Genesis 4: Jealousy Turns to Murder

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Cain and Abel (v. 1-26)

Adam and Eve had 2 sons, Cain and Abel. Abel kept sheep and Cain worked the ground. They both brought sacrifice to the lord, Cain brought fruit from the ground and Abel brought the first born of his flock. The Lord was happy with the offering from Abel, but he was not impressed with Cain's offering. Cain got angry and God asked him why he was angry, he just had to do better and the sacrifice would be accepted, if not he is opening himself up to sin.

So Cain offers fruit from the ground, and he works the ground so this seems reasonable, but God is not happy with his offering. Is it because it is fruit, or because he is offering a poor selection of his fruit? If it's just because it is fruit that seems pretty unfair for God to be upset. On the other hand, Abel didn't just bring a lamb, he brought his best. As a kid I remember this story being told as if Cain just brought scraps and that is why God was upset, I'm not sure I read that in the story here, except perhaps verse 7 where God tells him to do better. I wish there was a little more detail here, oh well.

I looked at a couple of different commentaries here (Guzik, Matthew Henry), they both don't really have a good answer, but they do seem to read a lot into this. It seems that they have the same wish as me that this was explained better. 

Cain responded to all of this by killing his brother.

That seems like a bit of an over reaction. So what is the lesson here? Don't be jealous? Perhaps not to let your emotions get that far out of control.

Guzik says this is a message about the destructive power of sin.

God asks Cain where his brother is, and Cain responds "Am I my brothers keeper?" God then says that Abel's blood calls out to him from the ground, and he then curses Cain saying the ground won't yield its strength to him anymore. Cain says it is more than he can bear and is worried that anyone who finds him will kill him. The lord puts a mark on him and says that anyone who kills him will have vengeance in return sevenfold.

God punishes Cain, takes away his livelihood but doesn't allow him to be killed by other people. I'm not really sure how I feel about this, Cain clearly needs to be punished and he is, but God also shows mercy by not allowing him to be killed. It's good I guess.

Guzik brings up a good point that I missed, he points out that when Cain said "My punishment is greater than I can bear!" he didn't feel bad about what he did, only about his punishment.

Cain went away from the presence of the lord and ran east to the land of Nod. We hear about 7 generations of Cain's descendants before we get back to Adam and Eve.

Cain's family tree. Hope you enjoy my MS paint skills :)

This raises a few questions for me. First, how get Cain get away from the presence of the lord? Yesterday we had a similar situation where Adam and Eve were hiding from God in the garden and he was asking where they were. I argued that it is possible God was feigning ignorance of their position. This is different, verse 16 is not from the perspective of Cain thinking he was getting away from God, it is just stated as fact from the narrator. Clearly the God described here is not omnipresent or omniscient.

Second. where did Cain's wife come from? We say yesterday (Gen 3:20) that Eve is the mother of all of humanity, and yet Cain is going to another land to find a wife. Further, we will see shortly in verse 25 that Eve is given a son to replace Abel, implying that Abel is her third son. Again, where did the other people come from? Given that God in this story apparently only can see a small area of the planet, and there are people outside of his influence, maybe he is only one of many God's creating life on this planet. 

Guzik says that he must have married his sister. Still doesn't explain when she was born or where she came from. Also, there was apparently this whole land of Nod to the east, where did all of those people come from?

Adam and Eve then had another son and called him Seth, a replacement for Abel as Cain had killed him. Seth had a son named Enosh.

I'm guessing this didn't have to happen in this order. We don't necessarily have to take Seth's birth as happening after all of the descendants of Cain right? If they tried to interleave them it would be confusing. I hope this isn't the reason why people say Adam and Eve lived so long. [edit - Tomorrow's reading specifically says Adam lived 930 years]

For the verses of note post

--Jealousy--

Genesis 4:1-8 Jealousy leads to murder

"...the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell...And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him."

--Properties of God--

Genesis 4:16 God is not omnipresent

"Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden."

James 3

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Taming the Tongue (v. 1-12)

Although the tongue is small, it is very powerful. It is like the rudder of a ship, which is small and yet controls where the ship goes in a strong wind. Or like a small flame that sets a forest fire ablaze. So be careful who becomes teachers, for the tongue of a teacher can control many.

I think that was the point here, it didn't quite lay it out exactly like that, but it started saying that not many people should be teachers and then spent the rest of the section talking about the power of the tongue, I think this is the intended message.

That being said, I agree with the idea that the tongue is very powerful, I guess the real message there is you should watch what you say. We can do a lot of damage with thoughtless words and we should be careful to avoid it.

Verse 1 says that not many people should become teachers. I definitely disagree with this message, I think everyone should try to teach what they know to other people, it is the best way to learn something yourself and spreading knowledge is always a good thing. We had a saying back in grad school, if you want to learn a topic, teach it to someone else. That being said,  I have a feeling that this is meant as more "leaders" than "teachers" in the way I am thinking about it, so my comments probably don't really apply. Nevertheless I find this idea compelling so I wanted to mention it anyway.

Guzik highlights that this is talking about becoming a teacher in the church and his take on this is basically that the position should not be taken lightly. I agree with this perspective, especially if you are talking about being a real leader in the church (which I think is the intention of the verse), but I do like the idea that many people within the church can take up smaller roles of authority and the congregation can spend a lot of energy teaching each other.

v. 7 "For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind,"

I also wanted to point this verse out just because it is silly. At the time of this being written, we certainly hadn't discovered every type of creature that exists in nature, and I would say it is more than likely that is still true today. And we certainly haven't tamed them all.

Wisdom from Above (v. 13-18)

Wisdom comes from above, and unspiritual and demonic things from from below.

This is yet another one of those times when the bible just claims all good things as coming from God and all bad things as not coming from God. If you just claim that all wisdom comes from God, and then attribute all good things to him, while letting him get away from anything that is bad, of course he will look good, but it's just a bullshit illusion. Oh, actually, it sounds almost like a politician when I put it that way. That being said, there is some good advice here.

As usual, Guzik seems to take this message hook line and sinker.

v 13 says to show your works in the meekness of wisdom.

This is pretty good, being meek isn't always the best thing to do, but I think as a general guideline it is pretty good. 

v 14 says that jealousy, selfish ambition, boasting, and lying are bad.

That's a lot to shove together, but yeah, I agree here.

v 17 "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere."

I'm actually not completely sure what to say about this one. If by "wisdom from above" we mean the bible, then I disagree with every point here. It's riddled with contradictions, so calling it pure doesn't work for me. There is some peace preached by Jesus, but there is also a ton of violence (some even preached by Jesus). Gentle? there is plenty of heavy-handedness by God, for example, killing nearly everyone on the planet with a flood. Open to reason? not with all of the blind faith talk. Full of mercy? Again, the flood. good fruits, impartiality and sincerity? All of these seem to be destroyed with all of the contradictions all over the place.

They all sound good, and if this verse had said that we should have these qualities I would have put it in my good list, but it is saying that the book has those properties, and I simply disagree with the statement.

For the overview post (If you think I should add or remove stuff from this list please let me know, I think it would make good conversation)

Good:

3:10 Be careful what you say, you can do a lot of damage with a thoughtless word

"From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so."

3:13 Show your works through meekness

"Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom."

3:14 Lying, selfishness, boasting, and jealousy are bad

"But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth."

Bad:

3:15 God gets credit for good things, absolved from bad things

"This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic."