Yaval. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock and you're like, oh, all right, we're getting branches off of like animal husbandry, turning into a whole trade and a whole family business. The brothers, his brother's name was Creek, you've all. He was the father of all those who play the liar and the pipe. He got like the guild, the guild of musicians. Okay, artists here. Yep. Now, Silla Shelter, she also gave birth to Tuval Kain, which is another word for stream. Three sons named my daughter's.

Brooke and Stream. How does Yuval Kain mean stream? Yuval? Erna, sorry, Tuval. Tuval. Tuval means stream, and then Kain is his ancestor, all the way back to six generations earlier. A stream of cane. Stream of cane, okay.

And he literally flowed from cane seed, so to speak. And he was the forger of all implements of bronze and iron. That's a little ominous. Because those are kind of like weapons. I mean, there's two things you're doing with those. You're either like striking the ground to farm or you're striking animals or you're striking humans. What do you need metal for except to right? Work the ground. They're not building skyscrapers. Or not yet. And not was metal. And not was metal. Yeah, totally.

So this might be not where you're going with this, but why this little, you know, to me, this always struck me as, let me tell you about the invention of technology in the world, or like how humans progressed in culture and technology. Yeah, that's the motif here, totally. Yeah, all flowing out of the city. Okay, yeah. And to me, that feels like cool. This is like, totally. Yeah. All flowing out of the city. Okay. Yeah.

And to me, that feels like cool. This is like, we're progressing. Yeah. Like we're learning how to dwell in tents and have a livestock. That's great. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Like before that, what would we do?

Yes. Yeah. That we didn't have tents. And we just always had to just hunt. And now we got music. Mm-hmm. And we're like learning metallurgy. Is that the right word? Yeah, that's exactly the right word.

That's, this is great. It is great. Yeah, it's not inherently bad. No, I think it's the aspect of being fruitful and multiplying. Just like, But it's actually, but it's positioned here right after being introduced to the limit. And we haven't talked about it yet,

but we know limits of bad dude. Yeah, what's he gonna do with his acts? And it's positioned here after being introduced to the city via Cain in his like paranoia. So it's situated in a place where I guess I'm I supposed to be suspicious of all of this. But also in the midst of this city that was born out of fear and because of a need out of the fear of human violence, you've also have all these births, all these children. And the births are streams. The streams are like a really good thing, right?

Right, yeah, like the streams of Eden. The streams of Eden. Yeah. So I'm like, we're still getting streams and we're getting humanity's progressing. Remember there were four streams out of Eden. Now we're here and we just went through three sons, all named stream, coming out of Kane, and then you're given a force.

A daughter, the sister of Tuvalkayan was Ngaama, which means delight. It's a synonym of Eden. Oh, well. Yeah. What did she invent? She doesn't get invention. No, she just gets this awesome name. Yeah, like a pinnacle name. Yeah. Delight. Yeah, exactly.

Cool. So just like there were four rivers, four rivers that float out of the one river of Eden. Uh-huh. So now here is Cain, who just got exiled out of Eden. Yeah. And out of him come four descendants, named Stream, Creek and Brook, and Delight. Okay, so this actually is feeling like a heaven earth hotspot just kind of appearing in

the wilderness, certainly, in a way, when you describe it that way. Yeah, it's being fruitful and multiplying. I think it's this narrative imagery associating the blessing that follows Cain. I see. So even though humans are not in Eden, the blessings of Eden can still sprout and surprise. So this paragraph is the blessing of Eden, surprisingly coming in this setting

where we're like really worried and suspicious. Yeah, but things are not all okay because this is one man producing all of these kids from two wives. That's not cool. That's not eaten. And then what this guy's about to do, is also not cool.

So this paragraph about Lemick is designed in three parts. We're told he takes two wives. Yeah. It's first line. The middle part is about the four descendants. And then he gives a speech to his wives and you hear that he is a murderous guy. So you get a bad thing, he takes two wives.

Yeah. You get a good thing, fruitful and multiplying, and all the descendants. Then you get another progress. Yeah. And then you get another bad thing, Lemx, even more murderous than Cain. So outside of Eden, it's a mix, good and bad. Yeah. And then you get another bad thing, Lemek's even more murderous than Cain. So outside of Eden, it's a mix of good and bad. Yeah, bad, good, bad. In other words,

the literary design of this paragraph about Lemek is itself a meditation on how a complexity of life outside the garden. It's not all bad. It's a mix of good and bad, and sometimes hard to tell. But God still wants to show up in the midst of, he gave, he gave Cain a sign. And then even in this city with Lemek, who we're going to learn about, the descendants are described as streams. Yes. And there's kind of civilization is growing. Yep, that's right.

