Cain and Abel
Smarting for his outraged ‘rights’, Cain lost his reason — but not God’s pity and love.
Smarting for his outraged ‘rights’, Cain lost his reason — but not God’s pity and love.
Abel and his brother Cain were the sons of Adam and Eve. Theirs is a universal tale of what long-nursed envy and a sense of outraged ‘rights’ can lead us to do; but it is also an allegory of the deteriorating relationship between Judah and the ten tribes of northern Israel in the 8th century BC.
CAIN and his brother Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve, were both farmers. Cain grew crops, whereas Abel was a herdsman. Abel made an offering to God from among his best animals, but Cain’s offering was rejected because he used crops that were no good for anything else.* God urged Cain to be calm, and learn from his mistake; but instead, Cain lured his brother out into the fields, and killed him.
God now came looking for Abel, and asked Cain where he was. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ Cain protested wildly.
But God could hear Abel’s voice, crying to him from the blood-soaked fields. The earth itself would neither forget nor forgive what Cain had done: nothing would grow for this farmer again. God himself, however, felt only pity for Cain. He even laid a mark on him, for his protection, as a warning to anyone who might show less mercy.
* According to St John Chrysostom (?347-407), Archbishop of Constantinople, the error of Cain lay in allocating for sacrifice crops that were not of the best quality. The passage is found in the ancient Greek translation of Genesis 4:7: “Have you not sinned, if you offered it rightly, but did not allocate (διέλῃς) it rightly?” In the Hebrew, what Cain did wrong is not spelled out: instead, he is warned that he must be strong or else sin will master him: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why was Cain angry?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Cain was an arable farmer. Abel was his brother. Abel was a herdsman.