BibleProject - Why Cain Builds a City – The City E2

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

In the story of the Bible, cities are a bad thing. They’re a symptom of humanity’s violence and attempts to protect themselves instead of trusting God. In fact, in the second chapter of Genesis, God “builds” something for humanity’s protection. And it’s not a city—it’s a woman. In this episode, Tim and Jon explore the theme of the city and the first thing God builds.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-12:51)Part two (12:51-35:26)Part three (35:26-44:40)Part four (44:40-1:14:49)Referenced ResourcesTrees and Kings: A Comparative Analysis of Tree Imagery in Israel’s Prophetic Tradition and the Ancient Near East, William OsborneSymbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms, Othmar KeelWordplay in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Ancient Near East Monographs), Scott B. Noegel Interested 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“Portland Synth Cruise” by Sam Stewart“Hello from Portland” by Beautiful Eulogy“Start Me Up” by Tyler BaileyShow 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.

Today, we continue exploring the theme of the city. Now, in the Bible, the ideal location for human existence is not a city. It's a garden. And the introduction of the city in the Bible, the ideal location for human existence is not a city. It's a garden. And the introduction of the city in the Bible is actually a tragedy. The city was the thing that is introduced as the sad result of humans' exiled from Eden and their violent nature, so you need walls now. So you would think the story of the Bible is all about getting rid of our cities and getting rid of the walls that protect us, but the story of the Bible ends all about getting rid of our cities and getting rid of the walls that protect us,

but the story of the Bible ends in a new garden city. And in this new city, there are still walls there, although they're decommissioned and made of jewels. It's a strange detail. Why have the walls at all, even in this new form? The walls are kind of like the nail holes in Jesus' hand, as it were. There's signs of something that was terribly wrong. The walls are kind of like the nail holes in Jesus' hand, as it were. There are signs of something that was terribly wrong.

There are scar left from what humans have done to each other, but God doesn't erase them. He incorporates them into and heals and transforms them into the resurrected world. We want to build cities to protect ourselves, to deliver ourselves. But cities weren't the first thing built to protect humans. In today's episode we'll look at the first thing built to protect Adam. It's built by God when he splits Adam into and builds an Azer. Here is a human in a place of vulnerability and with an obstacle, they can't do what God has called to human to do. So God provides an Azer, a delivering ally by building it for the vulnerable human.

God builds the delivering help in the form of a woman. This story is meant to be a meditation on the story of Cain when Cain builds a city. The phrase looks exactly like the Hebrew phrase God built in Azer. He's building his own deliverance. The woman is what God provides for the salvation and the deliverance of the lone human. And the city is what Cain builds to provide his own deliverance from death. First, efforts to build human security were actually a sad rejection of God's

offer to provide what humans need. Today, Tim Mackey and I talk about the first city in the Bible. I'm John Collins and you're listening to Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey John, hi. Hey, we are talking about cities in the Bible. We're doing a theme on cities, which means that a city is not merely a setting in the Bible, but it does a lot more work than that. Yeah, it's definitely a kind of place with a feel and lots of meaning attached that doesn't overlap entirely with

our modern experience of cities. Some of it does, but a lot of it doesn't. Yeah. And so maybe we've only had one conversation, but I think kind of a couple take a ways to come back to it, bring us up to speed, is one of what we were started calling the surprise of the city, which is that the story of the Bible doesn't begin in a city, begins in a garden. And when cities are introduced, they're a problem. They're both a result of a problem, and then a further generator of the problem. Yeah.

They incubate violence, and they become the place where arrogance and violence of mankind just comes to a fulfillment in a way. And so you would kind of imagine then reading the story of the Bible, like the city is a problem. And whenever I get a glimpse of what it could have been or what we should have or what we could go back to, it's garden imagery and it doesn't make you think of,

like, okay, cool, let's go build some cities. Yeah, or that the future will involve cities because let's recall the Hebrew word city and the fundamental concept of the city and the culture and times of the Bible is a fortified walled enclosure that keeps you safe from all the humans that want to kill you outside those walls. Yeah. It's about security. Yeah. It's about security in a dangerous world.

So the surprise is that you begin to get glimpses. We read Psalm 46 and there's this, this heaven, there's a city of God, the city that, that's so high and so removed and so different than a normal city that while all of the land could just fall apart in some chaotic apocalyptic end of the world scenario, mountain slipping into the sea, the sea covering the land we're talking about, de-creation. This city will survive that. It's untouched. And God is in the midst of that city. Then Isaiah talks about nations streaming to the city and for there to be some sort of new sense of peace amongst all the people of the world. Zachariah talks about it as a city

that doesn't need physical walls because Yahweh's fiery glory is the wall but instead of keeping everybody out, it's actually going to attract all the nations who are going to become one with the people of Yahweh and God will be in their midst. So even there the walls become a signal for the nations to come. Yeah.

And so when John writes the Revelation, he has a vision of new creation in its fulfillment. These ideas that Isaiah and Zachariah are riffing on in the psalmist, he sees a shining like gem of a city, descending from the skies, uniting with the land. Like a bride about to get married, coming down. And you said that's going to be an important little piece. In this conversation. In this conversation, okay.

In this feature big time. Cool. Be a bride. And the gates of the city are always open. They never are closed. be a bride and the gates of the city are always open. They never are closed and the nations come in and they bring all their honor and there's this kind of uniting of humanity.

Not in a way that like now everyone lives in this one city. It's not like the city where the whole world lives. But it's the hub. But it's a hub of refuge, the way we've wanted cities to be, but actualizing actually what we wanted, which is a place that keeps us safe and at peace. Yeah, that's right. And so what we call the surprise of the city was this thing that is introduced as the sad result of humans exiled from Eden and their violent nature.

So you need walls now, And so you need cities, walls. But then the cities, as you say, become incubators of even more violence and danger. The surprise is that God doesn't just do away with that and go back to appear the garden ideal. God incorporates the pain and tragedy of the human story and heals it. And it's now incorporated into the part of the future of God and humans in the world. Yeah, so that cities Play a key role in the imagery of the new creation. It's Garden and city as one and

the one thing that makes the city sad the walls to keep out people who want to kill you, that's the thing that gets completely changed, because the gates are always open, or you just don't need them. Well, in Revelation, they're there, but they're like they've become, they become almost like a crown. They become like an art piece. Like an art piece. Yeah.