And the invention of metallurgy It's also not inherently bad right, but if it produces farm implements it can give life Yeah, and if it produces axe heads and war hammers and battle axes then it will take life We'll maybe no one will think of that maybe not one will think of that and lemax said to his lives Maybe no one will think of that. Maybe no one will think of that. And Lemek said to his wives, ornament and shelter, adah and zilla, listen to my voice, wives of Lemek, hear my speech. This is very classic, smitten style poetry.

So he's about to say something important. I have killed a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. This word kill harang, it's the same word of what Cain did to able in the field. And if Cain is is avenged seven times, then let Lemek be avenged 77 times. This is the song of Lemek. Yeah. Steer clear of this guy. You're talking about it. I don't get in a bar fight with Lemek. He'll chop your head off.

Yeah. He'll chop your head off. So it's a song. The poetic form turns this into like a boast, a glory hymn of his battle prowess. And even for someone striking, it's you know, kind of could be anywhere from a slap to like you can kill by striking. But wounding specifically like it's not a mortal blow. Yeah. But your pride or your honor might be wounded. And so he's just chopping heads for anybody who's in my way.

These are two different people. Is it and a boy? Well, it's just, it's two lines of poetic parallelism. Okay. But I think the contrast of man and boy in the contrast of wound and strike. It's kind of like from young or old, and from a more severe strike to a severe wound. Basically, if anybody does anything to me, I'm gonna kill you. That's kind of the idea.

And I'm in the right, get out of my way. Yeah, and then... God will protect me. He appeals to the protection God vowed for Cain, and says, well, man, if I am the seventh generation from Adam through Cain, then I don't just get seven times, I get 77 times. But he takes what was a gracious gift of mercy to Cain, and he uses it to write his own, as license for, for his own revenge. And where does he get this seven times, 77 times? Cain was given a sign. He was given one sign. Yes. And then God said, whoever strikes Cain, I will avenge seven times over. Oh, okay. Yep. Okay. So he's taking what God offered to Cain as a gracious gift of mercy and protection, and

he's turning that into license to kill. 77 times over. So incidentally, this is surely what Jesus is alluding to do when Peter comes to him and says, Oh, I'll offer it, should I forget? Forgive my brother. Seven up to seven times, and he says, I tell you 77 times. He's reversing this. Yeah, he's playing with Peter's use of seven and then he's alluding to this story. But essentially, what he's saying is, my disciples should be the kind of forgiveness people who are about

reversing the spiral of violence from Cain to Lemma. The human nature is to take God's protection and abundance and turn it up for their own advantage in a way that just brings violence. And Jesus is saying, take God's protection and forgiveness and abundance and turn it up towards more abundance and forgiveness. Yeah, abundance of forgiveness instead of an abundance of violence. Yeah, wow, cool. Yep. So, you know, it's a short little story about Keynes line, but all of a sudden you have

seven generations later, and it's what Keynes was but just scaled up, and it's all streams out of the city. And it's connected to the city because one, his name means King, or it's a plan-the-word King. Correct, yep. And is that the only real connection? Well, he builds a city, he names it Enoch, then you get the genealogy that goes directly from Enoch to Lemek, that is King. Okay.

And then here's King. So what happens to cities, people in cities as the cities grow with people and with new inventions? You get the growth of creativity to not specialization. This could become just great. Like we could just be better at finding. Yeah finding food and harvesting food and playing music Music yes, and you're like cool metallurgy and remember the flow of the list goes from animal domestication to music to metallurgy to delight to Nathama

Yeah, which is a synonym for Delay Edeniden. Eden. So this is where it could go. Yeah. And instead, where does a girl goes to a guy going, I'm going to show you what it means to be king. Yes. Yeah, that's right. And it means like, you mess with me at all. Yeah.

And I'm going to kill you. Yep. That's it. And I'm in the right. Yeah. That's right. So what God appointed Adam and Eve to do together, which is to the tube to be one and to rule together over the animals. Now you get one guy who takes two. So he begins to treat

women like animals to be accumulated. He takes the delivering ally and turns it into a He takes the delivering ally and turns it into a possession. Yeah. And then he mutates or distorts the rule or power that he has to take life instead of to preserve life. So he's the anti-Adam. Well. And he's... Let's get out of cities.

Let's just get out. Well, so the narrative does. The narrative switches back to Adam and Eve and says, man, I hope there's like another line here, because this one's not going well. And it shifts the focus to Seth. There was another son born to Adam and Eve, named Seth. And because Eve said, because God appointed me another seed in the place of Abel, so Cain killed him. And Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.

