They toiled upslope: past drifts and shrieking wind. Why had Noah taken them here? To see the Ark, he’d said. But why did that matter?
For another hour, they plowed on, topping the slope and dragging themselves down a narrow path. Dark clouds roiled overhead, and Noah kept shouting encouragement, tugging her father along. Then her father tugged back, his features haggard, and Noah urged them under an overhang where the wind didn’t shriek and tear at their clothing. Noah passed out hunks of bread, kept from freezing because he’d carried the loaf in a sack next to his skin. After eating, Hilda stuffed snow into her mouth, letting it melt before drinking. Noah had told them that to swallow snow straight was too much of a shock to the body. “Always let it melt first,” had been a dictum Noah repeated many times.
“Huddle together,” Noah said.
They did, and Noah unpacked a heavy blanket and threw it over their heads. In the small confines of the blanket, with the two bearded men exhaling hot breath and rubbing their hands, Hilda gained a modicum of forgotten warmth.
“Keep stamping your feet,” Noah said, his voice as close as if he lay his head next to hers on a pillow. “Keep rubbing your hands. Don’t stand still. Up here you can freeze to death in perfect comfort.”
“Why bring us up here?” Beor asked past chattering teeth.
“To hear my tale,” Noah said.
“Couldn’t you have told us in the house?” Beor asked.
“I’ll let you judge later,” Noah said. “For now I want you to stamp your feet and rub your hands and listen to what I have to say. It has a bearing on the question you asked before about the Tower.”
“Now I’m sorry I ever asked it,” Beor said.
“Alas,” Noah said. “That often seems to be the case with the best questions.”
Noah then launched into an old tale, a story from the Antediluvian Era. It started with Cain, which was going back pretty far, thought Hilda. Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, had also been the first to start his own religion. He came to Jehovah not as Jehovah decreed, with an innocent lamb slain for his sins, but with the fruit of the field. Cain toiled in the ground cursed by Jehovah, and after stabbed by thorns and with blistered hands, he brought Jehovah his best. Cain had worked his way to Jehovah. He had taken what would forever be known as the way of Cain. He tried to purchase Jehovah’s favor through his best effort. For Cain it was with his best fruits and grains, first grown in the ground by hard labor and then harvested by the sweat of his brow. He rejected Jehovah’s revealed way. Sacrificing a lamb, ah, so bloody and crude and barbarous, and showing that man’s sinfulness required something that man himself would never be good enough to pay for—it was an insult to a proud man, and Cain was very proud.
When Jehovah refused to accept Cain’s best—no one can work his way to Jehovah. He would have to be perfect, and no one is perfect—Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel. Abel’s sacrifice, an innocent lamb, had found favor with Jehovah. This, Noah said, showed that those who rebel against Jehovah always hate those who obey Him. Abel was also a prophet and warned his brother of his sinful path. Abel paid for his warning with his life. The event also showed a prophet’s fate. The way of Cain—a man of the world—warred against the way of the Spirit of Jehovah, against a man of the spirit. In any case, Cain gained his awful curse and went out from the presence of Jehovah. He dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden, and he never returned to Jehovah.
Cain became the first apostate. He had known Jehovah, but had fled from Him. Cain also defied Jehovah’s curse. Jehovah said he would be a restless wanderer. But Cain built the first city, named Enoch after his firstborn son. With this city, Cain began a new thing. He attempted to build an artificial paradise in replacement for the one man had lost in Eden. Jehovah promised heaven to those who followed Him. Cain wanted his rewards here and now, not in some fabulous future. Cain searched for knowledge, for luxury, anything that made the world comfortable, that helped him escape endless toil.
“Wait a moment,” interrupted Beor. “Do you mean it’s wrong to make new things, to build in order to better one’s lot?”
“No,” Noah said. “Things are seldom wrong in and of themselves. It is the reason why one does something that is critical. By his actions, Cain said to Jehovah, Keep your paradise. I’m building my own. Thereafter, his inventions had a rebellious cast. They were efforts to replace Jehovah, to show that he was no longer in subjection to Him. You must always remember, Beor, that man was made to commune with Jehovah, to know Him and to interact with Him. To love the Creator with all your strength, heart and mind is the great purpose for each of us. To try to replace that purpose with anything else is sin, and it is also folly.”
