With respect therefore to Eve's adhering so closely to the divine promise and believing so firmly in the deliverance that should surely come through her Seed, in all this she did rightly. For, by the same faith in the "Seed" that was to come, all the saints of old were justified and sanctified. But with respect to the individual intended by the promise, she erred. She believed that it was Cain who should put an end to all those calamities into which Satan had hurled man by sin. This faith of Eve however rested on a certain opinion of her own, without any sure sign and without the sure Word. The promise indeed was true, and certain, and sure; but nothing was said or signified definitely, whether it was Cain or Abel who should be that great conqueror of the serpent. In the matter therefore of determining the individual, Eve was deceived; and consequently her giving to her son so proud and joyous a name was all in vain. For the text shows that Cain was so called from the verb KANAH, which signifies "to possess," or "to acquire." So that by this name Eve consoled herself against the evils she had brought upon herself, and set against them the acquisition of eternal life and salvation, which she should obtain by her Seed, against that loss of life and salvation which she had incurred by sin and Satan. It was as if she had said to her Adam, "I remember with sorrow what we have lost by our sin; but now, let us speak of and hope for nothing but recovery and acquisition. I have gotten a man of God, who will acquire and recover for us that glory which we have lost." It was this certainty of the promise therefore and her sure faith in it, which drew Eve into this haste and caused her to think that this her first son was the Seed concerning whom the Lord had made the promise. But Eve, poor miserable woman, was deceived in this. She did not yet see the extent of her calamity. She did not yet know that from the flesh nothing but flesh can be born, or proceed, John 3:6, that sin and death cannot be overcome by flesh and blood. Moreover she knew not as yet the point of time in which that blessed Seed, concerning whom the promise spoke, should be conceived of the Holy Ghost and be born of a virgin into the world. Just in the same manner the patriarch after Eve knew not this point of time, although the promise of the Seed to come was gradually made clearer and clearer by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. In the same manner also, we in our day know assuredly that there shall be a final judgment, but the day and the hour we know not. Just as Christ says, even unto his apostles, Math. 24:36. V. 2a. _And again she bare his brother Abel._