So it's the... Yeah, Inok versus Enosh. Exactly. Cain gave birth to Enok and that led to the city in murder. But now here's Seth and through Seth is born Enosh, which is similar spelling in rhymes. And Enosh leads to worship. Then it was begun to call on the name of Yahweh. So this is the line of the seed of the woman. Yep. And then what follows is your favorite

type of literature in Genesis and mind. Genealogy. Yeah, totally. So the story stops. And we just pause and go through ten generations of Seth's line, leading up to the ninth generation, a guy named Lemek, and when he's 777, he gives birth to Noah. Okay, so Noah's ten generations from Adam? Ten generations from Adam, but from Adam to Noah, 10 generations. So, the three stories after Adam and Eva exiled from Eden are the story of Kane, then that story we just looked at just now. Lemic. Lemic in the city, what happens out of Kane's city leading to Lemic, and then we get a

third story about what the last cap of what's going on down here. And it's Genesis 6, 1 through 4, the well-known story about the sons of Elohim that take human daughters, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they choose. You're like, well, that's kind of a lemmack move. In fact, it's that little detail that has led some interpreters throughout history to believe that the sons of Elohim are humans, that has led some interpreters throughout history to believe that the sons of Elohim are humans, that the sons of Elohim are the descendants from the line of Cain. And that the daughters of Adam or humanity are daughters from the line of Seth. Oh, that's very...

It's a common interpretation. It's an interpretation that began... Pretty sure this has been a while since I've looked at it. It's pretty sure the first signs of that interpretation are in early Christian circles, and then in some early Jewish circles after that. But the earliest known interpretation in Second Temple Judaism is that this is about spiritual beings because taking human daughters, because that's what the sons of Elohim. The sons of Elohim is a phrase often, yeah, or primarily used for deities.

Only ever used to describe spiritual beings. So the argument if this was like the kings from the line of Cain, you know, these little rulers of their own little pamlets, yeah, taking daughters from the line of set, you would have to say the sons of Elohim is just a figure of speech. Figure of speech. And that this one time out of every other time it's used in the Hebrew Bible, it refers to humans. And again, people can have made that case and there are some parts of that case that

is persuasive, but I also think there are other parts that are not persuasive. But we get these characters who are taking wives. And whomever they want, whomever they choose. So at the least, whether you take this to be humans or spiritual beings, they are being set on analogy to Lemak, who takes as many wives as he wants. So to speak. I'm persuaded that the escalation goes from what Cain did, escalated through seven generations,

with, yep, killing his brother. He's brother's life. It gets escalated to Lemek, which is... We'll take anyone's life and he'll take wives. Wives. As he pleases. And now it's not just a human rebellion, that human rebellion is... Connected to some sort of spiritual disorder.

Mured as part of a heavenly rebellion. And what it leads to is the sons of Elohim doing what Lemek did. And then that is connected to the origin of warriors, warrior giants, who also do what Lemek did, which is just kill. That's what the Nephilim and the mighty warriors do is they kill. The warrior giants being the offspring of this, the sons of Elohim taking the daughters of humanity,

this introduces these characters called the Nephilim. That's right. These are the warrior giants. These are the like, if Lemex a King, these are like the the real baddie king. Yeah. They're the. Yeah. Yeah. They're the Goliaths. Yes. Goliaths is one of these. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And so it's got him Nimrod that we're going to meet a little bit. But then important is like the tight narrative parallelism through hyperlinks from cane to Lemek to the sons of Elhem to the Nephilim and the mighty warriors. And it's just, we're watching out of the city. This all comes out of Cain's city.

And even though right here, the story doesn't use the word city, in terms of the narrative sequence, all this began with the murder and the building of the city. And the city is the place where things get scaled up. And we're watching that scaling happen in the narrative. I think that's a good way to put it is you said the city is not the problem, it's a symptom. Yeah. But also the city is the scaling of the problem. Mm-hmm.

That's right. But we learned with those four descendants of Lemek, Keynes line, that you can also scale blessing. Yeah. So it's just the city is scaling. Yep. And how's that scaling going to go? It could scale blessing, but what it's going to do is it's going to scale evil. Yeah.

Yeah. Sort of like cities magnify what's going on in the human heart. It's the human heart magnified. And whatever are the values or the desires animating the human heart, they will get structured into the processes, right, into the systems in the way things are ordered. Just like heaven and earth are an expression of God's generous order, right? In the seven days of creation, now the city becomes this little microcosm, a microcosmos of what's in the human mind and heart. So yeah, scaling, scaling. Yep. So I think we'll just, there's just one more detail. So after this God says, yeah, that's enough.

