Cain and Abel

Learning from the example of their priestly parents (Gen 3:21), Cain and Abel, as priestly sons, picked up the practice of offering sacrifices to God: “Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions” (Gen 4:3-4). Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground was part of the later Levitical sacrificial system (Deut 26:2); the same is true of Abel’s

offering of the firstborn of his flock (Deut 15:19-23).

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Though no explicit mention of altars is yet found in the narrative, “From the actions in Genesis 4:3-5, we may assume that Cain and Abel brought their sacrifices to an altar.”

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In fact, the text presents several pointers that indicate that Cain and Abel

presented their offerings at an altar. First, it should be observed that Cain and Abel relocated their offerings from one place to another in presenting them to God. Not just any location would suffice for the presentation of their offerings. Cain and Abel brought their sacrifices to the place designated and consecrated for offering their sacrifices.

Second, the Hebrew terms for “altar” and “sacrifice/slaughter” are closely linked;

because “altar” ( ַח ֵּב ְז ִמ) literally means “place of slaughter”

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and because Abel brought

14 Though Cain was married (Gen 4:17), there is no mention of Cain’s wife presenting an offering. Instead, it seems that this priestly duty was reserved for the patriarch of the family.

15 Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, 15.

16 BDB, 258.

an animal to slaughter for his sacrifice (Gen 4:4), the place where Abel brought and slaughtered his sacrifice must have been an actual altar.

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Furthermore, God’s reaction to Cain’s offering and overall sinful disposition adds weight to the notion that Cain and Abel brought their offerings to an altar. While some commentators conclude that the Cain’s problem lay solely in a defect in Cain’s attitude,

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no textual evidence supports the notion that this alone was the issue. Instead, the text says that God did not have regard for “Cain and his offering” (Gen 4:5). Because there is nothing inherently wrong with presenting God an offering of grain at an altar (Deut 26:2), something else was at issue with God’s rejection of Cain and his offering.

Cain neglected to understand the seriousness of his own sin when meeting with God at his holy and consecrated altar. Altars were places “where the worshiper came into the presence of God”; and because God hates sin, “sin had to be accounted for before a person entered the holy place.”

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Thus, when meeting with God at the consecrated place of sacrifice, Cain should have first made certain that atonement for his sin was accounted for.

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Cain did not bring an atoning and propitiating sin offering to God’s holy altar. The result is that he was sent away from the place of God’s holy altar and special presence.

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17 Longman notes the close connection between the Hebrew words “altar” (mizbeah} and

“sacrifice/slaughter” (zabah) and, while conceding that “though it is dangerous to rely exclusively on the etymology of a word for its meaning,” the linkage between the two terms “is supported by the use of the word[s] in biblical contexts. It appears that the altar was a place where sacrifice could and did take place.”

Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, 16.

18 John E. Hartley, Genesis, NIBC (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000), 81; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989), 32-33.

19 Longman writes, “The altar was where the worshiper came into the presence of God, and God . . . hates sin. Therefore, sin had to be accounted for before a person entered the holy place. . . . The most obvious function of sacrifice was to atone for sin. Thus, . . . at the heart of the altar was the idea of sacrifice.” Longman, Immanuel in Our Place, 16.

20 Morales concludes that “YHWH had revealed to Cain the means by which he might be restored to divine fellowship, precisely the same means he would later reveal to Israel through Moses in the book of Leviticus: a sin offering at the sanctuary doorway.” L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of the Book of Leviticus, NSBT 37 (Downers Grove, IL:

InterVarsity Press, 2015), 57.

21 The text records that Abel’s animal sacrifice was accepted while Cain’s grain offering was not. William Symington suggests the reason is because Abel’s animal sacrifice was “vicarious in nature”

and was rooted in “substitutionary suffering,” which was appropriate for appeasing an “offended Deity,”

Indeed, after Cain’s offering was rejected and he had murdered Abel, Cain (and potentially his family [Gen 4:17],

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for which he would have been responsible to serve and mediate for as priest) was driven from the presence of God to the land of Nod (Gen 4:16). Cain failed to account for his sin and regard the holiness of an altar that had been set apart to God; he should have offered a blood sacrifice for the atonement of his and his household’s sin. However, Cain disregarded God’s will regarding sacrifice, choosing to offer the kind of sacrifice he preferred without concern for the holy

requirements of God.

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Whereas “the blood sacrifice offered by Abel” was accepted by God, the “failure of Cain to bring a ‘sin-offering’ to the Lord” resulted in his judgment.

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Cain was wrong; he failed to attend to his priestly duty of border management, neglecting to guard the holy sacrificial space/altar/sanctuary from his own unfitness to approach it and failing to properly mediate for his household in the face of a holy God.

The consequence for Cain was like that of later priests who neglected to respect the holiness of God in their priestly duties around the altar. He was deposed from his office and duties, was removed from priestly service near the altar, and was sent away from the presence of God (2 Kgs 23:5).

Adam and Eve’s children’s priestly responsibility to attend to border

management can also be observed in the pattern of procreation they received from their

and Cain’s offering, on the other hand, was of vegetation, the kind of offering that did not consider the consequences of his sin. That is, Cain’s offering was only “suitable as a gift or as an expression of gratitude” and did not atone for his sin. William Symington, On the Atonement and Intercession of Jesus Christ, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: William Whyte, 1834), 92-93.

22 The text does not indicate whether Cain was married (and thus served his family as priest) before or after his removal from God’s presence. What is clear is that Cain and his wife began procreating after Cain had been removed from God’s presence to the land of Nod (Gen 4:16-17).

23 The state of Abel’s mind “directed him in the choice of the kind of offering that would be acceptable to God, and that had Cain also been in a right frame of soul he would never have thought an inanimate substance to be a suitable offering to an offended Deity.” Symington, On the Atonement and Intercession, 92-93.

24 David Schrock, “Restoring the Image of God: A Corporate Filial Approach to the ‘Royal Priesthood’ in Exodus 19:6,” SBJT 22, no. 2 (2018): 35.

parents. Though Abel was murdered before procreating, both Cain and Seth had children (Gen 4:17-22; 4:26-5:32). Additionally, Adam apparently modeled to his children the need to expand the borders, to subdue the earth, to work the ground, and to have

dominion over the creatures of the earth. The text indicates that both Cain and Abel were

workers. Cain was dedicated to being a “worker of the ground,” and Abel was a “keeper

of the sheep” (Gen 4:2).