Genesis 04

(I know this is a day late.  I've been sick.  Cut me some slack.)

Ah, Genesis 4.  The murder chapter.

There's actually more than that here, but the murder of Abel in the first half of the chapter is the part that everyone knows.  What I find most interesting is what leads up to that murder.

In the opening verses, Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to God.  I have to admit that whenever I read this, I wonder why they did this.  The Scripture doesn't explicitly state that God had told anyone to offer sacrifices, let alone how to "do well" and "be accepted" (Gen 4.7, ESV).  It just seems to come out of nowhere.  Of course the notion of sacrifice seems normal to those of us who know the later history of Israel, but of course Cain and Abel didn't.

I just have assume that, like so much else in Scripture, it's happened behind the scenes.  Much like the mystery of Cain's wife found later in the chapter (spoiler alert:  he married a sister or niece ... duh), it falls under the category of "interesting but unnecessary".  As much wiser men than I have said, the Bible doesn't tell us everything we want to know, but it tells us everything we need to know.

For whatever reason -- and I could make a few educated guesses -- Cain's sacrifice is rejected.  What happens next is something I think we often overlook, but which is important.  God gives Cain the chance to make it right.  He acknowledges Cain's hurt feelings, but reminds him that if he had done right, he wouldn't have had hurt feelings.  The fact that God takes the time to tell Cain where he went wrong and how to make it right is amazing.  Remember, this is the Old Testament, where God is supposed to be so cruel and bloodthirsty.

Cain, of course, "hears without hearing".  When we fall short of some standard, there are two ways to respond:  we try harder to meet the standard, or we try to lower it.  Cain, unfortunately, takes the latter approach, and he takes it with a vengeance.

The actual description of the murder is brutally short and to the point.  Cain speaks to his brother, and then kills him.  Rather than take the chance offered to fix his wrong, he decides to take out the one who actually did right.  It's always easier to try and make others look worse than to try and be better, isn't it?

The rest of the chapter just takes things farther down the spiral.  From Cain's superficial sorrow (v.13) to Lamech's shocking boasts (vv.23-24), it's just a list of names punctuated by terribleness. And yet, at the very end, there's the hope:  another child born.