G E N E S I S   4 : 1 – 1 6

Cain and Abel

4 Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

    Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

    6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

    8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

    9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

    10 The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

    13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

    15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Adam and Eve were still having children. Cain and Abel, their first two sons, were grown up and working, and here we see them worshiping God. The form of worship they chose was sacrifice. Cain, a farmer, brought some of his harvest—corn, wheat, cucumbers, pumpkins—something from the field. And his brother Abel brought a portion of some of his animals.

Why did the Lord look with favor on Abel’s sheep fat but not on Cain’s grain? God himself tells us that if Cain had done what was right, then his sacrifice would have been acceptable.

There was nothing wrong with a tithe of grain.

But there was something very wrong in Cain.

It’s hard for us to imagine that Cain was guilty of unbelief (idolatry) since he speaks with God in such a familiar way. We wonder how it would be possible to talk with God face to face, with answers coming in spoken words from God’s own mouth, and yet for the listener not to believe in God?
Well, this is also what happened to the devil and his angels. They were there before God with special roles of authority, and yet they wanted to climb higher; to become God’s equal or even God’s superior. In fact, we see here an answer for a lot of people with doubts about God. They might ask, “Why doesn’t God just speak to me? Then I would believe in him.” Well, the devil didn’t, and Cain didn’t, and in fact, if God spoke to you and you still didn’t believe, it would go worse with you, and mike make you into even more of an unrepentance sinner. So it was with Cain. Here was a man who talked with God, and yet didn’t trust that God’s will was supreme. He set himself up in God’s place as judge, and then he judged his brother’s sacrifice sinfully and unjustly he killed him.

When Adam and Eve sinned, God used questions to call them back through repentance. And now he does the same thing with Cain. “Where is your brother Abel?” “What have you done?” But Cain tried to cover up his sin by pretending to be ignorant—and really, he was pretending that God could somehow be ignorant.

And we do this, too.  Sometimes we try to justify a sin, even a thought, as if we know the categories of sin better than God does.

Other times we try to mask a sin in between good deeds or pious thoughts so that we have a kind of sinful sandwich, hoping that the rotten middle won’t be so noticeable—like a dandelion poking up in the middle of a line of daisies.

Other times we do like Cain did, and arrogantly confront God as if his requirements are way too hard for anyone to keep.

But then God confronts us with the mirror of his law, to show us what our sin looks like. And then, what’s in your heart? That’s what God wants us to realize. He already knows if you are sorry, deep down. But he wants you to understand if you’re not sorry, that that’s not okay.

So what did God do with Cain? The Lord cursed Cain—and it was a three-part curse. First, let’s notice what the curse was, and then let’s notice what the curse wasn’t, because both of those are important things to understand if we’re going to be able to apply this passage to our lives.

The curse has three parts. First: Cain was cursed and “driven from the ground.” That means that Cain, who got his living by working the land as a crop-farmer, was no longer going to be able to farm here, east of Eden, when Adam’s family had been sent after they fell into sin. These fields that had been Cain’s birthright, were no longer his. He had to move away.

Second: Whenever and wherever he did try to plant, it wouldn’t go well. If he tried to gather fruit, that wouldn’t go well, either. Now I don’t know exactly how strictly this worked out in Cain’s future—maybe his crops would rot or spoil, or there wouldn’t be good growth, or maybe animals would haunt his fields and eat his crops. Whatever it was, his life was never going to be easy.

Third, this was going to make him a “restless wanderer.” He wouldn’t be able to settle down anywhere, because there would never be enough food for him. It was going to be a very tough life. This led Luther to speculate that Cain was already married at this time, even though his wife isn’t mentioned until a little later, because who would ever have married him after he became a murderer, and after he was cursed like this? But his poor wife stayed with him and showed her faithfulness, since they had a growing family later on.

So these are the three parts of Cain’s curse. This is what the curse was. But let’s be sure we also understand what the curse wasn’t.

This curse wasn’t simply a punishment for his sin. Sin is punished in hell. This was a chastisement, which is trouble that God allows to come in order to give us an opportunity to see our sins, turn away from them in terror and repentance, and turn back to God in faith.

But Cain thought his punishment was too much. He thought he was going to be killed for revenge. And his worry was legitimate. Since the world population at this time was quite small, even if Cain were as old as a hundred when this happened, the whole population of the world was related very closely to Abel who had been murdered. Therefore practically everybody had a right to avenge poor Abel.

So God put some kind of mark on Cain. Was this something like a tattoo? Some think he became a leper. Others think that he became crippled in some way, or that he developed a kind of a tremor. This might have made farming difficult for him, and would have been a very ordinary way for God to impose his curse on Cain.

And yet look at all of this—the curse, the protection from revenge, the probing, inviting questions from God. What was God’s goal with Cain? Was it to kill him? To condemn him?

No—God wanted Cain back. God wanted Cain to repent, and to believe the promise that had already been given to Adam and Eve his parents, that there was a Savior from sin who would crush the devil’s power and authority in the world, and who would be a descendant of Adam and Eve—one of Cain’s relatives.

God’s goal with us is the same. What sin tears at you and eats away at you? Is there more than one? Are you bothered by a whole catalogue of sins too long to recite? You have a Savior, too.  What is in your heart? Be sorry for you sin, but be filled with trust and faith in Jesus. Through Jesus, your sins are all forgiven. And you are once again a child of God. You are not marked with any curse. You are set aside for a holy purpose by the water of your baptism. Trust in your Savior, turn to him with confidence and love. Know that his forgiveness is your forgiveness, and through the Savior who died and rose again, you have eternal life.

That means that Cain’s curse is reversed through Christ. In heaven, you are not driven from the land, you are welcomed into a land especially prepared for you by Christ. In heaven, you will have fulfilling and pleasing labor—work that will always produce and be plentiful. And finally in heaven, you will never be restless, and you will never be a wanderer. In heaven, you will always be home, and feel at home, and be welcome by the entire church in heaven—and where you will be forever and eternally loved.