4:1. Had there been no interference at the seat of life by the serpent, Eve might have been right in expecting that her

first born son was the beginning of the fulfilment of the promise of Genesis 3:15 - for she said:

`I have gotten a man - Jehovah'.

The Revised Version puts the words `with the help of' in italics. The Hebrew reads ish eth Jehovah `A man,

even Jehovah'. She therefore called his name Cain or Qain, from the verb qanah `To get, or obtain'. It would seem

that Satan, knowing the truth of Proverbs 8, sought to anticipate the advent of Christ by substituting Cain, who was

`of that wicked one'. Continuing with Proverbs chapter 8 we read:

`The LORD possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up ... from the

beginning, or ever the earth was' (Prov. 8:22,23).

`Set' here is the Hebrew nasach, which we have already seen in Psalm 2 `I have set My king ... ` where the margin

reads `Anointed'. The word means literally `to pour out' Isaiah 29:10 and is used of the `drink offering' (Gen.

35:14), and of the action of David when he realized that his desire for a drink of the water of Bethlehem nearly cost

the lives of some of his followers, and so `would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the LORD' (2 Sam. 23:16).

In Philippians 2 we have first the wonderful revelation of `self-emptying' of the Son of God, the words translated

`He made Himself of no reputation' using the verb kenoo `to empty', and then the apostle, following His Lord afar

off, said:

`Yea, and if I be poured out as a drink offering' `Phil. 2:7,17 Author's translation).

`When there were no depths'. Here we have the word used in Genesis 1:2 `darkness was upon the face of the

deep' which in the LXX is the same as that translated `the bottomless pit' (the abyss) in Revelation 20, and so

Proverbs takes us back before Satan and his fall. Moffatt renders verse 27:

`When He set the heavens up, I was there, when He drew the Vault o'er the abyss' (Prov. 8:27),

(see also The Companion Bible here) which takes us back to the making of the `firmament', which, according to

Isaiah 40:22, `He stretched out ... as a curtain'.

`Then I was by Him, as One brought up with Him' (Prov. 8:30).

`In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God' (John 1:1).

`Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men' (Prov. 8:31).

The word `habitable' is the Hebrew tebel, which is elsewhere translated `world', and means like its Greek

equivalent oikoumene, the habitable earth. The words in Job 18:18 of the wicked:

`He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world'

should be in mind when we read in the New Testament of those who shall be expelled into `outer darkness' or to

`the four corners of the earth', the Tebel being especially that part of the earth early inhabited by man, and adjacent

to what is later called `The Holy Land'. We do not pretend to have explained this wonderful passage, feeling great

sympathy with Agur, who, it will be remembered, felt as `dull as a clod' when he attempted to understand the

Creator and His Son, and so we gladly bow in the presence of the inexplicable and admit:

`Confessedly great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh ... (1 Tim. 3:16 Author's

translation).

While the `anointing' of Jesus as the Messiah took place in time, there was this earlier `appointing' when He was

verily foreordained, as Peter has said, `Holy and without blemish'. However absolute was the self-emptying of the

Son of God, we have no cause to doubt His word, for every step He took from the crib in Bethlehem, to the Cross of

Calvary, was safeguarded, guaranteed and controlled by the Anointing of the Holy Ghost, which was His in such

fulness, that we read:

`For He Whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him'

(John 3:34).