Yeah. And they're there to shine and attract people, and the gates are never closed, which means the walls don't serve that function anymore. The walls serve some other function, and they're not needed. And that's the surprise of the city. It's the beautiful arc of the storyline of the Bible. It's like, in a way, this is purely like how I would think of sermon illustrations back when I used to preach a lot, but the walls are kind of like the nail holes in Jesus's hand as it were. There's signs of something that was terribly wrong and real pain. There's a scar right left from what humans have done to each other, but God doesn't erase them. He incorporates them into and heals and transforms them into the resurrected world.

That's one way to think about the surprise of the city. Yeah, and we don't wall our cities. We can't. No, but we do wall our little properties. Our little... That's true. Like our yards and our people do. But that's more for privacy.

That's not for security. Well, it depends. It depends. Some people perceive of it as security. That's true. There's like neighborhoods with like gates and it'll keep people out. Totally. Man, you know, I remember one thing that really struck me. I'd grown up in Portland, never lived anywhere else. When I was in my mid-20s, Jessica and I moved to Wisconsin

for graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin. And we lived in mostly apartments, but what we noticed was even the property of like the apartment complex would have no fence for the neighboring houses next door. And then as we got to know people and went over to their houses, many, many people had no fences in their backyards

and it was just a huge shared- Big yard. Big yard and it was clear there was a demarcation of like where you know, these are my plants and that's a little messier and the grass is a little different there. But it was, it's very common. At least the mask was constant. These big shared backyards, it was a brand new concept for me.

Yeah. And it went away, It felt really beautiful. Mm-hmm. That's cool. It was, it's totally cool. Because the space back here is shared. And also that I want it to be shared with my neighbors. And anyway, it's different, but it's kind of similar.

So I'm in the walls, you know. Yeah. Well, then also we, well, we didn't talk about any imagery of just like chariots and like, those are also protecting the city, like the war, the war machines. Yeah, sure. The military industrial complex.

Yeah. Because when I think about like the security of our cities or our nation, I think of, you know, like the police and the military. I understand. Law enforcement, like being that. Yeah. And you think of like, when war's gone now, it's a lot about just like, can I take out that

drone? Can I like take out that tank? Can I, those kind of things? Yeah, yeah, that's right. So in that sense, it's different, but in other senses, there's a lot of similarity. The core instincts are there. It's a space that me or my group controls, and that we prevent any dangers from entering into our space.

And that's the function of the city, in the culture from which the Bible emerged, and in the Bible itself. And in the ancient Near East, there wasn't as many people. Cities were smaller, they were walled. Yes. And then the towns around the cities are the little like family tribal centers around the cities where you would farm and produce stuff. Those were called daughters. Yeah, and Hebrew, Benot.

It'd be called the Benot and then the name of the city. So the Benot Jerusalem would be the little villages, networks outside Jerusalem. So that's where we've been. Where we're going to go now is, as always, to the Garden of Eden story. Because as we're going to see, the building of the first city

happens outside of the Garden of Eden by Cain, Adam and Eve's firstborn son. But the language and imagery that's used happens outside of the Garden of Eden by Cain, Adam and Eve's first born son, but the language and imagery that's used when Cain builds his city is all hyperlinking back to a really important scene in the Garden of Eden story. Okay.

And this is so illuminating on so many levels. illuminating on so many levels. So let's start with just reminder cells of why is a garden, the fundamental concept of the ideal in the imagination of the biblical authors, because it wasn't just them, they thought that, all of their canonite and Mesopotamian and even Egyptian neighbors all pictured the ideal human state, at least looking back as beginning in a garden. And like, I think I remember in Babylon, you would get these beautiful city gardens that they would create. Yeah, totally.

That would celebrate their success and beauty. So even within the city, they would make these wonderful gardens. Oh, you got one right here. Totally. Yeah, well actually here. Let's start that part of the conversation. Okay. Right now. So I'm here drawing. What's great now? We've been at this project so long that there's certain things we've covered many times. So I'm just looking back at notes that I made a long time ago. Yeah. From the Tree of Life series. And then I incorporated a lot of that material

into a Bible project class, a classroom, on Genesis 1 and the meaning of heaven and earth in the Bible. And so I'm actually using the class notes that began life as the podcast notes for the Tree of Life series. Anyhow, and that class is free to take it and up there. You can go take it right now, free.

So I'm in that section of the notes where we're talking about the meaning of sacred trees and gardens in the ancient Near East and times of the Bibles and one helpful resource that I use then was a scholarly volume by scholar William Osborne called Trees and Kings, a comparative analysis of tree imagery in Israel's prophetic tradition and the ancient erys. Oh my gosh. I think this is dissertation. So I remember reading this quote a few years ago in the Tree of Life series, but it's really

insightful and immediately gets us where we want to go. So William Osborne on page 31 says, as any astute tourist quickly observes, the landscape of much of the near east is predominantly stark and barren. The desert. Yep, so here he's talking about from the Mediterranean Sea, and then just go east. A goy-serie.

Just dry. Israel-Palestine, Syria, through Iran a rock just it's a lot of as he says dark Baron desert land some of it low desert some of the high where in the world cup there this Well, it will have happened where and guitar in guitar no joke. Okay, so that's just happened Okay, that's where you south but actually so really if you get out of map and you look kind of from where Lebanon is on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, so that's north of Israel-Palestine, and then you just go

to East. And you'll see it goes from hills and green to just brown on the satellite, all the way east. But then if you look south down, you start, it's where the Asian cotton that merges with the northern Arabian Peninsula Down into Saudi Arabia and down in there, and it's just that'll be just light brown on the satellite too. Yeah. So it's mega area. Yes. So William Osborne continues. The land is comprised of innumerable shades of brown with only brief interjections of green or blue. Water and plants. The higher in elevation one goes, the greener the picture becomes.

