The story of Cain and Abel is the beginning of sin and death amongst mankind. The earlier narrative of the Fall in Eden is concerned with the sin of man against God. This story deals with the sin of man against man, and the sorrow and suffering that results.. As a parable of man's relationship to God this vivid story of the early days of the world has tremendous value.

So the first human child was born. "I have gotten a man from the Lord" said Eve reverently, according to the A.V. of Gen. 4. 1. It seems that there is another shade of meaning in her words which is difficult to recover now, due to the fact that the Hebrew text of Gen.4 is derived from a much earlier Sumerian language which recorded the original story. Repeated translation from earlier archaic tongues has rendered some words obscure. It is considered that the original expression meant she had "acquired a man" with the help of, or by the power of, the Lord. Now Eve must have been perfectly familiar with the processes of birth among the animals with which she was surrounded, yet upon the birth of her own child she immediately gives the credit to the Lord. There is an indication here that despite the tragedy of the Fall and the measure of alienation from God which resulted, the first human pair had retained some reverence and loyalty toward God. So, the first impulse on the birth of the child was to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in the event. God had already promised Eve that her seed would become the means of undoing the damage that had been done in Eden, and that he would "bruise the serpent's head". That could only mean the overthrow of sin and the restoration of primitive sinlessness, and without any doubt, she saw in the birth of this child the first step to the fulfilment of that promise.

Hopes must have run high as the lad grew to manhood's estate, joined later on by his younger brother Abel and sisters. With the elder devoting his energies to cultivation of the soil and the younger to the raising of sheep and goats the family must have been reasonably happy, waiting for the next move in the Divine purpose, and with no indication of the tragedy soon to come.

There is very little guidance as to the time scale of these events. The genealogical tables in Genesis state that Seth, the third son, was born when his father was one hundred and thirty years old according to the Masoretic, or two hundred and thirty years according to the Septuagint. Ignoring these for a moment, there is evidence from sources outside the Bible that the life-span of early man was inordinately long compared with modern experience, and it is probable that both Cain and Abel were grown men, perhaps married ‑ to their sisters ‑ at the time of the tragedy. The one chronological fact that stands is that Seth was the third son and Abel was already dead when he was born.

Some thought must be given to the purpose of these offerings. It has been suggested that Abel offered slain lambs on an altar and that this prefigured the shed blood of Jesus after the manner of much later Leviticus ceremonies. This was because Abel's offering was acceptable to God but Cain's offering of agricultural produce was not. Thus, it is suggested, Abel prophesied the death of Christ. It is not likely, however, that anything of this is inherent in the story. This is the first recorded instance in history in which men brought a spontaneous offering of the fruit of their labour to God. To suggest that on such a significant occasion, God should reject one and accept the other in the interests of an academic illustration of theological philosophy which neither of those men in their very primitive condition could have been expected to understand in the slightest degree, is not very reasonable. And there is an important element in the text that disallows the idea completely. Abel brought the first fruits of his flock and the text has "bekorah" which means female first born of either sheep or goats. But female lambs were not permitted as blood sacrifices prefiguring Christ in the ceremonies of Israel ‑ Passover or Day of Atonement. The Passover lamb must be a male, of the first year. Had Abel been Divinely led to enact a prefigure of the later rituals he would have been told to bring a one year male and not a firstborn female. But there was a place for firstborn females in later Israel ceremonial. They were specified, not for sacrifice, but to be included with the first fruit of the ground ‑ fruit and crops ‑ as thank-offerings to the Lord. Our modern harvest festival is the lineal descendant of such ceremonial (Deut.12.6). Deut.14.23 and Neh.10.36 are examples of bekorah, female firstlings, being thus employed. Lev.27.26, Num. 3.41, Num. 28.17 and Deut.15.19 tell of bekor, male firstlings, treated similarly. Thank-offering had to be the firstborn, whether male or female, animal or vegetable, on the principle that the firstborn of anything is peculiarly the Lord's and should be given to Him (Exod.13.2).

