Genesis 4

      Verse 1: “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” Adam and Eve obeyed God’s command to “…be fruitful and multiply…” (1:28). They also demonstrated faith in God’s promise of a savior through Eve’s seed, which is why her statement at the end of that verse was one of thanksgiving. Eve recognized the gift of childbearing that God had given her. From my study Bible: “…Eve sees her generative power as part of the sharing of divine power. ‘Yahweh formed man; I have formed the second man.’” This is perhaps the reason for Cain’s name, as it means “acquired” or “possession”, according to Strong’s concordance.
     Childbearing is indeed a gift from God and one of the greatest strengths and unique abilities of the female sex. It is not something to be shunned or abhorred or despised, as so many women have done throughout the ages and especially today. One of the primary arguments for abortion and “women’s rights” is that children and family are obstacles to one’s career and personal goals. In the last year since the supreme court overturned Roe vs. Wade, the pro-choice movement has significantly ramped up all the despicable and vile excuses for murdering the unborn, going so far as to fight for the right to murder the baby right up to the moment of delivery at the end of the full nine month term. They claim that a woman’s body is her own, that she is free to have sex without the consequences of getting pregnant, and that the “fetus” – they refuse to label it as a sentient human being – is just an inconvenience that can be easily disposed of. Childbearing and child rearing are labeled “traditional” and “outmoded” and no longer relevant for today’s modern feminist. The pro-choicers will rant and rave about overpopulation and the dangers of mankind to the environment. They will promote abortion as an act of mercy, and that it’s better for everyone all around, especially for the “health” of the mother.
    Once again, Satan has succeeded in twisting and perverting God’s beautiful, ideal design for all of mankind. Marriage, childbirth and the family unit were all created by God to not only replenish the earth, but to also honor and glorify Him. The institution of marriage is a reflection and a type of the future marriage between Christ and His church at the end of time. Parenthood is an earthly picture of God’s relationship to us, his beloved creation. Satan hates all of that, and he uses any form of lie and deception that he can to twist, pervert and destroy God’s grand, holy design.
    This is why gay marriage is an abomination, and also why homosexuals should not be legally allowed to adopt or rear children. That is not the family unit that God designed. This is why divorce is also a violation of God’s design, while also sometimes necessary in this fallen, broken world; for example, to protect the innocent wife and children from a violent, abusive husband, or when one spouse cheats on the other via a sexual affair and is unwilling to repent and seek forgiveness from God and the other spouse. This also is why single parent homes are not God’s ideal. As I said in chapter 2, God designed the man and woman to each be a completely different, unique half of one whole. That whole being is needed to properly rear and “…train up a child in the way he should go…” (Proverbs 22:6). When only one half of a complete parent being is present, or when the parents are divorced and sharing custody, the child rearing suffers irreparably, no matter how well intentioned or organized the custody arrangement – or  just the single parent – may be.
    And sadly, because of sin and this fallen world, not everyone – even godly, Christian couples – are capable of having children naturally. God will sometimes choose a different path for them – perhaps adoption or surrogacy, or even no children at all. But in those situations He will give grace and mercy to comfort those couples while they, ideally, rely on and trust in Him to know what is best. My point is that pregnancy and childbirth, as designed by God, was something unique and wonderful and precious for Eve, and she rejoiced in that gift and in the birth of Cain, Abel, Seth and all other children with whom she and Adam were blessed. All women today, and their husbands, should do the same.
 
    Verse 2: Abel’s name means literally “breath” or “nothing”. According to Strong’s it also means “keeper”, as in “a keeper of the flock”. Abel was a shepherd, and the fact this is mentioned so soon after God’s messianic prophecy to Satan seems, to me, to be a foreshadowing and type of Christ as the Great Shepherd. (And, like Christ, Abel was unjustly killed by sinful mankind.)
      This verse also notes that Cain was a tiller of the ground.
     There is an interesting parallel between Cain and Abel and, later on in Genesis, Esau and Jacob. In both accounts, it is the younger brother who is favored by God and the older brother who doesn’t obey – or does something foolish that costs him greatly – and is punished or “hated” by God. (Malachi 1:2-3, Romans 9:13) This parallel also holds true with the story of Joseph and his ten older brothers. God seemed to favor Joseph, the youngest, thus causing jealousy and bitterness among his siblings, who then did wrong to Joseph by selling him into slavery. Yet, in the end, Joseph was rewarded greatly by God for his faith, trust and obedience. (Genesis 50:20)
 
      Verses 3-5: Cain and Abel brought their respective offerings unto the Lord: Abel the firstlings of his flock and Cain the fruit of his harvest. But God was pleased only with Abel’s offering. Even though these three verses do not go into any great detail, we can conclude from this passage, as well as that of Job 1, that God had instructed Adam and Eve – and many others both before and after the Flood – how to give proper offerings and sacrifices. (Genesis 8:20, Job 1:5) Long before He instituted the Levitical law and priesthood for the nation of Israel, God had given mankind the necessary instruction for obedience and atonement of sin by means of a blood sacrifice.
     Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God not only because Abel obeyed God’s instructions, but his heart was right as well. This was Cain’s primary problem: it wasn’t just that he tried to offer God what he thought should be an acceptable sacrifice, but that that action was a symptom of a much deeper issue. Cain was being rebellious which was, in turn, caused by pride. He didn’t want to submit to God’s authority and do what God had commanded. Instead, Cain expected God to be satisfied with what he brought to the altar. Thus, God was understandably displeased, and this made Cain angry.
 
