Cain and Abel

The story of Cain and Abel begins by telling us that Cain and Abel were the children of Adam and Eve. Cain was the older brother of Abel, and was a tiller of the ground. The younger brother, Abel, was a shepherd, taking care of sheep. At some point both Cain and Abel took sacrifices to God, and we are told that Cain brought crops that he had tilled up from the ground as his offering, while Abel took the first lambs from his fattest sheep as his offering to God.

We are told that God respected the sacrifice of Abel, but had no respect for the offering of Cain. It’s not clear why this is. It could be that God didn’t like the offering of crops because it came from the ground, and that Cain should have become an animal tender instead of a tiller of the ground. It’s also possible, because of the emphasis on the fact that Abel took the youths of the fattest sheep, that Abel simply took more care in preparing the offering to God, and had Cain been careful to take only the best of whatever it was that he was tilling (presumably wheat) he too would have found respect from God. It’s also possible that God simply preferred Abel to Cain as a person, but whatever the case may have been, it resulted in the death of Abel.

Cain was angry at his treatment by God, and recognizing this, God told him that he would be accepted should he do well, and that sin was always close at hand and would overcome him should he not be careful. Soon, we are told, after speaking with Abel, Cain killed him. It was impossible for Cain to benefit from this, and very clear that he would be punished for doing this, but he did it anyway, and even believed he could get away with it without punishment. At some point, presumably soon after the killing, God asked Cain where Abel was. His famous response was first to lie, saying he did not know, then to ask whether or not he was his brother’s keeper. In modern days this is often taken as meaning he really was his brother’s keeper, and that he was responsible for him. This was almost certainly not the case. Cain was the equal brother of Abel, not his superior as a keeper, and this question was meant as a rhetorical in order to avoid the responsibility of knowing of his brother.

God, of course, sees through such a manipulation, and says he can hear Abel’s blood crying to him from the ground. God therefore curses Cain from the ground, forbidding him from being able to raise crops. He also banishes Cain from the area, naming him a fugitive and a vagabond. Cain protests this, saying that he will be killed be any people he meets on the road, so God puts a mark on him, so that all know that the killer of Cain will be punished seven times as harshly. This is also mostly unexplained as to why God would protect him in this way.