Consequently, mountains and rivers, along with forests, that adorn them seem to be natural focal points of anyone who lives and travels in these lands. The ancient peoples, from the remote western world of Egypt to the eastern River Marshes of Babylonia, lived in the land, not simply on it. They were all agrarian cultures whose livelihood was found and maintained among the shade, fruit, shelter, and beauty of their trees. As a result, there can be little doubt that this lifestyle had significant effect on these ancient cultures and the ways

that they perceive the world, trees. And trees are associated with garden. Trees, and I'm adding gardens, he concludes, were some of the most sacred elements places in ancient Near ancient Eastern civilizations. It's a great summary. So in other words, the physical environment of the people, groups out of whom Israel came

in the biblical authors were all the style they experienced the world. Yeah, like if you're traveling through that area and it's just brown, as far as the I can see see and you spot a little bit of green up on a hill, you're like, ooh, there might be a river there. There's some life there. Like you can actually like set up camp and find a life there. And a hilly area that has a spring on top, that's money. You know what I mean? Because you could make a permanent encampment, you have a water source, a low garden,

and you're a pie and protect it. And you're a pie, you could build some walls around the spring, and you'd have a city with a river in the middle of it, whose river makes glad the people of the city, you know? That's the imagery. Yeah, so to find a spring on top of a hill. And so when you get to the Garden of Eden, what do you have? You've got a spring coming out

from the top of the hill that forms a garden. Yep, that's right. So what's cool is you can go and Osborne does this and then other scholars that I've learned from, especially the work of a German scholar, Othmar Kael, K-E-E-L. He has a number of books called The Symbolism of the Biblical World. And basically, he is just collected more than any other scholar into volumes that are really accessible. Ancient Near Eastern, architecture, sculpture, and artwork. and then organize it around key ideas in the Hebrew Bible. So you can just, let me look at representations of trees in the Ancient Near East and

Osmarkales put them all together in these volumes, super helpful. So what's interesting is that Imperial Kings, and whether that's down in Egypt, over in Babylon, or in the Syria, when they made their palaces, they often made them just riddled and stocked with all kinds of garden-like art and iconography and architecture. So things are constantly shaped like trees with leaves, you know, and all these pictures that we have were carvings, depicting palaces and thrown rooms. There's all like the Stratons. So what that shows is, and remember the gods are in the midst here because they believe

the gods gave them life. So wherever there is a city center with a ruler and they would create it to look like a place where the gods are here giving life and fertility. Because every city was just first a garden. Right, yeah, a place where humans felt like, oh, the gods have made this a place where... There's trees here, there's a river here.

Like we could set up camp here. You know what's funny is, you've ever noticed that like little suburban housing developments are always named after the thing they took over. Oh sure, park meadows. Yeah. Or Cedar Brook. Yeah, Mountain View. Well, I guess that might still be their mountain view. But Mountain View Meadow, I don't know. It's always some meadow or it's Brook or Spring. It's no longer there. It's no longer there. I never thought of that. That's a good point.

But here, it's like, they're still celebrating. It was here and we built around it and now it's part of us. Or in this case, the palace gets turned into a little symbolic garden oasis. So right now we're just looking at a seventh century wall carving of Osharbona Paul's throne room where it's just a big garden and he's hosting some other royal dignitaries. And it looks like he has some sort of arc of the covenant kind of thing there.

This here? Oh, yeah, that's a solid point. I think it might be a serving table for the food items. It almost looks like it has like chairman wings on it. Yeah, that's a solid point. I think it might be a serving table for the food items. Almost looks like it has like chairman wings on it. Yeah, that's interesting. Handles, but. Famously in Osher Bonapal's palace,

he made one of the most famous gardens in the ancient world. And he says he describes it as a little, he channeled through a Conduit or what's things called oh Conduit of water where you can direct it like aqueduct. Oh made a big aqueduct to funnel a stream into his palace garden Mm-hmm, and then you know, he had his court poets right all about it about how it was like the center of the kingdom. He talks about all the different types of bushes that he grew there. The whole point is, even when a king in a city wanted to create an ideal space,

to display how the gods live here with me, and they have pointed me to rule, what they make is a garden. That's the fundamental picture here And so the Garden of Eden is another Expression of that ideal that God the ultimate cosmic king for the Israelite authors would touch heaven and earth together and plant his human ruling images and what do you get? It's in a garden So that's the first very general point to make, like that's what we should be feeling those vibes when we're in the garden itself. So when we are there in the garden story, God plants a garden in the middle of the

Desolate Wilderness. There's a wilderness, provides a river, out of the river, water, creates mud. And when I think of wilderness, I think of a flat place. Oh, yeah. But you keep saying, like, look, the river flows all the earth. So this is a wilderness that was on a mountain. Yeah, or at least a hilly region. But in this case, it doesn't say it, but this stream that God's gonna provide is on a a hill, because it's going to become a river

that splits and goes out to water all the earth. Yeah, pretty epic hill. It's epic hill, totally. Yeah. So the elevation of the hill is not drawn attention to, or it's not focused on here, but it's kind of assumed it is assumed. Because water goes downhill, so. So God forms a human from the dust of the ground and breathes into the nostrils of breath

of life. So then there's a big focus on that river and says it went out and watered the garden. And after it left the garden, it separated and became four rivers out of goes. And lo and behold, this is going to be important for the cities. It waters. One river is called Pishon, I mean Gusher. And it goes down to the land of Havela, which is, as you find out later in Genesis,

an important stop on the way to Egypt. So this river is going to Egypt. Hm. The second river is the Gihun. Now it says it goes around the land of Kush, which is typically in northern Africa, but there's another Kush that is a tribe like central to the land of Israel. Is it interesting?

And Geekhan is the name of the river that will become, it also means like Gushar or what's another word for Gush. Splerge. Splerge. Splerger. It's the name of the spring that sources water and Jerusalem. Later in Solomon's day. The name of the third river is the Tigris. That is that goes through Assyria. Yeah. The name of the fourth is the Euphrates. So those two are very clear like rivers we know on

the map. Yeah, because they some form of them still exist today. Yeah. But the point is the places where one is associated with Egypt. Okay. Second is associated with Assyria. Mm-hmm. The fourth is associated with Babylon. Now this is in the Eden story. So like the narrator.

These lands exist. These lands will become the settings of all the bad empires. All the bad cities. But it's that all the source of life that they're going to get comes from. Comes from this, yep, this heaven on earth river. Yeah. Okay. So God takes a human, puts a human in the garden, gives them a command. Okay? Yeah. So next thing, Yahweh, Elohim said, it's not good. This first thing

that is not good. On the seven days, it was good, good, good, good, good, good, very good. It's the first thing, not good. It's not good for the human to be alone. Because there's just one human. It's just the human, the human. The human. I will make a Hebrew word here as Acer for him. So this is a revisiting podcast. I think back in the family of God, conversations a couple years ago, we've really focused it on this. It's usually translated with the word helper, or King James help meet.

