Genesis 4 The birth of children

[seekeroftruth]

Genesis 4:1 Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.(b) She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth[c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.​

Genesis 4:1 Or The man
Genesis 4:1 Cain sounds like the Hebrew for brought forth or acquired.
Genesis 4:1 Or have acquired

I consider myself a fairly competent woman. At the birth of my first baby, I was anything but competent. During the hard labor, I got the notion that there must be a zipper that they could just pull and the baby could come out. I know it's a ridiculous notion. But delivering a baby hurts a LOT!

Can you imagine delivering the first baby, with no midwife, nurses, doctors, or anyone who knew what to do? Eve must have thought she was truly going to die. I can imagine the birth of Abel was only a little easier for her. She knew by then that she could survive.

Here's a thought from the blueletterbible.org commentary.

Under normal circumstances, parents want good things for their children. They wonder if their children are destined for greatness. Adam, and especially Eve, had these expectations for Cain, but it went farther than normal parental hopes and expectations. Adam and Eve expected Cain to be the Messiah God promised.

Eve thought she held in her arms the Messiah, the Savior of the whole world, but she really held in her arms a killer.​

And here's another interesting thought from the same commentary.

Eve had faith to believe that the little baby she held would be a man. No baby had ever been born before. It is possible Adam and Eve wondered if their descendants would come forth fully mature, as they did.​

It never occurred to me that Adam and Eve had never seen a baby. She had never seen a boy baby or girl baby. It must have been quite a jolt to see a tiny human. It must have been quite a feat to deal with the first feeding. There was no one to tell Eve how to breastfeed properly. There were no baby bottles there.

It's safe to say.... they didn't have a clue!

 

[b23hqb]

They had no clue for sure. They had no clue that Eve had just birthed the first murderer in the world. Seeing that Cain killed off a quarter of the world's population, I guess he could be called the first mass murderer.

Animals knew by instinct what to do with their little ones, so I'm sure God supplied Eve with the knowledge of protecting and nurturing her young as well, to be passed on down the line.