Yesterday we considered the shape of God’s creation and how the text progresses from a triune God to a sevenfold week. Today we’ll consider a progression from seven to ten.
In the aftermath of Abel’s death, the lines of Cain and Seth begin to fill the earth. To some extent, the two lines unfold in parallel. Both of them culminate in a threefold division—in Cain’s case with Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain, and in Seth’s with Shem, Ham, and Japheth—, and, before that, each line comes to a climax in the rise of a Lamech, who is a man of sevens. Cain’s Lamech is the seventh from Adam: he heads up a family of seven (Lamech, his two wives, his three sons, and his daughter), and says his death will be repaid with a seventy-seven-fold vengeance (Gen. 4.24); meanwhile, Seth’s Lamech lives for seven hundred and seventy seven years (Gen. 5.31), and his life looks on towards Noah’s—the life of a man of eights who heads up a family of eight (I Pet. 3.20). So, while Cain’s line is terminated by the flood, Seth’s lives on to inhabit God’s new creation regulated by God’s eightfold promise (to preserve ‘seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night’: Gen. 8.22).
Noah is thus a man of eights. And his call to be fruitful and multiply is taken up by Abraham, who is a man of tens. Abraham is born in the 10th century of Noah’s life and is a member of the 10th generation of God’s new creation (i.e., the 10th generation from Noah). He triumphs in the battle of five-versus-four kings, which makes him a tenth king. He gives a tenth of his spoils to Melchizedek. After he has lived in Canaan for ten years he fathers Ishmael (Gen. 16.3). And, in the 100th year of his life, he gives birth to Isaac—the seed of promise (Gen. 21.5).
A particular strand of Genesis’s rich tapestry thus unfolds in tens. In the world’s 10th generation the line of promise passes from Adam to Noah; in the post-flood world’s 10th generation it passes from Noah to Abraham; and in Abraham’s 100th year it passes from Abraham to Isaac, who reaps ‘a hundredfold harvest’ after Abraham dies (Gen. 26.12).
I remember you expounding this a couple of years ago in the Numberology webinar you and Alastair did. I’m glad to see you have put it down in writing. Thank-you!
Thanks James-my son Willem introduced me to your contributions. The Word is like honey-sweet to the soul, it enlightens the eyes! Please keep on expounding..