Tag: cain

  • Gardener, Shepherd and Hunter: 4- Tragic Death of a shepherd

    Gardener, Shepherd and Hunter: 4- Tragic Death of a shepherd

    sunrise over earth from space

    I had opened my eyes (just for a moment) and thought that I saw a sunrise from long long ago.. Watching for a long time (it seemed) or maybe for just an instant (I could not tell). I then observed the sun waning beneath the surface of this paradise.

    Tragic DEATH!


    This instant of time quickly reverted into a darkness.. and my eyes (I thought) were not even closed again. I quivered and held my breath (I thought), as an eerie sense of a chaotic scene drew me down beneath the place where I thought I had just stood above the once magnificent paradise.

    So I was no longer filled with any breath of joy at what I had already seen.

    Then a scene planted my mind into a still and horrific place which pierced the ash-like fog into which I had fallen. I knew that this place emerging into the strain of my blinded eyes was not only beyond the garden, but it is beyond the fields where I had just witnessed a contentious conversation between two brothers.

    I looked deeper into the darkness.. and then, I now realize, — beneath it.

    Just then, I remembered my Guide, who I guessed had not only led me to the garden east of Paradise but also to this place. And I remembered straining to hear what the two brothers were saying: Kahyin, the gardener, and Heḇel, the shepherd whose offering had pleased the LORD.

    .. It was only then that a dark and joyless truth wounded my briefly revived heart.

    HE KILLED HIM!


    So it came about in the course of time that Cain [qayin] [Smith {like Moses’ father-in-law}] brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground.

    Bereishit (Genesis) 4:3 :: קַיִן The same as קַיִן (H7013) The KJV translates Strong’s H7013 in the following manner: spear

    Once again I wanted more knowledge from my Guide about what I had just seen.

    So CAIN, a disgruntled gardener, KILLED his brother, a shepherd?

    You have just witnessed its result, my Guide confirmed.

    So Cain was ALSO the Hunter, wasn’t he?

    No.

    I was wrong already..

    Who then, I wondered as my Guide continued His response.

    He murdered Abel, just as later in your timeline you know that Moses would murder a Hebrew brother.

    WHY? Why did the Lord allow it?

    I plead for the bloodied body I had just seen of the shepherd brother of Cain not even thinking (in my response) of the man Moses had killed.

    I reasoned with my Guide:

    This shepherd, Abel, was a righteous man. AND the LORD even accepted his offering at the same time He rejected what Cain brought Him.

    And logically I added:

    HE could have stopped Abel’s murder.

    Yes, of course the LORD could have prevented Cain from killing Abel.

    AND The Almighty could have prevented the guilty man to whom HE gave this story, Moses, from killing a Hebrew slave when he lived as a prince in Egypt.

    I had no answer..

    You asked why the LORD allowed these things to happen to Cain who mostly lived as a good man trying to please God.


    I thought of Moses (this time)..


    and Joseph in Egypt before their slavery..


    THEN I remembered what my Guide had just asked me an instant ago, “Why would it make any difference to you if one brother’s offering is better than the other’s OR if either brother knows about the offering of the other?

    And I even remembered that David was also a later shepherd, just like Abel, yet like Moses and Cain King David had murdered a man.


    Do you think it would be better for these men to have NO choice in what they do and just have God lead them here and there to do as the Lord their God pleases?

    I began thinking about Cain and Able BOTH being FREE to choose their own actions and reactions in the paradise of God.

    Each of them Slaves!!? — I thought. IF we are NOT FREE to choose wrong, it would make us like slaves of GOD..

    I’m thankful that I am free from slavery, even to GOD.

    I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have said that out loud.

    Of course you are free to say whatever you would like to me.. and to God.

    And even though you may say anything to any other man you encounter on the earth the LORD does not restrain you, think of those words you cannot hear. You just witnessed the consequences of only one such encounter.

    Now look ahead to right judgment of the LORD when we freely choose to accept His Word.


    sunrise over earth from space
    IN THE BEGINNING…

    For an instant I looked back.. further to the west of the endless line..


    I thought I heard sobbing.. and “I’m so sorry I didn’t raise you right” and “We didn’t want you to know the mistakes we made..” ..and yet more wailing the way I felt over the death of Abel. Adam and Eve loudly lamented all of this.. and the separation of a father and mother from one sinful son: Cain, who had just killed the other son they loved..

