Cursed ground

In an elder meeting this week, Doug Wilson pointed to the promise at Noah’s birth that he would bring rest from work and from the toil arising from the cursed ground (Genesis 6:29). Doug made the interesting point that Noah embodies a reconciliation of herder and farmer, of Cain and Abel: He is an animal husbandman, but after the flood he turns farmer, planting a vineyard.

That sparked off several thoughts, for which Doug is not responsible.

First, the progress of Noah previews the progress of redemptive history. The old covenant is an animal covenant (sacrifices) while the new covenant is a vegetable covenant (Lord’s Supper). (With Noah, the break is not so clean; he sacrifices after the flood, and he is told he can eat flesh after the flood.)

Second, is it possible that the flood brought rest from the toil of the cursed ground by actually removing the curse from the ground? Or, if that’s too strong, by curtailing the curse? This might explain why Cain is rebuked for his vegetable offering (it comes from the cursed ground) but Israel is commanded to bring vegetable offerings (because the curse has been removed?).

Third, that might also explain the heavy emphasis that the NT places on the flood. Before the flood there was the “world that then was,” but a new world emerged after the flood (I’m thinking especially of 2 Peter here). The flood generation plays an unusually prominent role in the NT (here, 1 Peter 3). And that, in turn, could help explain the analogies the NT draws between the flood and the coming judgment on Israel (2 Peter again, also the Olivet discourse). The analogy is not just: The flood was a big judgment, and the judgment on Jerusalem will also be big. It’s not even this: The flood ended one world-order, and the judgment on Jerusalem ends another. It’s more precise: The flood cleansed/curtailed the curse, and the cross-to-destruction of Jerusalem cleanses the curse definitively.