“I don’t understand,” Beor said.
“Consider,” Noah said. “You were fashioned by the Great Creator to love Him, to communicate with Him, to long for His presence. To know Jehovah, Beor, that is your deepest longing. Nothing else can fill that longing, nothing else satisfies. How noble is that quest, how pure and mighty. Think of it. You and I are beings who seek the highest thing. Trifles cannot satisfy our longings. Sensual pleasures, power over our fellow man, the acquisition of things, these are babbles, toys, trifles. Our spirits yearn to know Jehovah. To place these mundane things before me as enticing items is really an insult. That is why I say it is folly to run after anything else other than what Jehovah has created us for.”
Hilda was breathless, as her heart soared. She never realized humanity’s greatness before. She’d heard such things, of course. But to have Noah practically in her face telling her made the hearing more real. Imagine, knowing Jehovah…what an awesome goal. To know Him who had made all things, who knew all things, who was pure love and holiness… It awed and frightened her. She closed her eyes and prayed in her mind: Thank you, Jehovah. You are so marvelous and generous. Help me to understand better.
Her father merely nodded, and he indicated that Noah should go on with his tale.
“Cain, as I said, tried to defy Jehovah’s curse: that he would be a wanderer over the Earth. Cain was building a city named Enoch, but Cain never finished it. He was driven away before that.
“Enoch finished the city built in his name. Enoch ruled there. From him descended the ungodly line of Cain. They followed the wicked way of Cain, trying to substitute their own works in lieu of obedience to the will of Jehovah. The years passed and the line of Cain, as descended from Enoch, the kings of the city, went from Irad, to Mehujael, to Methushael, to Lamech.
“Irad, as you know, means wild ass, and that it what he was, a wild ass of a man, unruly, proud and ungovernable. In his time, they still knew about Jehovah, but like a wild ass Irad lead them further and further from the truth, delving as it were deep into the wilderness of sin. Mehujael is an odd name: blot out that Jah is Jehovah, but like all their names it was apt. During his rule, men turned their backs on Jehovah, deciding to forget about Him, to teach contrary truths to their children. Evil waxed strong and men sank into depravity. The growth of sin was so fast that it startled them, gave them pause. The next king was Methushael, his name meaning: they died inquiring. They searched in vain for answers they had already thrown away. Nod and the city of Enoch especially had become a godless realm. The rebellion begun by Cain had brought bitter fruit.
“Yet it is important to understand that behind these rebellious actions moved the devil, the evil prince of the power of the air,” Noah said. “In ways I do not understand, the devil is able to whisper into our hearts, to stir us to sin. That is not to say we do not do our actions ourselves. We do. But there is a power of evil at work on the Earth, a grim power that plots with undying wisdom. The devil was given more wisdom at his creation than man. Nearly 1600 years has passed from Adam’s creation to the Flood. In those 1600 years, the devil has gained a keener understanding of men than he first had. He has refined his methods against us and grown subtler.”
“We’ve been taught about the devil,” Beor said testily.
N
oah smiled. “Of course, forgive me.”
“I haven’t heard all this,” Hilda said. “It’s very interesting, and it’s also frightening.”
“Remember, Hilda, that while Satan has had these many centuries to increase his understanding and power, Jehovah is omniscient and omnipotent. Jehovah is never surprised and never really, when you think about it, learns anything new. He already knows everything. He is all-knowing and has all power, and He, in His time, will utterly defeat the devil.”
“Why doesn’t Jehovah defeat the devil now?” Hilda asked.
Noah shrugged.
“You don’t know?” Beor asked.
“I do not,” Noah said. “It is a mystery. That is why I’m a man and Jehovah is God. Some things, He has not seen fit to tell us.”
“Will Jehovah ever tell us?” Hilda asked.
“Perhaps,” Noah said, “and perhaps not. We shall see.”
They thought about that, until Hilda asked, “What happened after Methushael?”
