Genesis 4.1-16.
| 4.1 | The humanα is intimateβ with Chaua,γ the woman. |
|---|---|
| She is pregnant and produces Qayn.δ | |
| She says, “With Yahweh, I make a man.” | |
| 4.2 | Again, she produces his brother Hevel.ε |
| Hevel pastors sheep. | |
| Qayn slaves on the soil. | |
| 4.3 | At a certain significant day,ζ |
| Qayn comes with the ground’s produce | |
| as an offering to Yahweh. | |
| 4.4 | Hevel also brought fat |
| from the firstborn of his flock. | |
| Yahweh approves of Hevel and his offering. | |
| 4.5 | Not Qayn. Not his offering. He doesn’t approve. |
| He was very angry with Qayn. | |
| Qayn’s face falls. | |
| 4.6 | Yahweh says to Qayn, |
| “Why are you angry about it? | |
| Why does your face fall? | |
| 4.7 | Won’t you do good and rise up? |
| If you don’t do good, sin has crouched at the door. | |
| It has stretched out for you. | |
| You have power over it.” | |
| 4.8 | Qayn speaks to Hevel. |
| They come to be in the field. | |
| Qayn stands up to his brother Hevel. | |
| He kills him. | |
| 4.9 | Yahweh tells Qayn, “How’s your brother Hevel?" |
| Qaynη says, “Dunno. Must I guard my brother?” | |
| 4.10 | Yahwehη says, “What’d you do? |
| The voice of your brother’s blood shouts to Me from the ground. | |
| 4.11 | Now you’re cursed by the ground, |
| which opens its mouth to take | |
| your brother’s blood from your hand. | |
| 4.12 | When you work on the ground, |
| it won’t give its strength to you any more. | |
| Wander. You become a wanderer on the earth.” | |
| 4.13 | Qayn tells Yahweh, “My sin is too great to carry. |
| 4.14 | On the day You drive me away from the ground’s face, |
| I am hidden from Your face! | |
| I become a wanderer, and wander on the earth! | |
| Anyone that catches me, kills me!” | |
| 4.15 | Yahweh tells him, “Not true. |
| Anyone who kills Qayn: Sevenfold revenge!” | |
| Yahweh put a sign on Qayn | |
| so nothing that found him would punish him. | |
| 4.16 | Qayn goes out from Yahweh’s face |
| and settled in the exileι land in front of Eden. |
Here’s a story we all know: Adam and Eve have kids—Cain and Abel—and Abel is righteous, and Cain is evil, and Cain kills Abel, and God punishes Cain. Except when we whittle down the story to a one-line sentence, we skip a lot of details, and part of exegesis is looking again at those details to make sure we haven’t missed anything. There’s a lot in this story that we tend to miss.
First of all Cain has a relationship with God. This is a huge deal. How many of us can hear God as clearly as Cain did when we’re angry? How many of us, for that matter, even hear God to any degree begin with? Sure, the dispensationalists will argue that everybody could hear from God back in bible days; but they’re full of theory and empty of faith. I put it to you that people heard from God then just as much as people hear from God all throughout history. In fact, now that the Holy Spirit lives within His people in the Church, people hear from God even more so than people in Cain’s day. Cain hears God. Cain talks to God. Cain, in spite of sin, can hear God mete out a specific punishment. Cain can even beg God for mercy and be heard. Anyone who misses this, and just writes off Cain as being evil and reprobate, is treating this story like it was a myth or fable, and isn’t really taking it seriously. If this story actually happened, it means that Cain is much closer to God than most of us are.
Second of all God didn’t kill Cain. Some commentators, in order to exaggerate the evil of Cain, say that Cain’s response to God is his complaint that God is over-punishing him; I think it’s Cain’s proper recognition of what he has coming to him. God states this principle later, “Spillers of human blood: By a human, his blood will be spilled, for God made the human in His image.” (Ge 9.6) But in this case, God said He would kill sevenfold anyone who decided to avenge Abel. (What does that exactly mean? Most likely, anyone who killed Cain would see seven family members die, possibly including himself.) Is this equal? Is this the eye-for-an-eye principle we later see in the Law? (Ex 21.24, Lv 24.20, Dt 19.21) Absolutely not. This is the offer-the-other-cheek principle later expressed by Jesus. (Mt 5.39, Lk 6.29) Cain is God’s son just as much as Abel, and God is going to rehabilitate Cain, not destroy him.
Third, Cain isn’t a special kind of psychopath; he’s an ordinary man with too much pride and too great a temper. Cain took excessive pride in his job. He was a farmer, and wanted to offer God produce instead of sheep-fat. I suspect God had already told Cain and Abel how offerings were supposed to be done, and Cain disobeyed. Thus, God wasn‘t happy with Cain. (Some translations say Cain was angry, but that’s not how the pronouns work.) Disobedience seems to be the only reason why God rejects sacrifices (note 1Sa 5.22, and many others) particularly when you disobey His directions on how He wants an offering done. Abel followed them. Cain didn’t.
God knew Cain had a temper; hence the warning. Cain’s anger at God was misdirected at Abel, and he killed Abel over it. His fumbling attempt to cover it up, and his remorse afterward (“my sin is too great to carry”), show that it was a crime of passion. He didn’t mean to kill his brother, but he didn’t control himself like God warned him to.
Over the centuries, myths have developed about Cain and his “evil descendants,” (Ge 4.17-24) like Lamech (Ge 4.23-24) who was a psychopath. Cain’s descendants are frequently compared to the descendants of his brother Seth; but bear in mind that God decides to flood the earth because all the humans are evil, not just Cain’s descendants. Cain is no more evil than any other human who loses his head and does regrettable things.
And here, God demonstrates that He is not always the “vengeful God of the Old Testament” that some people make Him out to be. Cain isn’t the only murderer that God doesn’t kill; there’s also Moses (Ex 2.11-15) and David (2Sa 11.14-25). Murderers—and technically all sinners—deserve death, but God is gracious. Where would any of us be if He wasn’t?
α. Or “Adam,” which means human.
β. Lit. “knows.”
γ. Eve.
δ. Cain; from
ε. Abel.
ζ. Lit. “It becomes an end of [the] days.”
ι. Nod.
