Surprised by Grace (2): Seth

Bowyer Bible Volume 2 Print 177. The First Family. Genesis. Bloemaert (from Wikimedia Commons)

“Do you think we ought to have a child?” The woman asked.
“I am 50-50. Are you ready?” Her husband rather passionately replied.

“I know the emotional hurt involved. But our two sons . . . .” She spoke with grief, and didn’t finish.
“Yes. That’s why I asked you.” He put his arm around her and continued, “So if you are ready, I am with you.”

She looked up at her husband, tears in eyes, finished what she started off. “One of our two sons is dead and the other banished and cursed. Our family must have a seed to carry on, no matter how much risk it might be.”

I almost yelled out “No! The third one would bring a bigger curse!” Only if I could make a sound, and if they could hear me.

The man said in response to his wife, “Yes. Abel was such a fine boy but Cain was a gross disappointment. Perhaps Yahweh would grant us a good third boy.” He continued, “And I would name him Seth, for it would be Yahweh who makes you whole.”

“Big mistake! I am Seth. I know our descendants wouldn’t end well!”

I was completely exasperated at this point.
How could I tell my would-be parents that I am their unborn son who has knowledge of the future?
I saw the flood, the Tower building at Babel, and the near tragedy of sacrificing Isaac, and the real tragedies and atrocities of the tribes. It was my curse that I was able to witness all those tear jerking histories, and yet so helpless to see them repeat themselves. And then with what that man from Nazareth did, mankind still found ways to outdo earlier generations in evil!
“Only if you two knew what mess you are conceiving!” I cried out at the top of my lung to my parents, of course futilely.

It was indeed an act of grace that Yahweh did to the couple. It wasn’t their fault that they gave birth to the first murderer, but they would never forgive themselves for lousy parenting they laid upon themselves in guilt.
Yahweh gifted them a new boy and a new generation.

I too often wondered about that.
I argued back and forth.
“Didn’t Yahweh know already the unfolding history?”
“Of course, He knew. But the hurts of the couple moved Him, and He just went ahead to make them happy. Let the consequence deal with itself.”
I was surprised by His act of grace, a costly act.
I debated if I would terminate my own life if I could have known.

I couldn’t sleep all these centuries.
Chapters after chapters of the darkest evils human hearts raced past my consciousness.
All came from what was perceived by that first couple an act of divine grace. An act of a weak moment of the strongest mind in the cosmos.

Or was it a strong moment?

To make it a strong moment, shouldn’t Yahweh have to produce a happy ending to human, even cosmic, tragedies?
So far it is not on the horizon!

Granted, through the millennia’s of human sufferings humans managed to slough through and made progress, no doubt much of those with the empowerment of His grace.
But are they enough to justify crowing Him the God of grace?
Would such a god have stopped the miseries like a physician assisting in suicides?
Or, would a grace-full god, allow the drama to unfold with welled up eyes, if he has eyes that would tear up, and wait till the final happy ending?
And what would that happy ending look like?

Right now, I stand surprised, and hope it would be by grace.