Chapter 4

Eve has Cain and Abel.  (Cain is pronounced cah-yin in Hebrew) Abel has sheep, Cain farms.  Abel gives the better sacrifice.  Cain kills Abel out of jealousy.  

Cain should have known from the skins provided Adam and Eve?  Or should have traded for what God preferred?

How did they even decide to offer sacrifices?  It has not been required of them directly.

2021 - Cain was oldest, and followed his father's footsteps in working the land.  We should remember that at this time, they were not eating livestock.  So Abel's sheep were about clothing, about the wool.  We might stretch it and say they killed and skinned the sheep for large skins to keep them warm, to sleep on, and so on.  So possibly Abel was "familiar" with shedding blood to make clothing as God had shed blood to clothe Adam and Eve.  But beyond that...We have zero information about these sacrifices.  It was apparently something that they just did rather than being part of a covenant of some kind.  The whole "don't eat of the tree" covenant is broken, with ongoing results - they will all die eventually.  But we don't know what replaced it.  Perhaps even this early blood had to be shed for mitigation of sin.  It is also quite possible that this is the first time sacrifices had ever been offered.  So neither brother knew what was acceptable, and they just both did their best.  The sin of Cain was in hating his brother out of jealousy about the offerings.  All Cain had to do was obtain an acceptable sacrifice and he would have been as favored as Abel.  But that's not what Cain did.

2024 - I note that both agriculture and raising domesticated livestock existed at the second generation of humanity.  According to the Bible, there were no hunter-gatherer times, followed by ag and animals.  The two may have coexisted, but the second did not "evolve" from the first.  So when thinking of archeology, superimpose this Biblical information on it, and fit that into the story, for a more complete understanding.  This right here "explains" Gobekli Tepe.  Archeology says it was too early for there to have been agriculture, Gen 4 says it could not have been too early for that.  I will understand G-T as a settlement very near the beginning of human existence, a very very early example of architecture, engineering, and city design.  Why do the doors at Chaco Canyon have the same outline as the pillars in Gobekli Tepe?  One could chase this rabbit all morning!

These are the first children after they leave the garden.  It seems a necessity that they were their first children ever, else the sin of Adam would not have cursed the children they had before the fall.  But then, the corruption of the flesh is not transmitted by a gene.  It is spiritual, and bodily...We almost need there to have been children before Cain so that there would be wives for Cain and Abel to marry.  But it presents other, theological problems.  MSB says Cain and Abel may have been twins since no time period between them is mentioned.  2021 - I don't think there were any children before Cane and Abel.  Sin is transmitted via flesh and blood from parents to children.  Not a gene, but still through childbirth.  Angels don't have children.  Their sin is their own.  Perhaps the reason there is no plan of redemption for fallen angels.  It is all on them.

2021 -This verse:

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 contrary to you, but you must rule over it." [Gen 4:7 ESV]

When Cain's offering is not accepted, he is downcast.  God Himself speaks to him, and tells him that if he will but offer an appropriate sacrifice, all will be well, and God warns him that sin's desire is "contrary" to him - not in his best interest, but against his best interest.  The implication is that Cain's "human nature" is to prefer sin.  There is also the implication that sin "actively entices" people.  Sin sort of wants to "win" and pollute.  Satan's part in this is not mentioned, so perhaps this is just metaphor for human failure where sin is concerned.  Even so, at this early date, God encourages Cain to resist sin.  If we do not purposely, consciously resist, then sin becomes pervasive in our lives.  A good verse I think for Calvin's first - Total Depravity.  We always veer towards the road to sin.  We must exert force to stay on the straight road.

2025 - Note the phrasing comparison:

16 To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you." [Gen 3:16 ESV]

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 contrary to you, but you must rule over it." [Gen 4:7 ESV]

In the first Eve's desire shall be contrary to her husband, but he shall rule (prevail?).

In the second, sin's desire IS contrary to you, but you must rule.

