Eve gives recognition to God with the statement: with God's help I have brought forth a man.
Abel gave a sacrifice with the best portions, Cain did not. God looked on Abel with favor but on Cain he did not. This made Cain angry. Cain then killed Abel.
As punishment God placed Cain under a curse and drove him from the land. In doing so God drove Cain from his livelihood (a farmer) and made him be a wanderer.
Cain's response is telling. He states that it is too much for him to bear. He is concerned for three reasons. First, he is concerned because he is being driven from the land. Second, he is being driven away from the presence of God. Third, he is concerned that someone will kill him because he has been made to be a wanderer. To assuage this fear God placed a mark on Cain and a curse on anyone who killed him.
Questions:
Why did Cain and Abel bring sacrifices? There is no mention of God commanding it? Did God command it and the writer(s) of Genesis simply neglect that part? It seems that it would be a big thing to neglect if they did. Was sacrifice such an ingrained part of this culture that the notion of not performing one would be as strange to them as performing one would be to the modern mind? Or is it possible that the act of performing a sacrifice to God is actually part of the human experience that early man was compelled to do so.
Is Cain showing where his sin comes from in his three concerns. His top concern is that his livelihood is being taken from him. The second concern is that he is being driven from God. Is it possible that this is Cain's sin that he has displaced God with his own work?
When Cain is made to be a wanderer he is going to be killed by people when they find him. What people? If Adam & Eve are the first people and Cain and Abel their only children, Cain has eliminated one of the three possible people that will kill Cain. Who is he worried about? Where are the other people coming from? This makes the notion that Adam & Eve are the only people on earth hard to believe. Is it possible that like with Abraham or the Hebrews later in the Old Testament, that God chose a specific set of people to show personal favor to in the beginning to bring about His will? Is it that God placed Adam in the garden by choosing him special from an already existent population of people and made him special this way? Or is Cain simply anticipating that their are other people out there that he is unaware of that will kill him when in fact there are only three people on the face of the planet?
Cain's fear of being separated from God by banishment is an interesting one to consider given the early conception of gods being tied to the land. By being banished Cain is afraid that he will have to wander where God is not. There is no conception of omnipresence in Cain's understanding of God. Is God's marking of Cain an assurance to Cain that where ever Cain will go so there will be God as well? Is this an early understanding in the Hebrews that God is not tied to a specific plot of land, but omnipresent and in God's correction of Cain He is also instilling hope in Cain that he cannot be taken completely out of God's presence?
I don't know the answers to these questions, nor do I know if I can truly find them. But I will venture on in pursuit and see what else comes up in the process.
-Spicer Proud
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