I recently came across what is now my favorite translation. Translation, thank you, Dr. Carmen Eimes, Hebrew Bible professor, down to Biola, now, university. She has the translation ally, which is perfect. An ally. Ally. And I've modified it slightly to delivering ally because an Azer is always, well, actually

the main one it describes in the Hebrew Bible every time this word appears is God. And specifically when God comes to rescue Israel. Actually, we saw it in Psalm 46 in the previous conversation. Yeah. God is the help for his people or for his city when the world's falling apart. So if you have the idea of like assistant helper or helper to the assistant, like this not, it means the only one who can provide the deliverance that is needed to provide safety or accomplish the mission. So that's why. This is like making a treaty with a neighboring king who can come and like protect and rescue you. Or even more that they have the river in their land.

Yeah. And we have like the flat fertile farm fields. Yeah. And so let's become each other's azer. Because I can grow the wheat that you have to send the water to me. And we need for allies. For allies. It's perfect word. Thank you, Carmen. So I will make a delivering ally for him. But delivering because why are you adding the word delivering? I'm adding we're delivering because what it means is there's something wrong. There's some challenge obstacle. Without the ally, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. And so this relates to what do I know about the job given to Ha-A-Dam from the seven-day narrative, it is to rule as male and female

that together are the image and to be fruitful and multiply. Yeah, and that calling cannot be fulfilled with the lone human. So I'll make the delivering ally. So you get the scene of Yahweh forming creatures from the ground, bringing them to the humans to see what the human would call them, and the human calls the names of the creatures, but for the human there was not found in Azer. So now we're really, we have a whole narrative where God takes the human on a journey, so that the human begins to see what the human needs, like the human begins to realize that the

human doesn't have an Azer. Because like here's those creatures and those creatures, and well that's not like me. I can't work with that. That can't be an ally to me. At least I think that's what's going on. So God causes a sleep, actually not just any sleep, but like trance, visionary, altered consciousness, sleep.

That's what Tardema, what it means. And he slept. And he, that is Yahweh, took one from his sides, one of his sides. He closed the flesh in his place. Here's the key word. And Yahweh built the side, which he took from the human into woman. And then he brought her to the human and the human things a little song ever-joying. And famously, this has been translated as rib. Ah, correct. Took one of his ribs.

Yeah. But the word, and we've talked about this before, the word in Hebrew literally means a side. Yeah, describes, Seila describes the side of a building, the side of a box, like the Ark of the Covenant, where the side of a hill. Yeah. So, he takes one of his sides. Yeah. And then...

So, you've described this as like splitting them in two in a way. Yeah. Yeah. My point is the imagery is very suggestive, and I think that we're being invited to see many layers of meaning. So the fact that... And when I say him, you've also kind of made a point of saying, Ha-Dom was like not gendered in a way, like in the narrative.

Well, yeah. I mean, I think there is a default in the Ha-adam is a masculine noun, but it also is the generic title for species. In the first time ha-adam the human is used in the Seven Day Creation narrative. It explicitly is the species name for male and female. This in Genesis 127. God created ha-adam. And here you get this picture of someone who split and half becomes male and female. Yeah. So whether the default beginning state is male, and then out of male comes woman, you can, that's a legitimate inference of the narrative. But I do want to at least be aware that that male default is not the emphasis of the story

because Haadam is generic and referred to the species or to a human male. And then the words man and woman that are specifically gender words or biological sex words don't appear until after the splitting. So I just feel like I have to be significant. Anyhow. So you made a point of saying when you always takes the side, you always build the side. Yes.

So this word, build, it's curious. It's the weird, we'll just do a real-time situation here. This is Genesis 2. What was it? 19. So New American Standard has fashioned. It's like kind of make the word feel less awkward. Like crafted or something? Yeah. Yeah. So, 375 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible. So, Noah is going to build an altar. That's the word banah.

So Noah is going to build an altar. That's the word banah. Oh, Nimrod is going to build Ninevah. Abraham builds an altar. Actually, in the book of Genesis, the two things that get built are cities or altars. What's Genesis 30? Oh, actually, well, that's a really interesting one. Weird. Yeah, it actually makes sense, but it's a deep rabbit hole.

Okay, let's skip it. Maxidus 1, Israelites are building cities for Pharaoh, Moses builds an altar. Notice this is basically it. Yeah. Alters and cities. So it's builds the side of Ha-Adam into a woman. That's weird. It's a weird thing to say in Hebrew.

It's supposed to catch your attention like. Is it supposed to make you think like, is this an altar or is this a city? Yeah. What you build are constructed items. And the only two things, yeah, built in the Torah. Because when he formed man out of the dirt. Yes, it was a word for molding. Molding. Yatsar, which is what is used to describe what a potter does with clay. So this is more of a construction word. So this is very common in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical authors will use intentionally, awkward, strange feeling turns a phrase.

This is awkward in Hebrew. It's awkward in Hebrew to get your attention. Hmm. That they're either. It's an idea behind it. There's an idea that they're either hyperlinking back to or in this case I think foundationally like establishing an idea that's gonna become important and what follows. So my point here is just to say here is a human in a place of vulnerability and with an obstacle they can't do what God has called the human to do.

So God provides an Azer, a delivering ally, by building it for the vulnerable human. God builds the delivering help in the form of a woman. That's the foundational image in this little scene. And those aren't details you would necessarily know to pay attention to. But as we're going to see, the little thing I just said is just going to keep coming up over and over and over again, but in really creative twists. And the thing that you said is that he builds a woman.

You have somebody who's in a desperate situation, they can't get themselves out of it. And so God provides a delivering ally in Azer and God provides it by building it for them on their behalf. What they could not do for themselves, God builds by giving them an Acer, got it. Okay, all right, that's the idea. So what's interesting is that word Azer, Ayan, Zion, Resh, has consonants that keep appearing

in the rest of the story. And if you don't know to look for this, you wouldn't know. So here I'm going to draw on the work of a scholar, Scott Nauwegel, who's, he's a Semitic linguist. He's published on so many different things but he's like the guru of word So we have two words in English puns and word plays. Okay that describe the way we form words and Take advantage of graphic or

similarity of consonants between different words to make points. So, you know, that's pun. Kids love them. That's kids love them. And dads love them. Because kids love them. That's so right. Oh, dude.

This is just last night. Oh my gosh. My kids are reading this diary of a wimpy kid. Uh-huh. These stories. And so basically, so silly. We spent bedtime just trying to think up famous people and different names for underwear and making little puns. My favorite of August was Lincoln Long Bottoms. What? And then that made Roman think of Leonardo Long Johns.