    I could only imagine my own father or mother IF I had actually killed any of my siblings.. (or anyone, for that matter).

    “Not only is this tragic death of their son Abel new to them,” my guide pointed out to me, “the impact of DEATH itself has just gripped Adam and Eve — two parents who the LORD had told many years before,

    ‘You shall surely die.’”

    I thought of those times one of my brothers had been MAD at ME… What if it were my blood in that field?



    Then the LORD said to Cain,

    “Where is Abel your brother?”

    And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

    Genesis 4:9 NASB20

    Then He said, “What have you done?

    The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to Me from the ground.

    “Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

    “When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you;

    you will be a wanderer and a drifter on the earth.”

    Genesis 4:12 NASB20

    4:16 וַיֵּצֵא קַיִן מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּאֶֽרֶץ־נוֹד קִדְמַת־עֵֽדֶן׃


    קַיִן [

    Once upon a time there was a man named Kahyin.. who brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground.

    I heard the Voice of my Guide in Hebrew, yet somehow I understood every word.

    I have told you about qayin and heḇel his brother for good reason.

    Now it’s time for me to introduce you to the hunter.

    3:1 וְהַנָּחָשׁ הָיָה עָרוּם מִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל־הָאִשָּׁה אַף כִּֽי־אָמַר אֱלֹהִים לֹא תֹֽאכְלוּ מִכֹּל עֵץ הַגָּֽן׃

    Genesis 3:1 – Masoretic Text [Click this link to meet the Hunter, the first character Moses mentions here]

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter

    Roger Harned, Christian Author

  • The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter: a shepherd

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter: a shepherd

    Once upon a time there was a man named Kahyin Smith. (His friends called him Cain, a nickname long forgotten since his time near the beginning.)

    Now I know that if you think back to ACT 1, SCENE 1 or most recently SCENE 2 of our story that you might think of Cain in Moses’ story. I mention this not only because we will momentarily continue with ACT !, SCENE 3, but in keeping with our LINE of thought,

    I’d like to ask you a question:

    IN the beginning..

    Do you think that ‘Once upon a time..’ mirrors Moses’ story ‘IN THE BEGINNING’ in some way?

    Please add your ANSWER to a COMMENT at the end of any of these SCENES.

    Continuing with SCENE 3 of our Story:

    Now Abel was a keeper of flocks..

    So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground.

    Abel, on his part also brought an offering, from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering; but for Cain and his offering He had no regard..

    Does Cahyin know that Heḇel made an offering that the LORD accepts while this brother of his worked even harder EVERY DAY as a farmer cultivating the soil full of weeds and thistles, I wondered?

    I struggled to keep my eyes covered to keep out so many pictures of this world. And without me saying a single word, my Guide answered me with a question of his own.

    Why would it make any difference to you if one brother’s offering is better than the other’s OR if either brother knows about the offering of the other?

    Hmmm.. I had not considered that they may not have had just one place to make their offerings. Since Cain worked the farm while Able wanders the fields as a ‘keeper of sheep..’ maybe goats.. and other creatures roam the earth too.., I wondered; then I asked my Guide,

    But even if they worshiped at the same stone altar, how would they know if God accepted either offering? Could both brothers see the LORD?

    Look closer.. What do you see?

    Two men approaching each other from a distance.

    It seems to be the end of a day — twilight — and a stone altar stands at the edge of one field and also near a field — I think it’s wheat — the one coming from a partially cultivated field behind him has an armful of early, small stalks.

    And he seems to have some tinder, like thistles and dry stocks, too. (It must be to start a fire.)

    Do YOU see the LORD?

    I hear a young lamb in the arms of the shepherd as he also approaches the altar of sacrifice.

    I don’t see anyone else.

    .. And do you hear His Voice?

    I looked back on the scene then listened.. But now the scene had quickly progressed and both men had reached the altar.

    I could hear a quick crackling of dry branches and thistles burning away in an instant.. then a low roar of burning fat as the fire brightened where the slain lamb had been laid..

    And a bright smoke rose into the darkness from the sacrifice of the lamb, while the fire faded into coldness where so many thistles and an unripened harvest had been lain so hastily.

    Do you hear His Voice?

    YES!

    The LORD’s Voice sounds in my own hearing like a Fatherly rebuke of a child who has done something he shouldn’t have.

    “Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy?

    “If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door;

    and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

    Genesis 4:6-7 NASB20 – :וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה

    a change of Scene..