These passages are very similar in the idea they seek to communicate.  The response to someone or something with a desire "contrary" to us is to rule over it.  It the first place this rule is a God-ordained "status quo".  Of the two people - the one with a contrary desire and her husband - God says the husband SHALL rule.  In the second two - sin and Cain - the one who will rule is NOT fixed.  In the second, the possibility that the one with the contrary desire will in fact win is a real possibility.

We can see how "contrary to you" applies in the second case.  Sin is never out to do good for one to whom it is contrary.  Contrary in this context seems to mean "against what is good for Cain".  If we take that phrase and apply it to the curse, we get that Eve was to be against what was best for Adam.  That seems very insidious, seems like more than what is intended...but how else to compare them?

How do you "rule over" something that wants what is sub-optimum for you?  You have to be suspicious of all that they/it recommends, ferret out the "contrary" recommendations from the good ones.  The curse does not "make" women always work against the best interests of their husbands.  But that bent will always be there.  The possibility will be considered.  The husband must recognize it when it comes and resist it.  Rule over the contrary desire, NOT rule over the woman.  He must recognize and reject the things that are contrary to him.  Cain failed here.  The idea of murder was contrary to him, but he embraced it anyway, because it "solved" his problem, it "appeased" his anger, it "cured" his pain...or it seemed to do these things.  It promised what could never be delivered.

2021 - This verse, that I had never really noticed before:

8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. [Gen 4:8 ESV]  This is premeditation.  This is full on murder, not manslaughter.  There is an interesting note in TCR, which I will take the time to include.  Footnote 2 says: Hebrew; Samaritan, Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate add "Let us go out to the field".  So these translations from the Hebrew to other languages all add this phrase that is not included in the oldest Hebrew texts.  These other translations felt compelled to blatantly add this phrase to emphasize the premeditation.  I looked at the interlinear, and the phrase is just not there.  But the interlinear shows a very very interesting aspect of the way this is written in Hebrew.  I will put it in using the "transliterated Hebrew".

First phrase:

qayin el hebel ah haya

Cain to Abel his brother came, (MY Translation!  Not real, but it looks like this in Hebrew)

Second phrase:

qayin el hebel ah harag.

Cain to Abel his brother killed.

These phrases look like verse in Hebrew, like poetry.  So easy to memorize and understand.  Wow!  There is more to the verse, and I don't know what it looks like in Hebrew, but this seems to suggest to me why some places in English translations take on a "poetry" look, and others are just paragraphs.  Moses wrote it as above.  The Hebrew Bible is the oldest we have.  Wow.  (And here I am two hours into this and I've covered 8 verses.  I was not going to do things this way this time, I was going to try and get through the daily reading pretty quickly and so leave time for more "focused studying" of various things.  Things like "end times", or adding notes to my web site, and so on.  But every time I read the Bible it's like I notice brand new things that are just too important to leave undocumented!  The bottom line is that now I need to speed up significantly.  So I will try...)

This verse:

10 And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. [Gen 4:10 ESV]  God knows about "secret" murder.  The ground itself knows.  The blood "cries out".  We see this from the very first human blood that ever touches the ground.  Over the millennia this blood builds up.  Today, in the US, with all the murdered children, it must be a cacophony that begs for vengeance from the One who hears it.  Manasseh was the last straw for Judah because he sacrificed so many innocent children to idols.  He presided over the murder of countless innocents.  We are literally doing the same thing with abortion to children even more innocent than those.  God will have to do something about this or else apologize to Manasseh, and I can guarantee that last ain't happenin'!  Shouldn't we as Christian's be happy to go down with a ship that so desperately ought to be sunk?

Possible FB post.  (Back to the OT.  Back to wrath and vengeance from God.  It has been so each time I've read the OT.  The contrast between Old and New is more striking every time I read them.)

2024 - This verse though...

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

16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. [Rev 12:16 ESV].