After the Nephilim. After the Nephilim. This is where we're getting to the flow. Like this is just out of control. And so what God does is hand select this one guy named Noah. Rest. Yep, name rest. And we're introduced to Noah who is righteous and blameless, and he walks with Elohim.

Is this the first time those two words show up? Yes. Righteous and blameless. Yes. And blameless, that's the word used for the animal sacrifices. Yep. Is that Tom meme or is that? Yeah, Tom meme. Yeah, yeah, it means whole without any cracks or blemishes. And righteous means he lives in right relationship with God and neighbor. So he is in contrast to not only Lemek, who's like the big bad king, but also the Nephilim, who are the biggest baddiest

of the kings. Yeah, totally, yeah, that's right. Who are scaling evil. Here comes a man who lives in right relationship with people. God and neighbor, his character's flawless and he walks with Elohim. And that phrase was used in the Garden of Eden story. It's what God came to do with Adam and Eve,

one afternoon in the wind of the day. How did Noah come to be this kind of person? You know, well, he's 10 generations from Adam. Yeah. And what we know is that was a whole line of people who were devoted to the worship of Yahweh. Yeah. And that is the kind of family that becomes a vehicle for the

preservation of life. Yep. Well, and he burns three sons, just like Lemek, Jim, Ham, and J-Feth, right, through Lemek, and his two wives was born three sons. Oh, yeah, and then the daughter. Yep, and then the daughter. Yep, and so now here Noah has three sons.

Okay. And through them are going to spread all kinds of things. But the land was ruined before Elohim. Yeah, I remember the Nephilim. Yep, the land was full of violence. Yeah. So what Cain did, a scale through Lemek, add those Nephilim to the mix and you just got the whole land.

Yeah. The ruining the order that God has appointed. So Elohim saw the land and look ruined. It's interesting here because when Cain murders his brother, God's like, this is bad, but I'm gonna protect you, and we're gonna keep moving forward. Yeah. This, it's like, it's scaled up, and God doesn't say,

okay guys, this is bad, but I'm gonna protect you. Yeah. It's like, it's scaled up, and God doesn't say, okay, guys, this is bad, but I'm gonna protect you. Yeah. It's like, nope, it's ruined. It's ruined. And that little phrase, the land was full, is a tragic inversion of God's blessing. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. And humans have multiplied.

Three. All kinds of stuff. And what they've multiplied is the innocent blood blood that is crying out from the ground. So once you hear about that, the next thing you hear is God says to Noah, the end of all flesh has come up before me. That's a weird phrase. It is a weird phrase because the land is filled with violence. And so I am going to ruin them with the land. So this is a weird phrase. It's the Hebrew word Huck-Hates, the end.

And this is going to be the root of a key word play, because it's the same letters in swapped order as the word outcry. And the outcry rising up before God, that's what Abel's blood did. Right? God heard the outcry of the blood. This is the same letters like transposed. The end of all flesh has come up before me. That's interesting because like for something to come up, I'm like that felt weird. Yeah. But as a plan wards for outcry, suddenly it starts to make sense. Okay. Yeah.

So because the land is full of violence, that is blood. So the end of all flesh, meaning what is that referring to? Well, if the land is ruined, they're ruining the land by filling it with violence. Essentially, they are going to destroy the cosmos. The end of all flesh obeys, is he saying, I see what this is going and everyone's gonna kill each other? Yes. Okay.

You're all gonna die. You're all gonna destroy each other. So what God's decision is, is to accelerate the process that humans' violence has already begun. Okay. I've heard you say that, but that's interesting to see that now here.

With that phrase. Yeah and actually there's a little, sorry you and I are looking at a nice little chart here which I know those of you listening do not have in front of you but it is it's a three-line statement and that two outer lines are paired so that the end of all flashes and parallelism with I'm going to ruin them with the land. So humans have set themselves on a course towards their own end because of violence. And so what God is doing with the flood is handing humans over to the consequences that they've already set in motion. You know, in a way, this would make, like, if we just ended the story here, this would be kind of one of those dark, kind of fairy tales where it's like, you know,

God create humans, like, wanted this great thing, but it just spiraled out of control, and then God was like, man, this is horrible, I'm gonna just, it's spiraling down, let me just intensify the spiral and be done. And then it's over. And it's like, wow, well, that was an intense little story. That didn't work. All next time that I'm God, I'll remember not to make humans. Is that the moral of a story?

