Genesis 4:1-2: “Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, ‘With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.’ Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.”
Reality set in when Adam and Eve had to leave Paradise for good. Now they had to work to support themselves. Before long, they became parents for the first time. Cain was Eve’s pride and joy, the firstborn of all her children. In the following year they had a second son whom they named Abel. He loved animals and turned into an excellent shepherd while his brother Cain became a skilled farmer.
One year, during the New Moon festival, Adam took his sons Cain and Abel to a place in the mountains to worship the Lord. Adam had built an altar there. “Bring a sacrifice to the Lord,” Adam had requested from his sons beforehand. So Abel brought a choice lamb while Cain grabbed some of his leftover barley from the year before. Abel killed the lamb and brought it to the altar. The flames instantaneously consumed his sacrifice, while Cain’s grain offering did not fare so well. It wouldn’t burn properly and only created a dense smoke. Adam coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Man, what kind of sacrifice is this?” he asked his son. It was the first time in his life that Cain was publicly rebuked. Embarrassed and angry he went home. And from this point forward, he harbored bitter thoughts towards his brother.
The Lord was aware of his problems and warned him: “Why are you so angry? Why the sour look on your face? You will always be accepted if you do what is right, but if you walk down that slippery slope of bad intentions you will be lost.”
Cain heard the Lord, but he was not listening and he did not take His advice to heart. Under pretense to show Abel a new fruit variation he had grown, Cain invited him over one day. Once they were alone, out in the fields, Cain attacked his brother and killed him in cold blood.
Abel would become known as the first human being to experience death. His lifeless body was dropped in a nearby ditch. Cain piled a heap of stones on top of the corpse; then he walked away. However the Lord pursued him and asked: “Where is your brother?” Cain’s answer was flippant. “I’m not my brother’s watchdog,” he replied. But the Lord exclaimed [Genesis 4:10-12]:
“What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
In response Cain said to the Lord, “You are treating me the same way you have treated my parents. You are driving me out, away from the land. So be it! I’ll be a vagabond. Nothing really matters; and regardless what I do or where I go, my family is going to kill me anyway, to avenge Abel.”
“Not so!” was the Lord’s reply, “No good comes from taking revenge.” And He put a protective mark on Cain, so that no one who would find him could kill him. Guilt-ridden, Cain wandered off and we are left to wonder if he would ever reunite with the Lord or his parents.