Genesis 5 - The Cursed Ground
 1 This is the written account of Adam’s line.
      When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them “man. “
Verses 1 and 2 appear to mirror both Day 6 and the creation of Adam. I say this because because the word used for “man” is the same as the name for Adam. The King James Version says this even clearer:
 1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;  2Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
Verse three then goes on…
 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.
So, does this contradict the interpretation that mankind evolved at God’s direction on Day 6, and Adam was born some time after Day 7? The way most people read it, the answer is yes. However, let us look at the verses more closely. There is an interesting disconnect that the writer (Presumably Moses) does not make a big deal of. However, it’s there in both translations quoted above.
In verse 1, God created “man”, or mankind. We know it means mankind, because verse 2 refers back to the word for “man” as the plural them. Specifically, God created “them” male and female. This was Day 6, and reflects the creation of both genders within the same creative act. “They” were called Adam (KJ) or “man” (NIV).
Do you see the disconnect? The writer refers to the creation of all mankind, calls all of mankind “man” or “Adam”, and then proceeds right on with “Adam’s” lineage. So, either Adam is merely symbolic or there is a disconnect in time and space that the writer is glossing over. After all, we know from scripture that the single man Adam lived in the Garden of Eden; we know from science that at the same time, mankind was subduing the earth.
God appears to have made a choice to create the race of man, and then focused on exactly one of them… Adam. And He named Adam after them. From then on, Adam would represent the beginning of mankind, though he was not the beginning of them. But, he did represent the beginning of mankind’s relationship with God. He cam alive that day, in Genesis 2:7, with life that only God the Father could give Him. I believe He was baptized in the Holy Spirit. But more than that, he went from a complete ignorance of God to having an intimate relationship with Him. What sudden switch! God truly did breath life into Adam… and in doing so, through that one man, God breathed life into Mankind. Once God did that, no one else mattered. It was as though no one else existed. From Adam’s perspective, he was the only person God loved.
I know that I’m projecting upon Adam emotion and meaning that may not have been there, but I know what feelings and emotions I might have felt being in that situation. Could they be what Adam felt?
Afterwards, Adam sinned, got expelled from the Garden of Eden, and the ground was cursed. He and Eve started having kids, but they did not call on God’s name. Why would they? They lived in a world where God curses the ground they walk on, and gives them no other ground from which to live. Later on, Cain and Abel attempted to give to God an offering. Cain brought produce grown in the cursed ground; Abel didn’t work the ground at all, but raised sheep, and offered one of those. God did not honor the cursed offering, but the offering that came from Abel’s heart. It looks to me like Abel was after God’s heart… until Cain killed him. Some time later…
 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.
 6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.
And recall the significance of Enosh’s birth in Genesis 4…
26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
      At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.
After Cain killed Abel, and received the mark on his forehead, it would be another 100 years or more before anyone called on the name of the LORD. Adam was 235 when men began calling on God’s name, but the ground remained cursed, and mankind became more evil. 821 years later however…
 28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed.”
In fact, Genesis 6 records this of Noah…
 9 This is the account of Noah.
      Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
Interesting pattern, huh? People love God, people sin. God curses them, and waits for someone to return to Him. He then raises that person up to rescue the rest. However, what people do not see is that God never really leaves; He just lets people decide what they’re going to do. For those who choose to love God, they see His love; for those who choose to see His curse, they live cursed. Adam knew God and sinned. Cain knew God and sinned. In fact, they spread knowledge throughout the people around them that the ground would have yielded more, but for the curse that God placed upon the ground. It would seem that mankind can make similar choices whether he knows God or not. Except for the occasionally extraordinary man who God uses to put an end to generations of sin. Such men are a type of Christ. Noah was such a man.