First is Hebrew, second is Greek.  So their might not be any connection other than John had read Genesis.  Cain spilled innocent blood, and the earth accepted it and somehow cried out for justice.  The water from the dragon was intended to kill, but the earth intervenes and prevents that.  The earth prevents injustice...I don't know.  But interesting.

2024 - Haven't thought of this before either:

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 4:12 ESV].  Here are the hunter-gatherers.  They are the ones cursed for their sins.

Cain's curse is on him, not on the ground, as Adam's was.  The ground won't yield for Cain - who made his living from farming.  He would no longer be able to do this.  His livelihood was taken.  Having no skill with livestock, he would have to wander, likely making his living stealing - as an outcast and a wanderer.  That's why people would want to kill him.  Because he would be seen as a threat.  Note that God reserves judgement of murder to Himself.  He puts a sign on Cain so that NO ONE ELSE will try to "fix" this.  For them, killing Cain would still be usurping God's place, and their punishment for killing Cain would be 7 times what Cain endured.

What people?  If there were at this time already people enough to kill Cain where ever he went, where did so many come from?  We are back to the second paragraph.  Was Cain the first human after Adam and Eve?  MSB for vs 14 says the population had greatly increased, but offers no ideas as to where all those people came from.

Cain marked to announce to all his shame, so he would be an outcast for life.  He moved to Nod, and he finds a wife who will marry him despite his crime.  There are apparently a lot of people in the world by this time.  MSB says that this wife was "obviously" one of Adam's later daughters.  It notes that by Moses' time this sort of close marriage was forbidden due to genetic decay.  It is noteworthy that Cain may have had no knowledge at all of this woman, and also that despite the curse on him, and the mark on him announcing that he was a murderer, he still found a wife.

Lamech, 7 generations from Adam, takes two wives.  Their names are given.  The first women's names after Eve.

Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.  So "the bronze age" shows up just a few generations after Eden.  No information given on how or why Tubal-Cain pursued this.  Nothing says all the plows before this time were made of stone.  Nothing about an explosion in agricultural productivity or military success to those who obtained the bronze and iron that Tubal-Cain forged.  Music also shows up at this generation. 

Genesis 4:20‭-‬22 ESV

Makes it sound like husbandry, music, and mechanical skill are all born in skills, not just learned.

Lamech kills a man who strikes him.  Possibly self defense but to me, worded more like angry retaliation.  He calls himself cursed.

MSB says self defense.  In any case, Lamech seems repentant of what he has done in contrast to the "who, me?" of Cain.

Seth born to Eve, possibly after 9 generations, but can't really be sure  She apparently had a lot of children, as did her children, that we are told nothing at all about. 

During Seth's son Enosh's time, people begin to call on the name of the Lord.  They begin to realize that sin separates them from God and that they need Him.  Perhaps this is prayer, asking God for forgiveness, for help in time of various troubles.  They accept that God is there, and is their creator, and has all power to effect events, and they appeal to him for that help.  No mention of idolatry to this point.

2025 - From some reading in Grudem Chapter 20, this might be about some on earth choosing to follow God and his commands, while others choose the sin that is contrary to them.  Cain chose poorly.  But some on earth stay faithful.  But what we see here is a separation.  The ones who choose to follow God are the sons of God. 

2024 - We might call this early religion a dispensation.  Cain and Abel knew to make sacrifices.  God spoke with Cain directly.  Enosh is only the third generation.  Adam and Even are his grandparents.  To me, "begin to call on the name of the Lord" is "begin to worship God".  Adam was right there to tell them the story, the whole story, and to tell them about offering animals and fat instead of grain.  They knew that God had intervened to judge Cain and sentence him for his sin.  So some at least held God in reverence, and they appealed to him for help.  Adam and Eve had only the one rule.  That didn't work out so well.  So next, we have people with no rules who are to figure out for themselves how to worship and how to behave.  This kind of religion ends with a big ark and a lot of rain.  And only one family that still worshiped God.  Either of these might have gone very well, but Satan was always there to ask "Hath God said....?"