Oh my gosh. And then I was like, you lycces underwear. And you know, you get it. And so it's just there, it's just the first two letters. Yeah, okay. And that's enough. That's enough. But there are other ones.

Oh, there are some really good ones. Hmm, anyway, so the technical term for that, we have wordplay and pun to describe that. The technical term is paranoasia. Ooh, okay. And so Scott Newagel has published a lot on this. Lots of essays and he has a book called wordplay in ancient Near Eastern texts.

And it's all about how ancient especially Semitic authors were super super in doing this and he demonstrates it in Egyptian literature, Babylonian literature, Canaanite literature and Hebrew Bible All everywhere everywhere all the time So this has become one of a really crucial tool that I was not taught when I first learned how to read the Bible, or even learn Greek or Hebrew. I've learned this way later, that this is a significant tool. Well, it's hard to see without knowing the original languages.

That's true. That's right. It takes regretted, you know, the language. Because puns don't work cross languages. So that's a little aside. So the irony is that the A's are that God provides. A in, I in, I in, and that's that one we talked about last time. Yeah, you close your throat. I in, Zion, Rache. So it's interesting is what you're told about, then the man, the woman, the azer, and then the human, once they're together, is that they are ahrum, naked, ahrum. And the word ahrum has four letters, but three of those

letters are identical or have almost the exact same shape as the three letters of delivering ally. of delivering ally. So Ion and Rache, and then the word Arum has a letter Vav that is drawn almost identically to the middle letter of Azer, which is Zion, but just doesn't have a little cross wiggle on the top. What sound does it make? In this case, it's the vowel U in Arum. Marks the vowel.

Marks the vowel? Yeah. Arum. So the A-Zer and her, the one she's there to deliver, are both Autum. And there's a similar sound in that you're using two of the same letters. Two of the same, like, sounds, letters. Yeah. But then there's also just visually.

Visually. It looks similar as well. So it's a graphic interplay. So you would say the word naked is made up of three of its four letters, look identical. Well two are identical. Two are identical. The third looks like. And that's important enough. Yeah, yeah, that's how it works. And New Agile has a whole chapter on this on how do you know it's happening? And if you see essentially a high density of similar letters keep popping up

within a connected literary unit, and you can begin to see interconnections or in plays of meaning between them, then you've got a good case. There's paranoia going on. So what's interesting is they're naked, but then that nakedness, so notice that the nakedness and the azer, who's the woman there,

that becomes the main focus of the snake in the tree story, where the one, the azer that God has provided actually becomes the target for deception by the snake. And then when she sees and takes from the tree and then gives her husband and he eat, the first thing that happens when they open their eyes and they realize they are auto. So the one that God has provided as azer has now brought about something that's now not good, namely that they see that they are a room. Which was fine earlier, but now it's a problem.

So then the nakedness of this couple that's now been brought about because the Ezer was deceived and then the man was deceived, they are a room. And so they're exiled from Eden, but then there's that little note that God provides garments of skin for the humans and that word skin iron iron Vavrash Mm-hmm is spelled with three letters and

Again, that look almost identical to the word Azer. Yeah. It doesn't sound to our ears, Azer or, so it's a graphic similarity. Because the Z is now the vowel looking thing. The vowel, Vav in the middle. And the Ion is, you don't really hear much anyways. So it's really just the R that feels very similar.

Yeah, so Scott and O'Aggle, I've learned a lot from about the mechanics of how her animation and wordplay works. The scholar that pointed this particular insight out to me was David Andrew Teeter. And this work on Genesis that is beginning to be published and it's so, so insightful. So he's going to point it this out to me. And essentially here's the connection, is that God provides and builds in Azer to deliver the lonely human. But the Azer tragically becomes the one first

and then the man who's targeted that results in the humans realizing that they are at home. But God provides for their arum nakedness by giving them or as they are exiled and go east from the garden of Eden. Which is a type of help? Oh, the exile? No, the or. Oh, the or. Yeah, exactly. In other words, both the skin and the aser and those two words look almost identical are things that God provides in a bad situation. The first time it's providing solution. Here it's now providing covering for a tragedy.

So the two things that God provides, the azer that, and the skin, are nearly identical shape. And then those letters are all linked together in a really precise sequence. The azure leads to the arum, leads to the or. God provides the azure, humans create arum, but God provides the or.

God provides the ally, the allies leads to the humans naked. So God provides the skin. God provides the ally, the allies lead to the human's naked, so God provides the skin. Okay. So these are not things that you would necessarily notice. I think your attention might get drawn to them because of other features in the text, but that's step one. The next step is when you take the next story on board and you start to see the same words or letters or ideas popping up in a way that is hyperlinked back to the previous story. And that's where we get finally to the story of Cain and the building of the first city. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be we'll just summarize and say the story of Cain and Abel, we've

sessioned this story a lot over the years. So I think what I'll just try and remind us of, to upload, is they're right outside the garden. The parents are exiled from the garden. In Cain and God's conversation, you discover they're by a door or some kind of gate, presumably the gate of back into the garden. And they're offering sacrifices. He and his brother are Cain and Abel are Adam and Eve's two sons. God favors Abel's sacrifice. and then God as a conversation with cane, and you realize cane has a choice about to do good or to not do good. And there's an animal like creature crouching, desiring him that he's called the rule.

And it wants him. So that's the portrait. And just with those little brush strokes, the narrator is painting Cain. Just to make sure if someone's listening, they're not familiar with the story, the conflict here, just dial it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that they're both giving sacrifices, and God shows His attention and favor on able sacrifice. Yes. And C Kane is like, what's the deal? Like, why are you ignoring me? In fact, he's hot with anger.

He's what we're talking about. He's angry about it. So what is he going to do with his anger? When he feels like God's not being fair, God's not doing what's to him seems like the right thing to do, which is to give him a favor and attention to. That's right. So what God says is you have a choice between good and not good, and there's an animal

crouching that wants you to influence you, and you need to rule it. So with those little lines, that's the language of what his parents were called to do to the animals, to rule them. The animal that trying to get you sounds eerily similar to the animal that was trying to get this guy's parents. And it's a choice of good and not good, which is exactly the words used of his parents' tree of knowing good and bad.