    And Cain talked with Abel his brother..

    Genesis 4:8a KJV

    What do you suppose Cain said? (I couldn’t hear his words.)

    AND What words do you think Cain and Abel had in their conversation of our NEXT Scene?


    Synopsis (so far)

    I’m going to have to leave our story right here for now.

    So far: I had discovered that the garden near Eden was not exactly paradise. And you must realize by now that Cain was a Gardener, and just now that his brother Abel was a Shepherd.

    NEXT: We will meet a hunter. (Any guesses who?)

    Don’t forget to COMMENT on Moses’ IN THE BEGINNING compared to ONCE UPON A TIME..

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter

    Roger Harned, Christian Author

  • The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter: Cahyin – a Gardener

    .. near the beginning ..

    the Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter - a story by Roger Harned takes place in a garden, which at first looks like the garden of Eden

    Scene Two:

    a First Garden (& its early harvest)

    An illustration of times in life beyond the bounds of time and place

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter – 2

    Cahyin K’naw

    Once I closed my eyes and looked again into the far reaches of the line the man had shown me before, a garden faintly emerged from the mysterious mist moving above and below this faint line.


    And once again I heard the man’s voice which had also faded from my hearing as I had looked so far towards the end of our line.

    It would probably be best for you to look more closely at today than so far forward beyond the end of the line to a scene yet to come, he said.

    I closed my eyes even more tightly, listening intently to my Guide’s every word.

    I’ll try to show you pictures that are not so familiar to a blindness of your eyes as you visit this garden with me.

    Even though my closed eyes saw the light of the garden clearly by now, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t a garden of beautiful flowers as I had expected. Instead, I saw the dirt of this ground (not even tilled into rows).. and various plants (crops, really).

    Do you see that man there .. in the garden?

    No plant (it seemed) looked ready to harvest or eat..

    The man had just.. (well, I’m not really sure what he was doing)..

    Yes. Who is he?

    His name is Cahyin K’naw.

    (The foreign-sounding name meant nothing to me.)

    Cahyin: an unexpected harvest

    You can just call him Farmer Smith if you’d like.

    What has he planted?

    He has sown the seeds of envy and will harvest the thistles of thanklessness.

    (I had no idea what he meant.)

    Smith was sweating as he walked away .. further east of the garden. So as Smith walked further toward darkness (where I could not see), I asked my garden Guide,

    What’s he doing now?

    As we observed Farmer Smith’s dejected demeanor and my Guide seemed to ignore my inquiry he noted,

    I will need to have another talk with him..

    Then He motioned for me to follow him toward another place near the garden.

    Was the darkness into which Smith walked similar to when I had opened my eyes to the world at the end of time’s line and everything had gone dark?

    (And how was it that I saw my Guide motion so clearly even though my eyes were shut?)

    I no longer could recall Smith’s foreign-sounding name.

    Then seemingly from out of nowhere, my Guide asked me:

    Would you like to know where ONCE UPON A TIME first began a story?

    YES! I replied with great animation of my excitement to learn what I had wanted to know since I was a boy.


    from the Voice of Truth

    וַֽיְהִי מִקֵּץ יָמִים וַיָּבֵא קַיִן מִפְּרִי הָֽאֲדָמָה מִנְחָה לַֽיהוָֽה׃

    Bereishit (Genesis) 4:3:: Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC)

    Cahyin K’naw – Cain: a cultivator of the ground

    CLICK HERE for MORE Original truth of a gardener:  Strong’s H7014 – qayin

    “If you do well, will your face not be cheerful?

    And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door;

    and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

    Genesis 4:7 NASB20 – The word of the LORD to Cain
    The Gardener the Shepherd and the Hunter - Introduction to a story by Roger Harned
    NEXT: Scene Three: a shepherd near the beginning

    I want to mention that we will have NO MORE PICTURES of this world to illustrate the rest of our Story.

    NEXT: Scene Three: a shepherd near the beginning

    The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter

    Roger Harned, Christian Author

  • A Temporary Throne – 43

    A Temporary Throne – 43

    CHAPTER 43

    The LORD had shown me Cain and Abel. The LORD had also shown me in the family of Noah; the blessing of Shem over Japheth and Ham. Now the LORD had shown me Jacob and Esau. The LORD was showing me his will for brothers.

    I was reminded once more of what the LORD had advised Cain, before his sin:

    Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted?