      Verses 6-8: Instead of responding with righteous anger, God once again displays the demeanor of a loving, patient parent. He asks Cain, “…Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?” (v.6) Just as He did with Adam and Eve, God was asking Cain questions that would prompt Cain to think about what he’d done wrong and then admit his sin. God did not come as an accuser. From the very beginning, He reached out to fallen, sinful man with love, longsuffering and kindness first. God has always been slow to anger (Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 103:8, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nahum 1:3) and quick to forgive (2 Chronicles 7:14, Psalm 85:2, 86:5, 130:4, Jeremiah 31:34, 1 John 1:9). But only if we come to Him in a spirit of true contrition, humility and repentance! God was giving Cain a second chance to correct his attitude and make a proper, right sacrifice.
        Then God gave Cain a warning in verse 7: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” If Cain repented of his sin and then offered the correct form of blood sacrifice, God would accept it, and Cain would have victory over his sin nature. But if Cain persisted in his rebellion and pride, sin would control him. Notice the phrasing of that last sentence. It very closely parallels the same phrase that God stated to Eve in chapter 3, verse 16: “…thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” In the same way that the marriage roles of husband and wife were adversely affected by the Fall, so was our perfect, pure human nature spoiled and corrupted by the disease of sin. (Romans 6:12-14, 23, 8:13, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Galatians 5:16-17, Ephesians 2:1). God was making it clear to Cain that he had a choice: serve sin or serve God.
          Cain chose to reject God, and instead went to Abel, luring him out to the field and then killing him in a jealous rage. (Matthew 23:35, Luke 11:50-51, 1 John 3:12, Jude 11.)
 
      Verses 9-12: Yet again, God comes to Cain, asking him about Abel. Cain is even more stubborn and petulant than before. “…I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” And, yet again, God does not directly accuse Cain. Instead He asks, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” God was still trying to get Cain to recognize his sin and to admit what he had done wrong. But since Cain remained unrepentant, God cursed him as punishment for his crime of murder. Because Cain was a tiller of the ground (v.2) God warned him that the earth would no longer be hospitable to his efforts of planting and harvesting. Furthermore, Cain was sentenced to a life of exile and wandering, forced to find other means of sustenance since he could no longer be a farmer.
 
      Verses 13-14: Cain had just murdered his brother but now has the audacity to blame God for being too harsh??? Notice, also, that Cain still possesses a hardened and unrepentant heart. He still shows no sign of true remorse or submission to God’s authority. All he’s concerned with is how his punishment will affect him! “…and from thy face shall I be hid…” The judgment of Cain is a picture of all sinful and wicked mankind. After the Fall, Adam and Eve and all their descendants were – and are – separated from God by sin. In a way, all of us are born as lost and wandering fugitives, just as Cain would be for the rest of his life. We are “hidden” from God in the sense that we cannot have the type of communion and fellowship that Adam and Eve had in the garden before the Fall. Not until after the end of time, in the new heaven and new earth, after all tears have been wiped away (Revelation 21:4), will those of us who have been redeemed be able to finally share and enjoy true worship, communion and fellowship with our beloved God and creator!
 
      Verse 15: As another demonstration of His infinite mercy and grace, God set a mark upon Cain to protect him in his wanderings. (Genesis 9:6, Ezekiel 9:4, 6) Cain was fearful of vengeance from his family for Abel’s murder, and God’s action in this verse is further evidence of his love and longsuffering. Even when Cain remained selfish and prideful and unrepentant, God still showed mercy and grace instead of the full wrath and judgment that Cain deserved.
As for the mark itself, the exact appearance or type is unknown. My study Bible says that it wasn’t a literal mark but, rather, a personal sign for Cain, like that for Gideon in Judges 6:36-40 and Elisha in 2 Kings 2:9-12. Those verses, however, speak of a physical mark upon the foreheads of Israelites that were to be spared God’s judgement. Whatever the case, Cain was allowed to live only by God’s mercy and protection.
 
      Verses 16-17: Cain does marry and have children. But, as usual, he shows no sign of appreciation or thankfulness for God’s mercy. Instead he builds a city and names it after his son, Enoch. (Not the same Enoch from Genesis 5:21-24.) This is a foreshadowing of the tower of Babel after the Flood. Mankind has always striven to build monuments to himself, evidence of the persistent and deadly sin of pride.
 
