Yet let the minor points of this scene sink into the shade in the presence of the sublime glory of the great first promise. In the light of this we see that though Satan plotted the ruin of the race, yet God counter-plotted the ruin of Satan and the salvation of the masses of mankind. When it might have seemed that all was lost, it proved that this extremity was God’s great opportunity, for his strong arm was made bare for help and real victory. This is the birth-hour of most momentous issues. Sin came in upon Eden and upon earth; and many a bitter sorrow, many a cup of suffering and woe, must needs follow in its train; but _Redemption comes in also_; it enters upon its co-ordinate work to save the soul from sin and from eternal death and to bring in everlasting righteousness. The history of our world in its most vital aspects is foreshadowed here in this first short meeting of their Maker with this sinning pair. The spoken recorded words were few, but their significance was momentous; the sweep of their bearing, the issues of the divine policy here indicated, were destined to fill up the ages of time with stirring and strange conflict, and to send their influence down through the endless ages of man’s being and of God’s kingdom. CHAPTER VII. FROM THE FALL TO THE FLOOD. 1. _Notes on special passages._ In Gen. 4: 1 our English version stands――“I have gotten a man _from_ the Lord.” Some critics construe these words of Eve to mean――By the help or blessing of the Lord; but the more direct and obvious sense of the original is this: “I have gotten a man, the Lord”――as if she assumed that this, her first-born son, was really the promised divine “seed of the woman” who was to bruise the serpent’s head. The current objection to this construction is that it is too far in advance of Eve’s theology:――to which however the obvious reply is――Who knows how far advanced Eve’s theology may have been? Her imagination may have outrun the actual revelation at that point made. All we can say is that these words are recorded as indicating her thought, and that this is the most natural sense of her words. In the Lord’s expostulation with Cain (4: 6, 7) we read: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” but better――Would there not be an elevation――_i. e._ of countenance, a cheerful _looking up_, instead of that fallen, sullen look spoken of in the previous verse.――――“And if thou doest not well, sin lies crouching at the door”――sin being personified and thought of as some animal, perhaps the serpent, ready to allure him on to deeper, more damning crime: “And _its_ (not _his_) desire is toward thee”――its Satanic purpose is to ensnare and ruin thee: “but thou shouldst rule over it”――in the sense of mastering its temptations, commanding them down and ruling them out from thine heart.