Genesis Diaries 4:8

We have no way of knowing how long it was between God’s warning to Adam and the actual eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by Eve and then Adam.  Similarly, we have now way of knowing the length of time between God’s warning to Cain and the murder of Abel.  The lack of description in the account both highlights that the detail of the murder is not the point of the story, and it allows us to feel haunted by what may have happened.  

At some point post-sacrifice debacle Cain spoke to Abel.  Was the conversation angry and accusatory?  Or did Cain speak sweetly to his younger brother in order to lure him into specific spot before he murdered him?  Was it in cold blood or in hot blood?  Did Cain even realize that what he did was going to end in Abel’s death?  Or did he count on it?  

Most disturbing for me is how in verse 8 of the fourth chapter it says “And when they were in the field…”. The field.  It is not merely a field, but the field. 

We always think of the murder of Abel as occurring in a desolate place, far away from Adam and Eve, or a good distance away from Abel’s pens of Cain’s garden.  The word used for “field” here can lend to a “home of wild beasts” or merely a plain, as opposed to hills or a mountain, land as opposed to water.  The primary usage, however, is to describe a cultivated field, and who was in possession of a cultivated field?  Cain.  

There is a disturbing symmetry here.  The first sin was done in a garden.  The second sin was done in the garden.  Adam and Eve wanted to be like God, consumed by a desire to be better than they were.  Cain, so jealous of God’s favor on his little brother.  And what is that jealousy other than wanting to be better than we are?  What moves us more than jealousy and envy?  They speak intimately to our pride which is, as far as I can tell, the doorway that sin is perpetually stretched out in.  All sin goes back to pride which is so very connected to ego.

Ultimately, The LORD had not rejected Cain personally, merely the offering.  

It’s often hard for us to separate the work of our hands and who we are.  When I write a story or a poem I tell myself that it doesn’t matter if anyone sees it or not, if anyone approves of it, or, in the modern, if anyone likes, shares, or subscribes.  I tell myself I won’t look at the analytics when I publish because the LORD sees it and that should be more than enough.  I lie to myself in saying that a human audience, and praise for a work well done, or the applause after I tell a story doesn’t matter or shouldn’t matter.  I want to be seen.  I want my work to be appreciated.

And it occurs to me as I write this that if Abel had been producing an excellent sacrifice all of his days, then Cain wouldn’t be feeling such shame.  This must have been a first time occurrence.  Abel must have striven to please God, and yet again and again big brother came out on top.  Big brother’s sacrifice was accepted and little brother’s rejected.  Oh how that first rejection must have stung.  Was Cain coasting; offering whatever he believed was good enough, counting on past success to be pleasing to God?  Was Abel truly trying to discover how to greatly please the LORD and hit upon it?  

But Cain made the mistake we all make every day.  We misplace value.  We misunderstand our position with the LORD.  Of course Cain wanted to be accepted, wanted the God of all creation, whom he was able to speak to and hear from, to be pleased with him.  He mistook what he could do, what he could offer, with his inherent value. How much is that true of us all?

The two brothers speak.  The two brothers walk into the field.  Cain rises up against Abel in the field and kills him.  The first human death in the history of creation occurs and one has to imagine the world shuddered.  

What happens after death?  We know or think we know.  The Bible speaks on the subject in multiple places, but what did they know?  How could they know?  They had no concept of human death.  Animals died and they died for their food and their clothing, for sacrifice.  Human had dominion over the earth and everything in it.  But one human intentionally killing another?  This was not something they knew how to deal with.

We imagine that Cain picks up a rock in a rage and hits his brother over the back of the head with it.  This is not in the text.  Disturbingly, it is just as likely that in his anger, with sin having it’s full domination of him, that he choked his brother out with his own bare hands.  With such brevity, the scriptures make functionally a footnote of the event.  Able is in the field.  Able is dead.  But the echoes go on and on throughout eternity.  It is there in Jacob and Esau, the resentment between David and his elder brothers, Solomon and Absalom, and even down to this day.  Even Jesus, thousands of years later, tells us in Matthew 5:21-22 that to be angry with a brother is on par with murder in the eternal judgement.  We misplace value with nearly clockwork certainty and the call out is always the same.  

“Beware of sin.  You must master it.  It wants you, and you’ll do terrible things to satisfy it.  Don’t let it trick you into letting it control you.  Like a prostitute it tells you it will give you what you want what you need, and no one needs know.  Sin seduces you telling you that for a price you can have your desire.  It will destroy your entire life, well-being, peace, and your very soul.  Listen to Me.”