   Verses 18-22: What follows is a brief genealogy of Cain’s descendants. The record pauses at Lamech. (Not the same Lamech from Genesis 5:25.) The purpose of these verses is to show how mankind multiplied on the earth and how they conquered it by learning trades and crafts as well as mastering agriculture and animal husbandry. Adam and Eve had many other sons and daughters besides Cain, Abel and Seth. The brothers and sisters married one another and had many offspring by the time that Cain murdered Abel. It was the vengeance of Abel’s sons that Cain was afraid of, and now, five generations later, the human population has grown considerably.
      It's important to pause here and note two things: 1) the state of the earth before the Flood and 2) the intermarrying of direct siblings and cousins.
    Remember from Genesis 1:6-7 that God had created a special canopy above the sky that was mostly water. This trapped the earth’s heat, creating a greenhouse effect that provided a uniformly tropical climate over the entire globe. It was this canopy – as well as “…the fountains of the great deep…” that was the source of all the water that caused the great Flood (Genesis 7:11). One of the side effects of this pre-flood climate was longevity of human life. In concert with a far more robust and genetically superior human genome than what we know today, mankind was able to both live longer and produce healthy offspring despite intermarrying their own direct family members.
      It's that last point that many people have a hard time grasping and understanding given that God condemns incest more than three millennia later when giving the law to Moses for the Israelites. The best way to reconcile this is to think logically. If Adam and Eve were the only two people alive at the time of the Fall, and if their offspring were prevented from marrying one another, the human race would have become extinct in only a few hundred years. The population would never have grown beyond Adam, Eve, and however many children they bore. God commanded Adam and Eve and their descendants to “…be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (1:28). Therefore, the only way that they could fulfill God’s command was for brother and sister to marry and have children and for those siblings and cousins to marry and produce offspring. And God blessed that.
     Only several hundred years after the Flood, when mankind was sufficiently plentiful on the earth, and there was no longer any need for intermarrying among immediate family members, did God state specifically in the Levitical law that incest of all forms was forbidden. Also, as a side effect of the Flood, and as a further consequence of sin, the human genome had changed dramatically due to the new planetary environment. That canopy of water vapor was gone, and this radically affected not only the average lifespan of mankind, but also the genome as well. That’s why there’s so many deadly medical side effects from too much interbreeding among immediate family members today, and why God forbids it. As with almost everything else, the rule is there for our own protection in a fallen and broken world. (For more detailed information on this, as well as other topics related to this Biblical period, visit www.answersingenesis.org.)
      Something else to note here as well: polygamy. Even before the Flood, this was never part of God’s plan. (Genesis 2:24) The mention here of Lamech taking two wives is, once again, to show man’s corrupt, prideful nature. He ignored God’s instruction to Adam and Eve about the sacred institution of marriage, and throughout the Bible, especially in the OT, polygamy has always resulted in disastrous consequences for God’s people. God has never ever endorsed or blessed polygamy. (He has, however, blessed the offspring of polygamy. I’ll discuss this more when we get to the saga of Jacob and God’s formation of the twelve tribes of Israel later in Genesis.)
 
      Verses 23-24: Lamech boasts about murdering two men who had wronged him. The implication from the wording in verse 23 is that these wrongs were not life threatening or deserving of death. Lamech slew them for the same reason that Cain slew Abel: anger and pride. Lamech refers to Cain in verse 24 because he believes he will also escape judgment and vengeance, essentially getting away with doing whatever he wants to his fellow man without any punishment from God. The point of these two verses was to show how depraved and wicked mankind had become in just a few generations. There was no law and order, and “…every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6) This establishes the reason for God’s judgement of the Flood in Genesis 6-9.
 
        Verses 25-26: This chapter closes with a note of hope. Adam and Eve welcome the birth of another son, Seth, whose name means “appointed” in the original Hebrew. Eve believed God “…hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” (v.25) Seth, in turn, had a son named Enos.  The last part of verse 26, “…then began men to call upon the name of the Lord”, is significant for two reasons.
        1) Even in the midst of all the sin and wickedness of Adam’s and Eve’s descendants, there was a remnant in every generation that believed in God and worshiped and obeyed Him.
        2) The name “Lord” is translated in the original Hebrew as either “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”, both being the proper name of God. Long before He called Abraham and his descendants to set aside as His chosen people, God introduced Himself to mankind with the same name that He would use with Moses in Exodus 3:14: “I AM that I AM.” Even though Genesis was first written by Moses after the Israelites’ salvation from Egypt, and thus Moses was already familiar with the name Yahweh, it doesn’t diminish the significance of the use of that proper name here, only a few generations into human history, so soon after the Fall of Adam and Eve and more than a millennia before the birth of Abram. Remember that all scripture was given by inspiration of God (2 Peter 1:21), meaning that God instructed Moses via the Holy Spirit – and all the others after him throughout human history – in what He wanted them to write down. So Moses wasn’t just using the proper name of Yahweh or Jehovah here in Genesis 4:26 because that’s the name for God that he already knew. He purposefully used it because God told him that that was what these early generations of mankind actually called Him.
      From the very beginning, God has revealed Himself to his creation. He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden before the Fall. Yet even after their perfect communion with God was broken by sin, God continued to reveal Himself to their descendants, and they called Him by His proper name: Yahweh.