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Cain and Edom
Subject: Re: Question
Date: Thu, 25 Feb. 1999 09:20:12 -0500
From: Mahlon <bible@tk7.net>
To: Lenny <lenny88@erols.com>
References: 1
Lenny wrote:
Dear Mahlon, How are you doing? I wanted to thank you first for your help on the Sabbath question. I am still studying the issue. But your input was invaluable to me.
I also have another question that I hope you can help me with. In my sharing of the scriptures with a fundamentalist friend of mine, I was speaking about the Jews and their connection to cain and edom. My friend brought two scriptures up to me that I couldn’t explain. I told him I would get back to him on it. The two verses he gave me were: Deuteronomy 23: 7, 8 Genesis 4: 6, 7. In Deuteronomy The Lord says that an edomite can enter the congregation of the Lord in his third generation, yet in Obadiah God says He will destroy edom. Can you help me with this issue? How can an edomite be acceptable to God if he is a descendant of cain. The verse in Genesis is saying that God will accept Cains sacrifice if it was offered in a acceptable manner. How can this be if cain was a child of the evil one? I thank you for any help you can give me. I am trying my best to share the Word, but I don’t want to be a stumbling block to anyuone, by giving wrong interpretation of scripture.
Thank You,
Lenny Era
Dear Lenny,
I will answer as best as
I can the way I understand the scriptures. First of all, Lenny,
Edom and Esau are one and the same man (Gen. 25:30).
Genesis 25:30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. (KJV)
Esau and Jacob were brothers (Obad. 10).
Obadiah 10 For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. (KJV)
Therefore Edom is in no way genetically connected with Cain. This fact must be understood to know just who the "Jews" were. There were "Jews" that came from Cain, and there were "Jews" that came from Edom. Please read my booklet "Lost Israel and the Gentiles", which rightly divides the scriptures, and explains the different applications that are biblically used to explain who the "Jews" were. God loved Jacob and hated Esau, because Esau despised his birthright, as you know (Mal. 1:2-3).
Malachi 1:2-3 I have loved
you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was
not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
3 And I hated Esau, and laid
his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the
wilderness.(KJV)
Esau despised his "right of birth", and married outside of his race, which is why this was a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca (Gen. 26:34-35).
Genesis 26:34-35 And Esau
was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of
Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the
Hittite:
35 Which were a grief of mind
unto Isaac and to Rebekah. (KJV)
However this does not mean that God necessarily hates the descendants of Esau, which is why they were allowed in the congregation. Note the statement; "children that are begotten of them", which means only the children of the third generation of the Edomite and also the Egyptian were allowed in; as Deut. 23:7-8 explains.
Deuteronomy 23:7-8 Thou
shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not
abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.
8 The children that are
begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in
their third generation. (KJV)
Out of respect, the Israelites were not to abhor the Edomite because he was a brother, and they were once strangers in the land of Egypt. Keep in mind, Lenny, Esau did marry into his own race after he seen the grief of Isaac (Gen. 28:8-9), which I believe allowed the third generation of some Edomites into the congregation.
Genesis 28:8-9 And Esau
seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;
9 Then went Esau unto Ishmael,
and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of
Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.
(KJV)
This gets a little tricky to explain how the Edomites were allowed in; other than to understand that some Edomites must have been of pure racial stock. It could also be explained that these people out of respect were simply allowed in the presence of Israel, however not necessarily to share in Israel’s inheritance. Esau himself is cut off from his inheritance forever, as Obad. 10 explained. Esau sought repentance carefully with tears, but refused to put away the wives he loved, which were not of his own kind (Heb. 12:17). He simply chose his wives over his inheritance.
Hebrews 12:17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. (KJV)
In regards to Cain’s sacrifice not being excepted. The fact is, Lenny, God knew Cain would never offer an acceptable sacrifice. I believe Cain knew the type of sacrifice that God would have accepted. He did not offer it simply because he was of that "wicked one", and was mentally driven to murder Abel. However God was still bound by his goodness to explain to Cain the way of salvation, knowing full well he was mentally driven to reject it. Christ also offered salvation to Cain’s descendants and also no doubt to Esau’s descendants, knowing full well it was not in them to continue in his word (John 8:31).
John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; (KJV)
Several verses later Christ states that they were of their father, the devil (John 8:44).
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (KJV)
Please note in John 8:31 that some of these "Jews" believed on Christ, simply because they witnessed his miracles; but that does not mean they believed Christ’s words. There is a difference. Christ repeatedly called these people "a generation of vipers" (race of snakes), as you are aware. Lenny, I hope this has helped. Please let me know. I have explained what I personally believe, however keep in mind I could be wrong in some way in explaining this subject. Keep in touch.
Your friend in Christ, Mahlon
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