Yeah, or just like, the moral of the story too, is just like, look how quickly we can screw everything up to the point of no return. Yeah, sure. You know, you totally. And so there's that, but I'm looking ahead of where we're going. Mm-hmm. And the story continues, though. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So God selects one out of the end. And that righteous, blameless one is going to put them in a little Eden boat where they live with the animals at peace and It's not just one man in his wife. It's four men and four women

that are in the ark and all the animals and God gives them all this food and it's exactly the same type of language used when God provides the humans with food in Janiden. Yeah, yeah, it's exactly the same type of language used when God provides the humans with food. And Jen eaten. Yeah, yeah, it's all the same words. But it's a little micro-edin that can float in the midst of chaos waters, just like the dry land was surrounded by the chaos waters. Right. In Genesis 1. This is a new creation. And a new humanity. I'm fast forwarding and summarizing. Yeah. And it deposits on a high mountain and Noah gets floating eat in ark. Yeah, yeah, the old floating Eden and so Noah gets off and

Remember how he was righteous and blameless and blameless is the same word to describe human character Uh-huh as it is to describe animals that are fit for sacrifice. So no gets off the boat and he just like somehow knows he starts selecting richly pure animals. Right. This is well before the Torah. Yeah. For the coming commands. But he's so in tune with God. He just knows what are like right sacrifice. So like able new. Yeah. And so he causes this ascension offering to go up on the altar and Yahweh smells it and he says in his heart, you know, here's the thing. Humans are just as bad as they were before the flood, but you know what I'm going to do? Because of a guy like Noah, I'm going to make a promise to never again

do this cosmic decoration thing. And this kind of introduces the intercessor, the one who can, on behalf of others, kind of mediate blessing. The reason why I'm taking this through here is this is all going to pay a big dividends in the next conversation we have about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Okay. Because the parallelist thing about that like, is it one is blameless? Yes, yeah. So we'll get there in the next conversation. But the point is that this portrait of Noah, because of the city of man, unleash violence, the broad de-creation, God preserved one out of the many, starting a new humanity over with them. And if that humanity is in a posture of complete surrender, which is what sacrifice represents, then God says, man, if I can just, if one, righteous one, we'll appeal on behalf of the corrupt many,

then I will preserve life instead of take it. Which is what God did with Cain. He wanted to preserve Cain's life. Right. Even when Cain took life. So that's version one that took us eight chapters. So what's going to happen now is within the span of just two and a half chapters, that whole exact narrative cycle that we just went through is going to

replay, but at a more rapid pace, leading from another bad seed, ham, leading to another really violent, bad guy, Nimrod, leading to another flood like de-creation, which is called 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh Okay, so this is all about the theme of the city. So we're talking about also just the theme of image bears like spiraling into violence and decreation and like other themes. I've been saying this for years, that choosing one theme and separating it out to study it is like pulling one string out of a tapestry. Right. Because once you tug on it, everything else starts moving. Yeah. So yeah, all the themes come bundling together here. The image of God,

intercessor, the test, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But what do we learn about cities? As we isolate this theme, how do we isolate it in a way that we can learn something really important? Yeah. But keep in mind that we can't truly isolate it Yeah, a quick sketch is cities have their origin and human fear. Yeah violence But that fear of violence ends up actually creating more violence And that's from Kane building a city than to Lemek But here's the thing is we don't get a story of, well, when we trace the line of Seth, we don't hear about their, like, how they're living.

No. We don't hear about, like, and they're living in tents with flocks and they're doing metallurgy and that stuff. It's just like, here's their names. Yeah, that's right. So are they in cities? Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Like, the only portrait of the city we have is from the line of the snake. Correct. And so, like, you're gonna see the city scale up in snakey ways. Mm-hmm. And so, from there, you can say, well,

the cities are bad. Mm-hmm. But that's the only portrait of the city we're given, because I'm trying to imagine. So far. Yeah, so far. I'm trying to imagine like what, you know, Seth and his line leading to Noah, who's this guy who's like blameless. He's living somewhere. Yeah. And he's got neighbors. And like, they're dealing with life and learning stuff. In fact, remember, the word righteous

presumes that he has a neighbor. Because it's a word that means you're in right relationship with other people. Yeah, so kind of like in kind of the subtext here is some sort of community that's figuring out how to live together in a way that's good. Yeah, but instead of describing their social arrangement, all that's said about them is that lineage

is dedicated to worship and allegiance to Yahweh. Yeah, and I can't- So are they just hanging out in gardens with like animal skins? Like, is that like the extent of their life? It's a great example of how the biblical authors are only telling us what we need to focus on the things that the authors want to focus on. So we have all these questions that are interesting for us to think about,

but the narrator wants to associate the city with the bad guys. Okay. So the city and associate the good family with some of the ambiguous, of this ambiguous setting, you don't know. Yeah, with the garden blessing, yeah. Living with animals. So the city is associated with the problem of violence and evil. And it's showing how that scales up. And it's the setting of the scaling of violence and evil.