When it is thus realised that what these two men were doing was quite spontaneously bringing a thank-offering to the Lord as recognition of His overruling power in giving them success in their respective spheres the story begins to take shape. A further examination of the Hebrew text offers a reasonable explanation why Cain's offering was rejected. Dr.Young's translation says that Abel brought "the female firstlings of his flock, even from their fat ones". In other words, rightly surmising that God should have the first and the best of his flock, he chose the fattest and best of the firstborns as his contribution. Why he chose female instead of male, thousands of years before the Mosaic Law provided for female offerings, is a point of interest. For some reason Abel must have considered female the more appropriate, as, in some sense, better than the male. Perhaps, in the rudimentary state of knowledge of that first family, the female was considered the channel of life, life that came from God. That would explain Eve's crediting the coming of Cain to God rather than to her husband. It is significant that it was Eve and not Adam who named Seth, and perhaps the other sons too. But Cain did not bring the best of his produce. This is shown by the words used. The 'first-fruits', in the sense of the earliest to ripen, is bikkar. The 'firstfruits' in the sense of the best of the produce is reshith. Both these terms are used in the O.T. to refer to the offerings of first-fruits in Israel. The term for fruit in general is pen, and this is the word used in Gen. 4. 3. Cain did not bring 'firstfruits' as did Abel; he brought of the fruit of his labours but it was not of the best or choicest or earliest, and that was why his offering was rejected. That was why "Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain" (Heb.11.4). The Almighty can only accept of our best, and Cain did not give of his best.

Here is the first intimation that man has a positive responsibility to strive against sin. The basic promise that sin would one day be undone because the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head did not authorize man to adopt a static and non-committal attitude, passively waiting for the Lord to execute His word. Sin was an active reality, waiting to ensnare men. It was imperative to give heed and not be entrapped.. God apparently passed over Cain's failure to offer of his best, and stressed as of greater consequence his unjustified wrath, that could so easily and quickly lead to jealously, violence and finally murder. The Lord exhorted Cain to take stock of his position and fight the dark thoughts that were crowding into his mind before it was too late. Cain did not heed the warning.

Tragedy followed swiftly.

According to the Septuagint, Cain invited his brother into "the field", from the Hebrew word denoting cultivated or irrigated land as distinct from pasture or wild land. Abel was enticed away from the family home into Cain's own area of labour. There, in the field, Cain slew his brother. It may have been a pre-meditated act; it may have been a sudden uncontrollable upsurge of jealousy. In any case it is a sad commentary upon the ease with which human free-will, undisciplined by loyalty and allegiance to the Divine way of life, can sink to actions so contrary to the basic instincts of man. These two must have grown up as boys together, in the wonder of a world revealing ever new and increasingly exciting discoveries. The knowledge that death must one day come, because of the original sin, was with them but in the vigour of their near-perfect manhood the event must have seemed almost inconceivably far away. It is not likely that Cain intended the death of his brother but rather that in the intensity of his resentment he struck a blow that proved fatal. But the sequel of his animosity proved the reality of the Lord's warning. Sin was already there, crouching at the door, waiting to obtain the mastery. He could overcome it if he would, but he must exert his will so to do. And Cain, like Eve his mother before him, failed to do so.

Judgement

His immediate reaction was fear, a futile endeavour to avoid the consequence. In what manner the Lord spoke to Cain we know not, but the dialogue between the two must have been real in Cain's mind. "Where is

Abel thy brother?" came the accusing question from Heaven. "I know not" was the surly yet apprehensive reply "Am I my brother's keeper". Then was pronounced the fearful condemnation before which Cain quailed and was broken. 'What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth ". The "ground" and the "earth" from which Cain was banished is adamah, the land of their habitation. The "earth" in which Cain was to be a fugitive and vagabond is erets, meaning the earth as we use the term, the whole extent of the world, the earth as a planet. Cain was to be exiled from his home, his family, and his land and doomed to wander ‑ "fugitive" is a wanderer fleeing as from an enemy or from justice; "vagabond" a wanderer as having no home ‑ an exile in the earth.

Response to Judgement

"My punishment is greater than I can bear" cried Cain. The Reviser's marginal alternative "mine iniquity is greater than that it may be forgiven" is a possible construction of the Hebrew but the general assessment of scholastic opinion is that the traditional rendering is correct. There is really no indication in the story that Cain felt any remorse or was in any way repentant; his concern appears to be only with the consequence upon himself. He was to be cast out into the desolate earth with no means of subsistence, he was to be hidden from the presence of God; and he was to be in danger of death at the hands of his fellow men. "Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth" he cried "and from thy face I shall be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass, that everyone that findeth me shall slay me". His dismay at being banished from the Divine presence is thought by some to be an indication of some residual reverence for God that led him to lament the separation. It is more likely, perhaps, that it reflected a fear that banishment from God's presence implied withdrawal of Divine protection, leaving him with no shield against possible avengers. There is a fundamental principle here. Fear of the consequence of sin is no basis for acceptance with God. An upright life gains no credits in the books of Heaven if that uprightness is dictated only by fear of the alternative. The Almighty does not want that kind of allegiance. The man who eventually gains his place in the Divine scheme of creation will gain it because he has fully and completely given himself willingly to the Divine way, not because he is afraid of what God will do to him if he does not. He recognizes that he owes life and all that life means to his Creator and wants nothing better than to place himself in that Creator's hands to be used as He wills. Had Cain admitted the enormity of his crime, given evidence of sincere contrition, and placed himself in the hands of God for judgment, the outcome would have been different. But he did not, and he went out into the wilderness unrepentant and resentful.

