Genesis 4 - Brotherhood. Cain's offering

For a small chapter, so much happens, that it's impossible
to devote as much time to it, as it deserves.

It begins with the begatting of the first generations.
It has symmetry in twos.

Adam and Eve-
Cain and Abel.

4:1
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived,

and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.


This is creation, within the framework of the original
creation. The conceptual language is the same as the
opening of Genesis, with the Beginnings of beginning.
There is always re-creation, and life within life. God's
realm is not finite, and it is expanding, and infinite.


Eve says, "I have gotten a man from the LORD."
She regards this as a gift. All life is a gift.

The firstborn of man was Cain, who was a tiller,
tending to the earth, breaking up the
the hard clods of ground, and farming.

He seethed in envy at his brother Abel,
who was a shepherd, on the hills, relatively
comfortable and carefree.

As the firstborn, Cain must have felt cheated.

The occasion comes to make a
Feast for the Lord, ( and in their
case, and it was literally to have him come
and eat,) the brothers prepared the food
offering, respectively.

Cain's hard labor as a farmer,
doing backbreaking work, in the hot
sun, was rewarded by bountiful
fruits and veggies to serve. He was
proud of himself.

He regarded the field as his, and his
labor rewarding to him. He failed to
recognize that everything is the LORD's,
alone. As Eve knew that it was God, who
gave her a son, Cain thought of himself
before and above God, who possessed
everything that is.

(To embellish the tale, I fill in many
unknowns. This is my view.)

Cain prepares a feast, with the vegetables
fruits and grains. Abel takes the most
tender ram, one he may have loved as a pet.
He offers him, as a blood sacrifice, and
to justify it's great sacrifice of life, it is
roasted to the LORD, and consumed by
the servant of the Most High. His offering
was seasoned with his tears.

Abel may have loved that sheep, like a
brother, since Cain was a loner. Because
of this act, God was pleased with him, and
the state of his heart was revealed.

We may not like it, but, we are bought and
paid for by blood. Instead of offering up sons,
for sin, or even animals, anymore, our Lord, gave
us His own blood. He stepped down from Heaven,
to do this.

Animals will no longer have to die for our
sins, except man has destroyed many
species, and must account for it.
Cruelty to animals is a grave sin.

That's why the blood offering was
mandated, to teach man the pain of
sin, and realize that because of our
sin, death occurs.

It's meaning was revealed, when Christ
sheds his own blood, to become our
propitiation, and covering for our sins.

It's not that Abel's sacrifice was
better, extrinsically, because, God
was undoubtedly pleased with the
fine bounty of fruits, grains and
vegetables, too, but, Abel's heart
had learned compassion, sorrow,
and obedience, while Cain had nothing
but self-centeredness, self-righteousness,
and pride in himself for doing so well.

Abel suffered when slaughtering the
animal in his flock. He knew the pain
of death. Ironically, his brother, the
vegetarian, who wouldn't slay a
sheep, slays a living brother.

Because of our sinfulness, and pride,
other innocent beings suffer. Cain
rebels. Not merely against his
favored younger brother, but, he
rebels mainly, from God, who preferred
the blood offering of Abel's. Cain slays
his brother, as a way of getting back at
God. Cain is imposing his own image on
to God, changing the schemata radically.

Brotherly love flew out the window
East of Eden.

Cain is a murderer. But, God doesn't
slay him. He turns him to a road, and
tells him to go forth. He invokes the
sorrow that is to come. Living is a
punishment sometimes.

Yet, God doesn't strike him dead.
In fact, he sets a mark on him, to
warn others that whoever slays him
will have 7 times the punishment.
That referred to how many family
members they'd lose, for his
one.

It seems like they still adhere to this in
Israel, and the fertile crescent. The violence
has never ceased, from the original
slaying of brother vs. brother.

People may laugh and scoff, but, God lives
in these words, and to anyone who reads them
with a sincere heart, God will bless. Even with
life eternal.


Genesis establishes the origins of " brother vs. brother."
The firstborn is not the first to be redeemed.
"The elder shall serve the younger" and the "first
shall be last," is also a common condition.

This begins with the very firstborn of the family
of man that we're descendants of, beginning with
the first two brothers, Cain and Abel.