Yeah, as well as good. I think that was actually, from this conversation we just had, that's something I'm walking away with. Appreciating more is the scaling of violence and of men abusing women, right accumulating them like property. That's bookend. Those bookend being fruitful and multiplying and the multiplication and scaling of like property. That's bookend. Those bookend, the being fruitful and multiplying and the multiplication and scaling of human creativity, which is a sign of blessing and ruling the land.

So cities scale what is bad and good, which makes them truly human, a mix of good and bad. But the narrative focuses on how it gets twisted into bad. Yeah, that's right. Because when it gets to know it's not focused on cities anymore. Cities become less important. Yeah. So when cities are brought up, it's about look at how scaling can go wrong. Yeah. And how it goes wrong is in specifically violence, which ultimately gets ratcheted up to the most violent thing you could think of with these Nephilim kings.

And it gets so bad that when God looks down, he's like, everyone's gonna die. Yeah, this is all going down. The end has come up before me. You're all gonna kill each other. Sorry, and let's remember, let's go from root to branch. If the Nephilim are like the fruit on the branch, the root all the way back to Cain and

Abel is all about fear, the Yahweh giving, blessing and abundance to my brother might mean that I'm left out in the cold. Is there any for me too? And that fear drives him to envy, him to anger to murder and then that's Cascades you're kind of connecting this back to some of the a haz I was having the first born conversation Yeah, like what's the root of all this? It's this like fear that I can't trust in God's generosity the timing of his generosity Yeah, and then the city is a

the timing of his generosity. Yeah. And then the city is an icon of humans not trusting other people and not trusting God's protection. Yeah, the city is like, how do I protect myself? And how do I then take the, when we all get together, there's going to be a scaling of not only relationships and networks of relationships, but also in just how we can live in the world and things we understand We're scaling our knowledge and abilities and skills and all of this stuff can now be weaponized. Yeah to Yeah extend our violence. Yeah, it can be put in the service of great good

It can be put in the service of great evil and that it's the great evil that It's highlighted is the main focus because yeah, because that great evil gets to it's the great evil that it's highlighted. It's the main focus. Because yeah, because that great evil gets to a point where like the undoing of humanity is upon itself. Correct. Yeah, that's exactly right. Humans are gonna bring an end to themselves. So God in a severe mercy accelerates that end through the cosmic decretion.

And the story could end there. But we have a blameless one who lives in my relationship with others, who God says, I can work with this guy. And I can recreate Eden. And while the cosmos is decreating, I can then recreate. And then we are back to it. And then he says, I won't cursed a ground on account of humanity. Well, that guy intercedes an appeal surrenders everything before God. So he becomes this righteous intercessor. And where the ground was cursed

with Adam and Eve taking of the fruit also was the ground that was when the ground was cursed with Adam and Eve taking of the fruit. Also, was the ground, that was when the ground was cursed. Yep, God cursed the ground in Genesis 3 and Genesis 4, He curses Cain from the ground, that is, to be an exile and a wanderer. So what is this referring to? Is it referring to the first curse, the second, or is it referring to the curse of the flood? Yeah, well, he always says in response to no sacrifices, I will never again curse the ground on account of humans because the purpose of the human heart is bad from its youth, and I will never again strike all life as I just did. And the poetic parallelism of the lines, you always said in his heart, in contrast to what people purpose in their hearts.

And then I will never again curse the ground is in parallelism, I will never again strike all life. Okay, so the curse here is referring to the flood. Yes. Okay. So God isn't going to accelerate dec-creation to wipe out all humanity again like he is doing here. Yeah. Instead, he's going to sustain the order of creation even amidst the spread of human evil.

If it happens again, God's going to deal with it in other ways. Yeah, and what's so surprising here, we've talked about this before, is after Noah gives his intercessory, like, sacrificial offering, and it's soothing smell to Yahweh, you would kind of expect Yahweh going, okay, you know what, I think these humans are going to get it. And so I'm going to, like, not curse the ground again. Oh, yeah, right, right. But instead, he says, I'm not going to curse the ground again because they're not going

to get it. Yeah, totally. Yep, he can see that Noah's, as he's, this is my imagination, as Noah's making his offering, he's like thinking about the really strong Manhattan that he wants to make for himself from the fruit of his garden. And he's looking at ham and ham as Iying his dad and just being like, I want to be alpha male. I want to be alpha male, right?

