The Book of Genesis, Chapter 4

Genesis 4:1-26

Summary

Adam and Eve have two children, Cain and Abel. This doesn't work out very well. God doesn't like Cain's offering, Cain gets a little depressed and kills Abel to feel better. Bad idea. Cain is cursed to wander the earth and become the first emo kid. Or something like that.

Cain settled in the land of Nod, then had a kid, who had a kid, who had a kid, who had a — you get the idea. His great³ grandson Lamech appears to have also committed murder (maybe it runs in the family?) and laments that his punishment should be eleven times worse than Cain's.

Leaping back to Adam and Eve, they bore a third son (Do over!) and named him Seth. Seth also bore a son named Enosh, and then people begin to "invoke the name of the Lord".

Commentary

I'm mostly intrigued by how much gets glossed over very quickly in this chapter. Unlike some stories, it tells what happened, but it tells very little of how it came to pass. Take this for example:

"Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let us go out into the field'. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." (Gen 4:8)

That's it. One verse, two sentences, and in them Cain and Abel go out into the field and Abel is murdered. I find myself wondering, at this point, what this exchange would have been like. Did Cain rant and rave with anger before killing Abel? Was it cold, purposeful, quick? Did Abel beg for mercy, or try to reason his brother? Who knows. All we got was two sentences.

If we look a little earlier, I have to harp a little on God again. Abel kept sheep, and Cain tilled the ground. Each of them brings an offering to God, Abel of his first sheep, and Cain of his harvest ("The fruits of the ground" Gen 4:3). Now God must be some kind of carnivore, because the sheep are accepted as an offering, but Cain's plants are not.

This directly leads to Cain being angry (understandable, I think), and the Lord admonishes him, saying,

"Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, and you must master it." (Gen 4:6-7)

If I understand this correctly, Cain brings an offering which God does not regard, Cain is frustrated about this, and God tells him "If you had done well, I would have accepted you": All without in any way describing to Cain what he wants.

Yes, we can we assume that these explanations have been given off-screen, if you will, but that seems like academic and theological laziness to me. Admittedly, none of this excuses murder, but it maybe explains it a bit.

For the murder of Abel, Cain is cursed so that he will not be able to till the fields any longer, and must instead wander the earth. God also forbids that anyone kill Cain, imposing a seven-fold vengeance on anyone who did so. This punishment is clearly extremely effective, as Cain leaves the presence of the Lord, goes east, and settles in Nod. Wanderer indeed.

There must be a lot of birthing going on that isn't mentioned, because nobody mentions the birthing of women* and the early humans seem to be able to find wives and have more babies. Cain knew his wife (yes, in the biblical sense), and there were a number of single-child families. Didn't they know you need to have more than one child if you want to populate the earth?

*I would like to point out that Lamech's wife Zillah bore Tubal-Cain, who had a sister named Naamah. I did notice.

There are a few named people of note: Jabal, the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock; Jubal, his brother, the ancestor of those who play the lyre and pipe (who knew my guitar talents were genetic?); and Tubal-Cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools (apparently he wasn't the ancestor of those who used them, though). I'm amused by the thought of everyone who lived in tents with livestock coming from the same ancestor, but this probably is referring to a specific group of people, I just don't know who.

Adam and Eve, at the end of this chapter, receive a third son, because their first murdered their second and had to leave home. They name him Seth, and the poor guy gets almost no publicity at all, apart from being the son who was born because the first two didn't work out so well. If I feel for anybody in this chapter, it's Seth.

Seth also had a son, named him Enosh, and then "people began to invoke the name of the Lord" (Gen 4:26). Those are the last words of the chapter, and there's not much there to suggest exactly what that means, except that possibly the Lord is finally getting a little press for all the creation he's been up to.