“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have acquired a man from the LORD’” (Genesis 4:1, NKJV).
If the normal and expected feelings of a woman who has just given birth to a living child are joy and ecstasy—following the pain of her labor—how boundless the joy must have been for Mother Eve! Eve’s great faith in God is witnessed by her lovely words, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.”
Although she and Adam were outside the Garden of Eden, they were not far from the mercies of God. They both knew the “facts of life,” as they witnessed the activities of reproduction and subsequent births among many life forms. But this time it was they who had a baby. This time it was she who had given birth. This time Eve was the mother—she was now Mother Eve. Yet the words in the brief narrative in Genesis do not focus on reproduction, nor on her pregnancy; attention is not on labor or delivery. The emphasis is on Eve’s praise to Yahweh. Eve was now a mother. The miracle of live birth was now her experience. And Mother Eve gave all praise to God.
God had promised that she would bear a child. When Yahweh cursed the serpent he spoke of ongoing enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). Now Eve had her child—a gift of God. In fact, it is even possible that she may have believed that this first child was in fact the fulfillment of God’s promise. The words, “a man from the LORD,” might be read as “a man, even the LORD”—an idea noted by Martin Luther. He rendered her words, “I have a Man, the LORD.”
Eve’s mistake in this identity was one of enthusiasm and piety. Her misery years later cannot be calculated when she found her first son was not only not the promised one, but was one who brought overwhelming sorrow to her mother’s love.
But in God’s plan, there was another mother, Mary, who gave birth to another son, Jesus. Ultimately, this child—the fulfillment of all the promises of Scriptures—is also Eve’s Son!