You can see like their humans are going to, the children are going to replay what their parents did. But in spite of that, in spite of that, he's going to, this intercessory sacrifice has created enough of a mark or enough of a shift in what? No, what this is is conceding to human evil. What do you mean? So the whole thing is God's purpose to rule the world through humans. That's the thing God never gets up on. But now what he's acknowledging is humans are bad. Humans are a mix of good and bad, but that bad tends to scale.

And so what God is conceding to is saying, okay, if this is the partner I have to work with, I have to concede to the state of their heart. Oh, interesting. And I'm going to work with the humans in that state, moving forward, which means that God is going to begin to engage in what look to us, the reader, like moral compromises as he works with the humans. Oh, wow. And then totally, what else is the story of the Old Testament

but God behaving in really complicated ways that feel like, wow, I thought God doesn't do that kind of thing. Right. Yeah? You're talking about conquest stuff. God defending Abraham. Even though Abraham lies and he creates problems and God defends him.

And God sends plagues on Egypt because Abraham's liar. Yeah. You know, stuff like that. In the Canaanite conquest, yes. Yeah. This flood story is so important, man. It continues to sink in for me why it's the next story cycle after Adam and Eve. It's hugely foundational for presenting how God deals with the real world as he finds it,

which is conceding to some degrees to human evil. And he's been doing that from the very beginning. It's not like all of a sudden he's like, okay, I get it now. I have to concede to humanity's evil. Like he conceded when he protected Adam and Eve, and he gave them animal skins and he protected them. He conceded with Cain and the side. But they also exiled them. But he exiled them. He conceded with cane and the side. But they also exiled them.

But he exiled them. Yep. So there's mercy and judgment. Mm-hmm. Yep. And then he conceded with cane, but he exiled them. Yep. And here, is this fundamentally different than those times?

Uh, I think it, he brought judgment, the flood. Pretty severe. I mean, the most severe. Yeah. But then also mercy, he preserved this righteous remnant. He brought judgment, the flood, pretty severe. I mean, the most severe. But then also mercy, he preserved this righteous remnant. But the righteous remnant is great, but he just immediately is like, yeah, but it's not gonna work.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Nah, I think, yeah, just, the heart of humanity is bad from its youth. Yeah. But I'm gonna concede and not strike life. Strike all life. God will strike life. Strike all life. God will strike life. Yeah.

But basically it's like, I'm going to reboot this. But where is this going to go? It's going to get back to the exact same place. And I'm going to have to just wipe out the flood again and find another. Yeah. If there is another Noah, but here you're saying there's a concession of sorts of saying, Okay, well that's not going to be a great way to exist with these partners. Yeah, yeah, if I strike all life every time humans scale up their violence and build violent cities,

then there'll be no more humans to partner with. Unless there's another Noah. Unless, that's exactly right. So the story just keeps cycling through again. And I guess what I'm, what it really struck me when you were saying that a few minutes ago was the surprise of the city. The city exists as a symptom of human violence. But the fact that God would, as he goes through his purpose to bring about the new creation that would make a garden city becomes the image of the new creation. It's the healing of the city. He'll concede to the city, but work it into his plans for new creation.

Remember, this was the surprise of the city. Yeah. Why doesn't it go from garden to garden in the story of the Bible? It goes from garden to garden city. And the city was the innovation of humans because of violence, but God weaves it into the story. I like that framing. However what I struggle with is how else are humans going to all live together and multiply and do the earth except build cities?

Oh, sure. But remember, the fundamental association of city is the wall that keeps out violent animals and violent humans. Okay. the wall that keeps out violent animals and violent humans. So we're not introduced, even though we are alluded to the fact that a city can actually extend blessing the streams and the stuff. What we are introduced to is a city that does that. Correct. We're introduced cities and do the opposite.

Yeah, they're meant to keep humans out because humans want to kill each other. So that's Kane's original fear, whoever finds me will kill me. Yeah. So I build a wall. So what God is saying is like, look, human scaling, you can think of it in the setting of a city. It's going to lead to violence, so much violence, that the really only reasonable thing to do is just to end it. And that's just going to keep happening. Right. So the surprise or the concession is instead of, I'm going to find another way through this.

And I'm going to figure out how to work with humans who are going to scale violence. And I'm going to somehow get in the mix. And what you're saying is it's going to be messy. Yeah, yeah, to bring about the seed of the woman's through real human partners who are really like us. Means it's going to be a morally complicated venture. Yeah. To let humanity exist in cities and is...

It's gonna be complex. It's just gonna... Yeah. Gosh, this is really profound. Yeah. As the longer we're circling around this, it's like, what else? We just had an election cycle here in Portland. Uh-huh.