So this is the next generation standing at the tree, so to speak. So he makes the wrong choice. He, in anger, rises up and he kills his brother out in the field. So just like God did to Adam and Eve, God shows up asking Cain questions. Actually, the same question, where he came to Adam and Eve, where are you? He comes to Cain and says, where is Abel? Your brother. There's a lot of like, what do you say? Not blame shifting in this case, but like, punting. You know, trying to evade the question. You're like, I don't know. Why, why, am I keeping my brother?

And remember Adam said, why is a woman? You gave me. A woman, yeah, it was a snake, and so on. And so what God says to Cain is exactly what he says to the woman? You gave me a woman. Yeah, it was a snake, and so on. And so what God says to Cain is exactly what he says to the snake and the man and the woman, which is, What is this you've done? And he says to Cain, What is this you've done?

Then check this out. This is important. So what God says is, The voice of the blood of your brother is crying out to me from the ground. So the word blood is related to the word human. It's another wordplay. And remember this, when human was made, it was Adam, human, made from the Adam-ma. The dirt. So human and dirt, the word blood is actually connected in here because the word blood is DOM. So, a DOM human, a DOM-ma, ground, DOM blood. So what he says here is you have

made the DOM of your brother go back into the Adama, the Dhamma to the Adama. So what God did was create a Dhamma out of the Adama, and you just took a human life and have returned. Still did it back in. The Dhamma, oven a Dhamma into the Adama. In other words, Cain took it upon himself to become God, to take away life. But the Dhamma lives on in a way. Crying out. Exactly. Yeah. Life of Abel in the in the Atama is Crying out. That's right. Whatever that means. Yeah, it's it stands there

before the blood on the ground. It still is to any Human who isn't to sensitize to it. Like when you see a puddle blood It should be and it is shocking. Like that's the life fluid of a creature that's supposed to be in that creature. You're saying crying out as a way of saying like there's something wrong here, it's startling. So startling that when it's seen and noticed, it ought to shake us to our very core. And so it cries out, meaning that it demands some kind of response. Demands an answer.

Demands an answer. Yep, and God says, I heard it. And so what's interesting is the God doesn't kill the murderer, take the life of the murderer. Rather, he exiles the transgressoror just like he did to Sky's parents, so you're gonna still have to work the ground and eat, but you'll be a wanderer and Vagrant in the land Cain said the Aoi my punishment It's too great to be able to carry or lift up

You have exiled me banished me. It's exactly the word used to what Yahweh did to Adam and Eve. You have banished me this day on the face of the ground, of the Awanderer and the Vagrant, and it'll come about anybody who finds me will kill me. I'm a murderer. So... And I won't be safe out there about myself. Exactly right. Yeah, I have this now.

My reputation goes before me. I'm going out from the garden, land. I mean, at least I was next to it. And I'm still in Eden, which is the region of Delight. Once I'm out there, someone's going to kill me. And what Yalway says, this is astounding. Yalway said, whoever kills Cain, he will be avenged seven times over. And Yahweh established for Cain a sign so that whoever would find him would not strike

him. So he provides a sign that is a promise that Cain's life will be spared if someone tries to bring justice upon him. So that's another core image here. So here's Cain. He's afraid that someone's going to take his life. And I know human nature. Totally. Yeah. Now, like who are the other humans out there? They're just the story just assumes that they're out there. Yeah. That's the whole other thing. But so here we have, once again, we have once again, a human in a place of desperation and need. And God provides for them something to preserve their life. And the thing is called a sign.

Now, what is the sign? I think it's intentionally ambiguous. But whatever it is, it's something that's for Cain. It doesn't say that it's on him. That idea has a long after life about the mark of Cain and all that, and that's just the Hebrew text does not say that. It's a sign for him.

And it's intentionally leaves it ambiguous because this idea is going to get filled in with lots of different types of signs as the biblical story. How does a word sign generally used in the Hebrew Bible? Ah, a symbol. is going to get filled in with lots of different types of signs as the biblical story goes on. How is a word sign generally used in the Hebrew Bible? Ah, it's simple. There's some kind of symbol that is connected with Cain that is supposed to make it clear that his life is to be saved. Some sort of visual... something. Usually it's visual. Usually it's visual.

Usually it's visual. Yep, that's right. Yeah, that's for him. And it's visual. Usually it's visual. Yep, that's right. Yeah, that's for him and it's for him. Yep. So here's the thing. Cain goes out from before the face of Yahweh and he went and dwelt in the land of Wandering, which is the Hebrew word Nod. The land of Nod. East of Eden. It's exactly his parents were exiled to the east of the garden. Davidian. It's exactly his parents were exiled to the east of the garden. Their son is exiled to east of Eden. So now Cain is out here in the vulnerable land. He has a sign that God's provided that his life is protected, but like, you know, what's what good the sign going to do. Yeah. Well, he'll be avenged. That's right. Oh, he has a good point.

It doesn't mean he's going to be protected. It doesn't mean it's going to, basically, it's sort of like it's going to demotivate someone. But if someone's angry enough, you know, they'll be like, oh, wow, I'll deal with it seven times. I'll take care of that later. Ha, ha, ha, ha. God bless.

Okay. So actually, it's a good point. God doesn't say I won't keep somebody from killing you. What he says is all, you know. There's going to be consequences. There will be consequences for them. So that's what Knaesda worked with right now, trusting God's sign. Yeah. So what's the first thing we're told that he does? First thing is he finds a wife, he has a son. Second thing he does, he builds a city. And he named the city after the name of his son. So he named a city Enoch or Hanuk, which means dedicated. And then he builds a city and then he names the city after his son. So notice the close correlation of woman, child, city.

He marries, he knows his wife, son, name of the son, he builds a city, named a city after the name of the son, that he had with his wife. So Kane starts building his little world. And he builds for himself a city. And I should be imagining like, he could have literally just been like, okay, I'm gonna start building this wall.

Oh, good point. Yeah, that's like literally build a wall around a hamlet. Yeah. He's just like, here's where I live, I'm gonna start building the wall. And I'll have my own allies that will come if they want, we'll make peace, they could come in. And we'll just keep making this bigger wall.

You got it. Yeah, it looks bad in the wall. You got it. Yeah, we'll expand the wall And you know the extended family grows and maybe some other wanderers will come along and yeah, so we're talking about a town Right like a walled Hamlet hamlet. Yeah, yeah, man I had the privilege of being able to go to France this last summer with my family and we were way south of Paris, rural. And I went on a number of runs just in like the rural countryside of France. Yeah. It was amazing. And I saw for the first time what the word hamlet means. It was a wall. It was like a shoulder-high stone wall,

which hundreds of years old, around maybe four or five houses, and then there were like two attached barns and a bunch of fields. And the wall went around the whole thing. Yeah. And I was like, oh, it's an ear. It's a Hebrew ear. What is it?