“Ah,” Noah said. “Yes, during Methushael’s reign they inquired after Jehovah, asking all the wrong questions and looking for the answers in all the wrong places. Then a most evil king rose up: Lamech.”
“Isn’t that name of your father?” Beor asked.
“It is,” Noah said. “But this Lamech was born in the seventh generation. He was the seventh from Adam. He was a contemporary of my Great Grandfather Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the godly line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve.”
“The man Jehovah translated to Heaven?” Beor asked.
“That’s right,” Noah said. “Jehovah took my Great Grandfather Enoch to be with Him in Heaven, without Enoch first having to die. Jehovah did it when Enoch was 365 years old.”
“Why did Jehovah do it?” Hilda asked.
Noah gave her an enigmatic smile instead of an answer.
“You don’t know?” Beor asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Correct,” Noah said.
“What about this evil Lamech?” Hilda asked. “What happened next?”
“Yes,” Noah said. “That age or rule began as one in moral disorder. Now Lamech means powerful, conqueror or wild man. And wild, powerful and a conqueror was this Lamech. He broke the old morality of one man taking one wife. He took two wives: one named Adah and the other Zillah, which means ornament and shade respectively. They were both very beautiful and enticing women. Thus, out of lust, Lamech began polygamy. He is known as the first poet, or as the first recorded poet with the first recorded poem. Lamech slew a man for wounding him. In verse, which became known ever after as Lamech’s sword-song, he recited to his two wives his proud achievement: “Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding
me, a young man for injuring me.
If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
“What’s that part mean about Cain being avenged seven times?” Hilda asked.
“When Jehovah first cursed Cain, he wailed that it was too heavy a price for his sin. Any man that found him would kill him.” Noah grew thoughtful. “Jehovah said He would punish any man that slew Cain with vengeance seven times harder than what Cain was receiving. So Lamech, in his pride, said that he was in a sense even more terrible and mighty than Jehovah. He was punishing a man seventy-seven times, that for merely wounding him.”
“This Lamech reminds me of Nimrod,” Beor said.
Noah studied Beor. “As I said, Lamech set up a new moral order: polygamy. Out of it grew a new age of marvelous discovery. The lawlessness of Lamech, in terms of his disobedience to the ways of Jehovah, produced fruit. This fruit at first seemed grand and wonderful, the most revolutionary seen on Earth.
“Lamech’s first wife, Adah, bore him two prominent and important sons. The first was Jabal. Now you must remember that this was the first age of man. It began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Jehovah had slain animals to give them skins to wear. Our technology today is less than what men had at the end of the Antediluvian Age. But our technology is greater than what men had in Lamech’s time. We have the advantage of knowing what is possible. Back then, they groped in the dark to invent things my children only reinvent. In any case, Jabal invented tents. You may laugh at that, but until an idea is hatched it is a mysterious and hidden thing. Until that time, no one even considered such things. Now you may wonder: what’s so special about tents?”
“I hate living in tents,” Hilda said. “Your house is much better.”
“Thank you,” Noah said. “Well, to answer the question you must remember how nice the world was then. We never had snow and howling winds in Antediluvian times. In fact, we had no winds to speak of. So Jabal in his tents lived pleasantly. But the reason for his tents was this. He became the first cattleman, the first true nomad. Jabal was its inventor, its creator and its teacher. Abel had kept flocks of sheep, for wool and as sacrifice. But in the first age, men weren’t allowed to eat meat. This particular command of Jehovah’s the line of Cain ignored. They ate meat. Jabal developed a new science, a new lifestyle. At first, he cornered the market of it. Cattle meant not just cows and bulls, but camels, donkeys, horses and such. He boasted that he no longer tilled the ground with the sweat of his brow. Instead, leisurely, as a king of the plain, he feasted on the fat of the land.