And there was some significant city measures for systems and structures for how things work in city government. And as Jessica and I were learning about them, the pro and con arguments, for example, were really, they all had really good points. Yeah. And it was really complicated. Yeah. Yeah. And it was really complicated. Yeah. Right. And whatever it was, it wasn't just a simple yes or no,

even though, of course, that's how both sides want to persuade you to think. And that's just the nature of scaling up human, the human project. It's it's complex. The recourse is wisdom. I think what's striking me too though is, I think often we think of the story of the flood as like, man,

what a bully. God is. Oh, God's a bully. Yeah, it's a bully. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the way that we've been working through this, you can actually look at it in terms of like, God was running this, you know, the creator of everything, creating stuff, was giving away power and responsibility.

What a generous, cool thing. It backfired on him. And he just was like, man, like the most gracious thing is just to shut the project down. Just shut it down. And instead, we are then introduced to a God who's saying, you know what? It's worth it. All the pain and all the moral compromise are all the things that are just gonna feel so the complexity. All the complexity. Yeah. Like it's worth it. So then when we think about humanity and our cities and we think about the complexity of a city.

when we think about humanity and our cities, and we think about the complexity of a city, the story here is God saying, there's something here that's worth it. It's worth it. It's messy and there's so much horrific violence and oppression and problems. And it's so much that if you actually had my point of view of God's point of view, you'd be like,

you know what, let's just shut it down. That would be the most reasonable thing. And from our point of view, it's like, don't shut it down. I mean, like, you know, well, if we're like, well, but shut down. Yeah, shut them down. Shut them down, but keep us going. And God's like, my city, but you and your people,

like it's gonna, the same thing's gonna happen. Totally. And it all probably is happening in your not- It is, it's everywhere. Yeah. So as we just contemplate existence and the complexity of human societies, is this advantage of the patience of God saying, I'm gonna do something with this in spite of the fact that it's so messy.

And it's worth it. Yeah. Man, that is a profound meditation. And I just want to flag that we've been led here by following the portrait of the city, the scaling of human good and bad, most but bad somehow seems more overwhelming, leading to a de-creation, and then the narrative is giving us a window into the purpose and heart of God for humanity. And these are really profound meditations, I think, both on the ways of God in the world, but also on the ways of humans in the world. And you're just like, man, nothing new under the sun.

Like these stories are millennia old. Right. And they're working out the same stuff. They just didn't have pocket computers. So I guess the question becomes then like, okay, if that's the case, how do we work with God to make this best case scenario? And how do we work with God to make this best-case scenario? And how do we work with God so that the city can actually become a garden city? Right, totally. So here's what is fascinating is that this negative portrait of the city is just gonna be the main theme on replay through the Genesis scroll into Exodus

and on into the story of Israel, it is only until you get into second Samuel that you get the building or in that case, the capturing and repurposing of a city that becomes positive. Jerusalem is the first positive city in the Bible and it becomes positive when David brings the Ark of the Covenant and dedicates it as the place to call on the name of the Lord. Oh okay. That's when it becomes positive. When it becomes the sath line. Every story before then, cities just ratchet up what we just did. So we could go at great length through these negative cycles. I just want to take us through a few as we go forward. But the portrait of what happens with Jerusalem, with the Tabernacle, and the temple,

and David becomes the pivot, where the hope of a garden city starts to invade Earth. So that's where we're going in the next many conversations. But for now, I think this is a great point to pause these reflections and they'll get escalated even more when we get to Babylon in the next conversation. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we're talking about the building of the second city in the Bible, a city called Babylon. And it's founder, Nimrod. You know how in Marvel movies, sometimes the bad guys in Marvel movies are just like somebody who got hurt and they're good with electronics.

And then sometimes like the bad guys are these cosmic demigods from another reality. So gogamesh is like that. Today's episode was brought to you by our podcast team. Producer Cooper Peltz, associate producer Lindsey Ponder, lead editor Dan Gummel, editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Tyler Bailey also mixed this episode and Hannah Wu provided the annotations

for our annotated podcast on our app. Bible project is a crowd-funded nonprofit and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Garal and I'm from New Zealand.

Hi, this is Maria Fernanda and I am from Honduras. I first heard about Bible project about three years ago, searching on YouTube, the meaning of certain words in the Bible that I couldn't understand. I first heard about the Bible project in YouTube. I use Bible project for Bible studies. My favorite thing about Bible project is the end of analysis of the word and the animation. I use Bible project as one of my tools when I study my Bible.

My favorite thing about Bible project is not only how amazing they are in a way, it's easy to understand, but also, how all this is faithful to sound doctrine. We believe Bible is a unified story at least in Jesus. We are a crowd-funded project made people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcasts, classes and more at BibleProject.com. Thank you. you