That's it. Yeah. So that's it. That's what he's building here. He's building here. But remember, the definition of city is walls. Yeah. So here's just what's fascinating. Again, this is what David

entertainer pointed out to me. And it's certainly right. So notice how Cain is clearly replaying the story of his parents. Yes. And God's treatment of Cain is very similar. Yeah. Because Adam and Eve, they're told they're going to die death penalty for that's their consequence. Yeah. They're not killed. They're spared from death. They're banished east Before they're banished. They're given the skin of an animal to cover their nakedness. Yeah, so they're given a gift They're sent east spare their life. Yep. That's right. Kane Murdered his brother. You think death penalty

God says I'm gonna spare your life. I'm sending you farther east and he gives them a gift but can murder just brother, you think death penalty. God says, I'm gonna spare your life. I'm sending you farther east and he gives him a gift to not skin, but he gives him a sign. Exactly. And that sign is to protect him from people who would go out and kill him. Cause he's out there with new humans who, maybe they know he's a criminal and they think I'm taking

out but maybe just like I mean human nature like here's a guy. I don't know he might be a threat. Let's take him out. Yeah, he's no longer with his family. He's out on his own. Mm-hmm. There you go. So isn't it interesting that all the key words used precisely these parallel moments all look or sound alike in Hebrew. So in Genesis 2 God builds Hebrew word banah, he builds the ally, which is the azer. And then that azer tragically, you know, becomes the vehicle for the snake to make them auto-room. And so God provides a new thing for the one in need, namely, He provides the ore, the skin for them. In a similar way for their son,

in Cain's moment of need, even after he's guilty, God provides an oate, which this one's harder to see in the modern Hebrew alphabet that I'm using that's in Google Docs right here. But the words are graphically similar or skin and oat. So oat is olive, vaav, tov. But you can even just see it the way the tov is shaped is identical to the main one part of it is the main swoop of the rash. The middle letters are the same. And the word skin begins to let our ion, the word oat begins with olive. They're the two

silent letters in Hebrew. And depending on the alphabet script being used, they have graphic similarities, but it's kind of relative to the alphabet you're using. So that may not convince you in the moment, but then check this out. What does Cain do? God provides an ode, but then what does Cain do? Built to see. Well, he builds an ear.

So the last time we had the word build, it was God providing. God built an ear. An Ezer. And what Cain builds is an ear. Ezer and ear. Azer means help. Ear means city.

Our, look, almost identical. It's the first and last letters are the same letters. And then the middle letter is actually that top swoop of the letter Zion in the word Azer is what the letter Yoad is. Is that top swoop just without the vertical line under it? So the point is is when cane Yoad is, is that top swoop, just without the vertical line under it. So the point is, is when Cain builds a city, the phrase looks exactly like the Hebrew phrase

with God built in the nature. And then I build in the nature. And once you link all these words together in terms of their meaning, they play the exact same role. So in a moment of desperation, God provided the ally. God provided the skin after the tragedy of both, and those help and skin look together. Here in Genesis 4, God has provided something for Cain to preserve his life, but Cain wants to preserve his own life by his own means, and he builds a city.

So the building of the city now, okay, and Membracane has already taken on himself God-like roles. He took the life of an Adam by spilling the Adam into the Audema. And now he's taking on himself another God-like role, which is to provide his own security and delivering help. And he builds the city, which is imperialism to God building the itzer for the human. Does that make sense? How the parallels work there? Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. I'm wondering how it's not landing completely for me. Why is this so significant?

Okay. Just as God built an ally because of the human's inability to preserve life. Hadam, humanity, Adam was unable to be fruitful, so be the earth and multiply, namely because he couldn't reproduce. I mean, that's a big thing. That's right. So, he has life. The human alone has life, but can't preserve it and make it go on.

And so God provides an ally, which is the woman, which allows man and woman. Yep. God builds the ally. Builds the ally. Yep. And then, once that alliance is broken, because of humanity's failure, God provides something again. He provides something again. He provides the skin.

Just as God did that. So similarly, God provides a sign to compensate or cover for Cain's failure. And what does Cain do? He decides to build a city for himself. So the thing that God built to preserve life, Cain is now building for himself to preserve his own life. And the sign that God wanted to give him is like the skin that God gave his parents

to cover for their failure. So is the thing that's supposed to be standing out to me is that the big difference here is that Cain's building his own Azer instead of letting God give him an Azer. Building his own deliverance, his own salvation, his own delivering a lot. So when we're introduced to cities, the first time the idea of a city is in the story of the Bible is from a murder on the run. Who God said, God said, I'm going to protect you.

And they decide, yes, great, but also I'm going to protect myself. Yep, that's right. The first time a city appears, it's a sad tragic necessity from the human point of view to protect ourselves here outside of Eden, to sad reality that we could not be further from the garden at this point, and it's supposed to make us sad. So the woman ally that God built for the preservation of life is contrasted with the city that came builds to preserve his own life. And that's just we're supposed to notice that and we're supposed to sit with that contrast. So here's what's fascinating from this is that cities when they're described with any figure of

speech or metaphor throughout the rest of the He-revival, they are always portrayed as women. Always. And we saw that in Psalm 46. Yeah, God is in her. So cities are referred to with feminine pronouns. Cities are referred to with phrases like Lady Jerusalem or Daughter Zion. Think to Revelation chapter 21, I saw the holy city coming down as a bride. So the fact that God's heavenly provision of life and new creation is depicted as a bride for her husband and you're like, it's Eve. God is bringing a new Eve in the heaven form of the heavenly city coming down to Mary Earth.

A new Azer. A new Azer, but specifically God's providing the bride, just like God did in the Garden of Eden. In the New Testament writings, the church is also called the bride. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's true. That's different. That's a different conversation. Yeah, you know, that's a good point. No, it's very similar, but I haven't thought that through of how that connects to the city. But different ideas?

Well, maybe. I don't know. Truly, I haven't thought of that. You're bringing a new idea into my. I had a nice neat little packet of how these ideas fit together and you're putting another one in there. I know it certainly fits. Okay. Because the church is just in assembly. Yeah. A community of people. Group people. Yeah.

