Chapter two. Rejected Sacrifice - Dejected Person Genesis 4:3-7 (2024)

FAQs

Why did God reject Cain's sacrifice? ›

One of the more popular explanations has been that God preferred Abel's offering because it was the firstborn from his flock, while Cain's offering was a mere "garden variety" of assorted produce.

God acknowledges the reality of human nature. We are locked in a battle with sin's desire for us (or our desire to sin). God tells Cain he is responsible to win that battle, to rule over his sin.

This passage details the murder of Abel by his older brother Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel work the ground and tend sheep. They worship God, but Cain kills Abel in a fit of envy over God's rejection of Cain and his offering. The first human born on earth becomes the first murderer.

Abel, a generous shepherd, offered the fattest of his sheep as an oblation to God. But Cain, a miserly farmer, offered only a bunch of grass and some worthless seeds to him. God accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's—an indication that Abel was more righteous than Cain, and thus worthier of Aclima.

However, he didn't express remorse for his actions – he was only concerned that others might want to kill him for what he had done. In his mercy, the Lord “put a mark on Cain, so that no one would kill him at sight,” (Genesis 4:15). Cain was exiled to Nod, the land east of Eden, where he later started his own family.

But what God did, He made the first sacrifice for sin. The payment was through a blood sacrifice. God knew that one day, His Son would come, and JESUS would become the ultimate sacrifice, once and for all, for all our sins.

Genesis 4:7 says, “It's desire, sin's desire, is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” And this is where we realize, none of us is able to do that. We have all shown that we are susceptible to sin, we are weak before sin, we are prone to sin, we give in to sin, we are guilty of sin.

Within this chapter, we see the circle of life, from birth to death. Birth is the blessing of God and the following of His command to Adam and Eve to populate the earth. Death, in Genesis 4, is a product of sin.

Eve recognizes His help in bearing her son Cain and later Seth. Cain and Abel both worship God until Cain kills Abel. God provides protection for Cain, whose descendants become innovative, artful, arrogant, and violent. The descendants of Seth, however, begin to call on the Lord's name.

Genesis 4:6-7. Because God had not accepted his offering or because He had accepted Abel's, Cain was angry and depressed. God tells him that if he changes his ways, he will indeed be accepted.

What does Genesis 4:3:5 mean? ›

Genesis 4:3-5 - "In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.

meaning not any particular day, not the first day, in which the heavens and the earth were created; but referring to the whole time of the six days, in which everything in them, and relating to them, were made.

Spurred by social comparison, Cain and Abel represent rival responses to the suffering inherent in the human condition following the rise of self-consciousness. Abel's suffering leads to his self-development as a warrior. Cain's suffering leads to envy, malevolence, and murder.

According to the Coptic Book of Adam and Eve (at 2:1–15), and the Syriac Cave of Treasures, Abel's body, after many days of mourning, was placed in the Cave of Treasures, before which Adam and Eve, and descendants, offered their prayers.

Rashi (1:4) comments on Genesis 4:15 by saying that the mark was one of the Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton: "He engraved a letter of His [God's] Name onto his [Cain's] forehead." The same statement about the Tetragrammaton was expressed by Targum Jonathan, Pirqé Rabbi Eliezer 21, and Zohar I. 36b.

“By faith in this atonement or plan of redemption, Abel offered to God a sacrifice that was accepted, which was the firstlings of the flock. Cain offered of the fruit of the ground, and was not accepted, because he could not do it in faith; he … could not exercise faith contrary to the plan of heaven. …

In answer to this, conservative readers point to a later verse, Gen 5:4 , which states that Adam had “other sons and daughters,” arguing that Cain's wife was his sister (or perhaps his niece) and that in the early days of humanity, marriage between brothers and sisters was both necessary and genetically safe.

types of food that have come from plants, such as vegetables or grain.