Wednesday Bible Study: C is for Cain

So today, after much debate (and a couple of really screwed up stories) I have settled on Cain as our subject.  Now, if you asked whoever wrote "Cain" for Wikipedia, he thinks the unanswerable question here is,


The narrative never explicitly states Cain's motive for murdering his brother, nor God's reason for rejecting Cain's sacrifice, nor details on the identity of Cain's wife.

The only one of these three that are valid theologically is the second one.  Why did he kill Abel?  God tells you just before he does the deed:

Gen 4:6  The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 
Gen 4:7  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." 

Gee, that was so hard.  What was his wife's name?  The Jews say it was Awan, but WHO CARES?  If you think about it, he probably just called her, "Hey, Sis" anyway.

Now the middle question is valid, but common sense.  But I will break it down for you before I get to what I think is the unanswerable question for real.

I have found, for me, there were three things I had to learn before I could advance as a Christian.  Two of them applied to Cain.  One is OBEDIENCE.  Cain failed at this, obviously, even after God showed him the right way, and telling Cain he COULD beat it.  The other is to be a GIVER, and not a taker.  I had pointed out to me one very interesting point about Cain's name:

Gen 4:1  Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." 

One popular theory regarding the name of Cain connects it to the verb "kana" (קנה), meaning "to get" and used by Eve in Genesis 4:1 when she says after bearing Cain, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." In this viewpoint, articulated by Nachmanides in the thirteenth century, Cain's name presages his role of mastery, power, and sin. (Wiki)

Cain was a getter, not a giver.  He came to God for what his sacrifice would net him.  Abel was accepted because he knew what the truth was of sacrifice- atonement and obedience- and thus God blessed him.  Also, you want to look at a certain phrase about the sacrifices:

Gen 4:3  In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 
Gen 4:4  and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions...

 This that I highlighted tells us two things.  First, you can't say, "It never says Abel killed the sheep", because it says "and the FAT portions".  Which begs a question:  Why the fat portions?  We learned in the last series the fat belongs to the LORD.  That was part of the Law that God handed down to Moses.  So where did Abel get the idea?  Because he had to have had an intimate relation with God.  Interesting, isn't it, that we don't need to hear what God said to Abel because he proved it in his actions- while the story needed God's dialogue with Cain, because he wouldn't.  One thing I just learned after typing the first draft of this post:  If you feel God needs to speak to you and hasn't, perhaps you haven't went to Him first and listened.

There's another point at which I'd like to look at Cain...

Jud 1:11  Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. 

Whenever I see sins or sinners lined up in threes, I think of 1 John 2:

1Jn 2:16  because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

Pride is Korah's, and the lust of the flesh goes to "greedy Balaam".  I think that the eyes had Cain- he saw the blessings that Abel received, and couldn't stand it.

Now that is all well and good, but let me show you my choice for the unanswerable question of the week:

Gen 4:9  Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" 

Gen 4:10  And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 

Gen 4:11  And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 

Gen 4:12  When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." 

Gen 4:13  Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. 

Gen 4:14  Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." 

Gen 4:15  Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. 

Gen 4:16  Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. 

My question here is, why is God showing the mercy of protection to an unrepentant sinner?  The rich man in Hades couldn't get a drip of water!  And yes, I do have something to share here.  There was a source I hit- and I'll be darned if I can find it now- that claims it is possible to read 4:14 as Cain not complaining that someone will kill him, but expressing his hope THAT someone would kill him.  And 4:15 was God saying, "You don't get off that easy!"  I cannot speak for God; He may well have rehabilitated him and moved on.  I don't see the evidence of that anywhere in the Bible, OT or NT.  I guess the only thing we really have to go on here is looking at it from God's reasons:  either He is showing mercy by protecting him from murder, or showing judgment by keeping him alive.  Before, I said Abel showed his obedience in his actions- and we needed the dialogue between Cain and God because he WOULDN'T listen.  Note that we are still having that dialogue.  Some commentators claim that Cain's words in vv 13-14 are him being penitent.  Given what I have just added, I think- my opinion- that he was just being whiney.  "God, you are so mean, so cruel, to let this happen."  So my money is on judgment, but it's not mine to decide.

Either way, the takeaway from his story is that we need to approach God as a giver.  The other night, my son and I were discussing the concept of being a giver versus a taker.  And part of it went like this:

He:  I think that I'm a giver...

Me: but are you a giver just because you expect something back?

He: Well...

See, that's the hard part about it.  It definitely got Cain.  Does it get us?

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Now, I thought I might add a few of the other things that I stumbled onto that fall into the "Where did they get that?" category.  

Most Jewish tradition say that it was Lamech ( the guy who declared he would be avenged 77 fold) who actually killed Cain, but apparently the apocryphal Book of Jubilees says because he killed with a stone, he was killed BY stones- a house collapsing on him.  It also mentions his being 730 when he died.

Another tradition really makes me wonder at the logic of these people.  It claimed that Cain was able to "build a city" (Gen 4:17) because by the time Seth came along (when Adam was 130 according to Genesis 5) Adam had been having a child per year, and those children had been having children, so that there were a few thousand people around by the time Cain got exiled.  BUT, another tradition says that Seth married Abel's widow- although she was theoretically some 125 or so years older than him... or not.  So if, Cain had enough people around to need a city, why was Seth, who presumably came around AFTER the death of Abel, the one who got to marry his brother's widow?

Then we have the wonderful stories about "Cain's REAL father", which make me wonder whether there was a Antediluvian National Enquirer.  Candidates for the job the Bible clearly gave to Adam included: the fallen angel Sammael, the Serpent (making the apple the first "cigarette"?), or Satan himself (which is what I thought the Serpent was, but whatever).

Then you have the one that says the timeline for the murder was when Cain was15.  Oh, and let's not forget what the "mark" was.  That ranges from being lame (from a translation of the Greek Septuagint) to a horn in the middle of his forehead.  But the dumbest story for me changes the whole meaning and reason of the story- that Cain and Abel had twin sisters, and Cain wanted the one that Abel married, being "more beautiful".  Hello, twins?