And so is the city. Exactly. So it makes perfect sense. Oh, also Babylon is called Daughter, Babylon. Mm-hmm. And both in the Hebrew Bible and in the Revelation, Babylon is described as a woman, like a sex worker, a prostitute, sitting on a dragon.

So a woman and a snake. Right? So my point is all of that imagery later in the Bible about cities as women, I thought just was poetic creativity. And it may be, but it's certain. But it's poetic creativity to make you think about these ideas we're talking about now.

It's all assuming this deep connection between the city and the desert and the woman earlier on in the story because the woman is what God provides for the salvation and the deliverance of the lone human. So, and the city is what came builds to provide his own deliverance from death. Now, you know, last time we, last episode,

you talked about the puzzle. This feels like a puzzle to it. It's like you've got how is a woman connected to the city? And what's, God builds the Azer, which is the woman. And it's a delivering ally to rescue mankind, to be able to do the thing ought to do. When we get to Cain, Cain builds the ear. And it's like those two phrases look identical. God builds the Azer, came built the Eer. God does it to protect humanity, came does it to protect himself.

And what cities become then is this picture of humans trying to protect themselves and just creating more violence than there was even before. Yeah. So, came killed as brother, but cities are going to kill entire before. Yeah. So, Cain killed his brother, but cities are gonna kill entire cities. Yeah, that's what we go in the next episode of the conversation is the scaling violence of the city. But I wanted to just focus on this moment of the origin of the first city.

And so, when we see in Revelation, the city of God come down and it's called the bride. Then the payoff there is saying, what we built on our own to protect ourselves is the thing actually God wanted to give us all along. Yes. He wanted to give us the ally. The delivering ally.

The delivering ally. Yeah, yeah. And we didn't need to go out and build it to protect ourselves. We could have built it with God. Yeah. And God out and build it to protect ourselves. We could have built it with God, and God's gonna give it to us. That's the payoff. Yes, yes.

Okay. Thanks, even with the clarity I hadn't typed out yet in my notes. That's exactly right. The thing that God did give and wants to give even more of is what Cain refuses to accept and builds in his own power and ability. Because you just follow that word play and it's like God builds the Azer. God gives the or. God gives the out. What stands out is next it's not God builds the city. It's Cain builds the city. Yeah, the ear. That's right. And so you're like, whoa, that's weird. builds the city. It's Cain builds the city. Yeah, the ear. That's right.

And so you're like, whoa, that's weird. Yeah. I was waiting for the God because that's the pattern. God did the thing. God did the thing. Yes. Cain did the thing. Yeah.

And then we've got this long, now story of humans building the city until God comes and says, let me give you the city. Yeah, that's basically it. Kane City gets out of control with violence and then the next cities will be Nimrod cities and then the next cities will be Sodom and Gomorrah and then the next cities will be Pharaoh's storehouse cities that he makes a slaves build

and you're just like, did the cities get in out of control? And it all comes from this moment, because cities also provide security. But what if the first efforts to build human security were actually a sad rejection of God's offer to provide what humans need to preserve life? And what if there was a city where God dwelt in it? Yeah, yeah. And he was the reason that city was secure, not a wall. Yeah, yeah, not, yeah, it's its own power. Totally. So

this, let's just maybe conclude moving from biblical theological symbols. So what is there that's more fundamental to human like experience than wanting to save your life? Yeah, am I safe? Yes, it's like the question that is constantly cycling and they're psyche, am I safe? Both like deep in their subconscious, anytime we're awake and cruising around But then also like in moments where we feel in danger

We don't have to think about what to do our bodies kick into gear What is the limbic system right kicks in and just fires your body with hormones So that you do whatever is required to stay alive. Yeah So the preservation of life isn't just some idol pastime that we choose to like, it's like this is core, and that's the thing that Cain is feeling threatened. So you can really sympathize with why you would build a wall. No, it doesn't seem that weird. You don't get to this and go,

oh, wow, he's building a city, that's gonna be a problem. Yeah. You're just like, oh yeah, great. I mean, totally. So I wanna emphasize that, because you could paint this as a movie scene, it's like a dark cloudy day, and there's thunder and lightning,

and can't like, this wicked smile, as he puts the bricks on it, or something, it's not like that. Forms a stone wall. No, it's like he's looking over his shoulder as he's building the wall and he's like, who's gonna get her? And in a way, what God is asking Cain to do

is really counterintuitive. But in a way, that's kind of like that we're back to the decision of the tree. It looks beautiful. It looks good. You'll give wisdom. Why wouldn't I eat from this tree? Right. Why wouldn't I build a wall? Why wouldn't I build a wall? It's the most natural feeling in the world.

And that's the dynamic. It would be stupid not to build a wall. It would be stupid not to build a wall. If not for the humans that want to kill me, at least for the critters. The critters that want to eat those coyotes. Yeah. So it's not like a simple picture of like evil cane build to city. It's like a genuinely, the human impulse to protect ourselves then creates a setting in which it's going to backfire. The spiraling of our own worst inclinations

will just come to life. Come to us, seven generations down the line with a descendant named Lemek that comes from this guy who lives in this city, the train goes off to tracks. So that's the portrait, and I just wanna end with that because it makes it really personally realistic, I think that the origin of this thing.

No, I just put in a ring doorbell. Ha ha ha ha ha. I can see everyone who comes to my door now. There you go, that's it. It's my own little fortress. That's it, and then somebody's gonna hack your account and do something with it to ruin your life and ruin your children's lives, and that would be the parallel to what happens here.

It just gets out of the thing meant to preserve life becomes now a tool of death. There you go. So that's the origin of the city. It was a lot of conversation around just a few chapters and a few words, but I'm so grateful for that scholar and her teacher's work. It's just been so insightful for understanding

these chapters and also why cities and have portrayed as women play such a huge role in this theme going forward and the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week we're discussing the stories of Keynes descendants who carry on in the footsteps of Keynes. We're going to look at these two parallel stories, the city of Kane that leads to the flood, and we're gonna look at the city of Nimrod that leads to the great scattering. The narrator of Genesis follows the genealogy of Kane

down through the generations, and what we see is the intensifying of human murder and spilling of innocent blood in the land. And that leads God to deal with it. Today's episode was brought to you by our podcast team, producer Cooper Peltz, associate producer Lins and Ponder, lead editor Dan Gummel, and editor's Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza.

Tyler Bailey also mixed this episode and Hannah Wu provided the annotations for the annotated podcast on our app. Bible Project is a crowdfunded 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

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