Critics of the Bible have scoffed at this story on the ground that since Cain and Abel were the only sons of Adam at the time there could not have been anyone else to meet Cain and slay him, so that the narrative is inherently inconsistent. None of these critics appears to have done more than hastily read the Authorized Version before making a pronouncement. A little greater care in examining the position yields a much more informative presentation.

The birth of Seth was the next event recorded as worthy of note following the death of Abel. It has already been suggested that on this basis the tragedy may have occurred two centuries after the Fall so that Cain may well have been ninety years of age ‑ comparatively young against the time-scale of life-spans stated in Genesis. Since the story must be considered against its own claimed background it is logical to accept these long life-spans as part of the picture presented. Cain and Abel, then, might well have already become the fathers of several sons and daughters so that the family springing from Adam and Eve already numbered grandchildren. There is however, no mandate in Genesis for thinking that other human beings, not derived from Adam, existed in other parts of the earth. The whole Bible stands or falls on the position that all humanity came from Adam. It becomes necessary then to examine the hypothetical "every one" that meeting Cain, might conceivably slay him. Cain's fear in v.14 is usually understood in English as that any individual man of all possible men might be the slayer. Verse 15 supports this by saying that the Lord set a mark upon Cain lest "any" finding him should slay him. But the Hebrew in both cases is the same, "chol", which in the grammatical case here used means, "everyone" in the sense of a whole or a totality. Cain's fear, and the Lord's action, both presupposed the whole of the race of mankind then existing acting together as a unit, as a single body, in this matter of slaying. The narrative therefore implies, not that he might meet death at the hands of some stranger in a chance encounter. Rather that his own family, in the face of this crime that he had committed against them all, might consider it imperative to capture or seize or fall upon him and put him to death. This is the meaning of matsa, rendered "find" in this context. It is impossible to conjecture what was the reaction of Adam and his family to this terrible calamity that had befallen them, a circumstance for which no precedent existed. It is not likely that any kind of Divine law had been given them to deal with such a contingency. It is conceivable that they might reason that Cain, who had shown himself capable of destroying one life, might well do the same again, and must himself be destroyed to avoid the possibility. Hence God stepped in with His prohibition. The "mark", Hebrew oth, meaning a sign, set upon Cain, need not have been a physical disfigurement, as is often popularly thought, but an indication of some kind to his fellows that he must not be interfered with, but left to go his own way into exile.

So Cain departed, taking his wife, "and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden". This is one of of the geographical indications that date the first writing down of the story, for the Hebrew "Nod" is the Sumerian land of Nadu, on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf (modern Iran), as it was known twenty-five centuries before Christ. (Later on the land became known as Manda and this name survives to this day as that of the main river of the district). The Sumerians believed that the primeval Eden was an area now covered by the waters of the Gulf so that the whole story is geographically consistent. Cain went east, out of the valley into the mountains where his descendants were afterwards the first men to work in metals ‑ metals that are still mined in those same mountains.

There he disappears. His descendants to the eighth generation are recorded, and then there is silence. The man who was the firstborn of the first family, peculiarly one who was God's own, so far failed to appreciate the goodness of God that when he came to make his acknowledgement he only brought second-best. He might have become the first link in the line leading to the promised Seed through whom all the families of the earth shall yet be blessed.

God inevitably rejects second-best and so Cain allowed resentment, jealousy, hatred to take possession of his soul and drive him into the commission of sin of which he never repented. This brought alienation from God and loss of the future he could have had.

The lesson of Cain's tragedy is that the placing of God first in the life, the giving of one's self unreservedly to Him for His purposes and the best of our abilities and talents and achievements to His service, is a sure defence against the 'wiles of the devil'. Satan cannot gain entry where God already reigns. Sin is ever crouching at the door, ready to spring ‑ but in the power of God we gain the mastery. And it is all really so simple. Micah knew the secret. "He hath shown thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."

 AOH