    And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

    All Noah’s sons and their wives and offspring had to do was to ‘do well’ by obeying God.

    I had often forgotten that Canaan was the son of Ham, only remembering Canaan as a place and not a man, grandson of Noah, cursed and not blessed by the LORD.

    I had forgotten that the places so contested by descendants of brothers were part of the blessings and curses of the LORD on ancestors of these contested lands so long ago.

    Though the people sometimes were forced to fear the LORD; Jacob, Abraham and Noah had willingly worshiped the LORD our God.

    Would the LORD not bless who he will bless and curse who he will curse?

    This is what the LORD had shown me. This is what the LORD had reminded me from scripture.

    He IS our Creator! He IS the LORD!

    His blessings continue through the generations, his double-portions to the sons and brothers of His choosing.

    Then the LORD would show me another brother, a very young man (barely beyond the years of a boy).

    I had thought and observed the natural competition of Cain and Abel. I read of Ishmael and Isaac. I observed Esau and Jacob. Now the LORD showed me a young man among ten older men – ALL brothers.

    His name was Joseph.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.

  • A Temporary Throne – 20

    A Temporary Throne – 20

    Previously…

    I WILL TELL THEM ONCE MORE.

     Genesis 9:7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”

    … I paused to consider God’s covenant with Noah and the few survivors for a cleansed creation.

    CHAPTER 20

    God had once again given man a blessing. God had once again given man a command, Go into all the world (to rephrase from a later Word) … be fruitful and multiply… and whatever you do, DON’T kill each other.

    Simple enough, Right? I had no better commands for Noah. Like in Eden, it was all dependent on obedience.

    And as for Abel’s murder after Eden, God had also warned Cain about jealousy over blessing:

    Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

    All Noah’s sons and their wives and offspring had to do was to ‘do well’ by obeying the LORD God who had saved them.

    As God reminded me of Genesis 9:11, the LORD showed me a building.

    Genesis 11: “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

    The people were NOT in many places, but crowded together into one city.

    Disobedience! Just like in Eden. And furthermore, man in gathering together had set their hearts against God; for they had proclaimed:

    Genesis 11:4 “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

    We returned to THE THRONE of Heaven. It seemed I couldn’t command obedience from mankind; men and women wanting to ‘make a name for ourselves.’

     To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved by the author.

  • In the beginning, Marriage

    In the beginning, Marriage

    God’s true intention for marriage preceded original sin.

    Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

    I must confirm from a terrible emptiness and great incompleteness: It is not good for a man to be alone… so alone without God’s help meet (mate).

    22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

    “This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

    What a joy! What promise – and this, before sin.

    Genesis 4:1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.”

    Genesis 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch…

    Genesis 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

    In the beginning, marriage.

    Genesis 5:6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. 7 Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters.

    The Bible does not mention the names of the wife of Seth or the names of the help meets of most of these ancestors of Noah, but they had wives and sons and daughters – family, with a husband and a wife and their children.

    Noah was married. Noah’s sons, who were also grown men and had the faith to obey God and Noah, had wives who were saved along with them.

    In the beginning, marriage. Not one whisper of any relationship of family other than marriage. Not one mention of any end of marriage, even for these first forefathers who lived hundreds of years with their wife and grown children. Not one mention of any alternative, until further sin of compromise entered into the lives of Abram, Jacob and others. (We will address the issues of their multiple wives later.)

    In the beginning, God ordains that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” And yes, it’s okay that they are naked and unashamed in their own bed chamber; for as it was in the beginning, they are now one.

    A man desires to know a woman. A husband desires to know his wife. A wife is a part of her husband, not to be torn away any more than a man would tear out his own rib.

    I am witness that a wife torn away from our oneness is more deeply painful than the tearing out of any rib. For by divorce she has cut away with anger into your heart.

    I too am witness to a wife being torn away by death.  As for most husbands and wives, most shall part one prior to the other in the death of their beloved ‘other half.’  Your wife torn away, her soul separated from you for a time, is a pouring out of your own heart.

    Husbands and wives this is the temporal end of the vows of your earthly commitment; but union with the soul and the uniting of these souls to God is quite something more.

    It is not good that man (or woman) should be alone.

    Are you a blessing to your husband? (Are you a blessing to your wife?)

    What is your daily witness to your covenant of marriage before God?

    What is the witness of your marriage to Christ?

    In the beginning, marriage.

     Marriage: To be continued…

     

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