The Origin of Death

 

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Up to this point, I’ve spoken of death from personal experience.

Through an emotional voice.
Through a clinical lens.
Through the agonies of before and after.
Through hospital rooms and funeral homes.
Through occupation as an obit writer.
Through ethics and autonomy.
Through the weight of grief that lingers long after the service ends.

I have examined death as event.
As policy.
As memory.
As fracture.

But I have yet to discuss the spiritual aspect of my nemesis.

Death — both my enemy and my friendly reminder to live.

The origin story.

How death was birthed.

Genesis.

Adam.
Eve.
The serpent.
God.

Death did not begin with a body in the ground.

It began with a whisper.

The serpent did not need teeth.
He needed a voice.

He leaned into Eve’s ear and planted something there.
Not fruit.

A distortion.

A temptation.

Death was born from the whisper uttered into eves ear..

The serpent impregnated the ear of eve

Death was born

God cursed the three

Death has ran rampant since

How the Serpent Was Cursed (Genesis 3:14–15)

God says to the serpent:

• “Because you have done this…”
• Cursed are you above all livestock and wild animals.
• On your belly you shall go.
• Dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
• I will put enmity between you and the woman,
• Between your seed and her seed;
• He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

That’s not vague.

It’s humiliation (belly, dust).
It’s hostility (enmity).
It’s a future wound (head crushed).

The voice that introduced death was silenced.

How the Woman Was Cursed (Genesis 3:16)

God says to the woman:

• I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.
• In pain you shall bring forth children.
• Your desire shall be for your husband,
• And he shall rule over you.

Pain.
Distortion in relational dynamics.
Tension in intimacy.

How the Man Was Cursed (Genesis 3:17–19)

God says to Adam:

• Cursed is the ground because of you.
• In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
• Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth.
• By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.
• Until you return to the ground.
• For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.

This is where mortality is declared plainly.

Death is not metaphor here.

It’s biological finality.

The Escalation

Notice the progression in Genesis:
1. Disobedience.
2. Blame shifting.
3. Exile.
4. Jealousy.
5. Murder.

Death doesn’t just exist now.
It evolves.

The whisper becomes resentment.
Resentment becomes rage.
Rage becomes blood.

Genesis 4:10 is powerful:

“The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”

Notice the symmetry:
The serpent’s voice in Eden.
Abel’s blood with a voice in the field.

Voice introduced death.
Blood cries because of it.

The serpent whispered.
Eve listened.
Cain burned.

Temptation moved from ear to heart.

“Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:15)

Death was no longer theoretical.
It had a body.

And it has run rampant ever since.

Through empires.
Through plagues.
Through wars.
Through hospitals.
Through funeral homes.
Through quiet rooms where someone exhales and does not inhale again.

Whether by whisper.
By curse.
By consequence.
By rebellion.

Ultimately it doesn't matter how death was born, I just know I hate it either way. . And it's ok to hate death because God hates it too...

Scripture calls it what it is:

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26)

An enemy.

God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone.” (Ezekiel 18:32)

Death separates me from my loved ones. Divided by this fragile wall but divided nonetheless. And when I go I'll be divided again leaving my loved ones behind here.

There is a fragile wall between us and them.
Thin enough for memory.
Too thick for touch.

They are close enough to ache for.
Far enough to be unreachable.

And one day I will cross that same wall.

And those I love will remain here, divided from me.

Death divides.

Born from a whisper.
Raised in blood.
Still walking.

Death is the birth child of temptation.

I hate it.

A Clarification

And all day there was this quiet unease sitting under my ribs. Not panic. Some grief. Definitely something unsettled.

Then it clicked.

I said death was born of temptation.

That’s still true.

But temptation did not speak itself.

A voice introduced it.

The enemy uttered the words.
Deception took root.
Sin followed.
And death was born.

He is not death itself.
He is the corrupter who lit the fuse.

And death came burning behind it.

That realization didn’t soften my hatred.

It sharpened it.

I still hate it.

My enmity is fine tuned.

And now my hate is precisely directed.

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