“Jabal’s brother Jubal had a different outlook. He took after his father Lamech as a poet. To rhyme verses and tell stories delighted Jubal. Yet he wished to captivate people with his stories, to ensnare them with his thoughts. Now here is a very mysterious thing. We have hints that the devil, as Lucifer, the light-bearer, first led Heaven’s angels in song to Jehovah. My Grandfather Methuselah always believed that the devil whispered these next inventions to Jubal. Such may be the case. I don’t know. What I do know is that Jubal invented the harp and the flute; he invented stringed and wind instruments. Jubal entertained people with his songs and with his music. He didn’t praise Jehovah with them, but enticed men with wicked thoughts. Love of things and lust for women was always at the heart of his songs. With the harp and flute, he helped inaugurate new modes of thought, bringing wild abandonment in sexual license and murderous thoughts of vengeance. People eating their fill of meat and with time and luxury listened to these provocative songs. Wild melodies stirred the passions as only music could and can.
“The third and final prominent son of Lamech was Zillah’s child. You’ve heard of his name before: Tubal-Cain. His namesake ruled the city of Enoch and the land of Nod when the Flood struck the Old World. The first Tubal-Cain was a huge man, powerful and cunning, with strange thoughts. He learned to smelt ores, and in the world’s first smithy, he worked bronze, brass and iron. He made chariots, that awful tool of war, and he forged swords and spears as well as spoons, forks and nails. He stunned the world with his inventions as no one has since. He gave his father the weapons that so overmastered him that Lamech boasted that he was more powerful than Jehovah. It is hard to imagine a world without metallurgy and then a man exploding it upon them. With Tubal-Cain’s weapons, the men of Nod went on a spree of conquest and butchery, drenching the age in blood, setting the stage for the next dreadful move on the devil’s part.
“Civilization in all its splendor had descended upon the world. It transformed everything, and it spread the wicked ideas of the men of Nod. A revolution had taken place, ushered in by Lamech’s boys. It ripened humanity for the fallen angels. It readied mankind so that Naamah, the sister of Tubal-Cain, could dare to plot the foulest move of all.”
“What?” Hilda whispered, her eyes wide.
“Naaman as you’ve heard was very beautiful and sly. She was also the mother of divination. She broke through the bound Jehovah had and has set between the physical and spiritual realms. She sought counsel through forbidden channels, learning to speak with the sons of Jehovah, with the fallen angels, to commune with them and through them predict
certain events. Fearful and wicked rites took place, too terrible to speak about. Soon, men avidly sought her, seeking to know future things. Yet her next move was the more terrible. She called the fallen angels to her, to appear in bodily form. Then did the sons of Jehovah, the bene elohim, have union with the daughters of men. Through them were born the Nephilim, the heroes of old and the wicked men of renown.”
“Like Ymir?” Beor whispered.
“Like Ymir,” Noah said. “But my point is this. Lamech ushered in civilization. It was a civilization in rebellion against Jehovah. How noble it sounded at first. How proud Lamech was of his children: Jabal the cattleman, Jubal the music maker, Tubal-Cain the artificer and Naamah the spellcaster. They changed the ways of man. They transformed society. And they helped set the conditions for the worst depredations of the demonic realm, first brought on by Lamech’s daughter Naamah. An excess of food gave them time for leisure, leisure to practice evil. Malevolent modes of music captivated their thoughts, running their imaginations along the lines of the composer. In this instance, he was a rebellious man far along the path of the way of Cain. New weapons and tools of war helped unleash a wave of spilled blood that made Cain’s slaughter of Abel with a raised rock seem practically infantile. Yet what lay at the root of all this? The devil’s plots, of course.”
Beor’s eyes gleamed. “Is that what you think is going on with the Tower?”
“I do,” Noah said. “I do because they preach against Jehovah’s will. Consider. Jehovah told us to fill the world with people. They say, No, let us all live in one place together in universal peace. What is their lure? Why, to raise civilization to the old heights. It isn’t in an endeavor to subdue the Earth, as Jehovah commanded Adam, but a self-centered desire of rebellious men. I believe that the devil is behind their goal. That he plots in some subtle manner to unleash the old horrors upon the Earth.”
“More bene elohim?” Beor whispered.
“Perhaps,” Noah said, “or perhaps something worse.”
Wives of the Flood Page 72