Leon's Bible Commentary 9 Cain and Abel

By Leon.

Jerusalem 2005

Gen 4: 6

"And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? and why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, shall you not be accepted? and if you do not well, sin lies at the door. And to you shall be his desire, and yet you may rule over him."

Most people justify Cain's anger and sadness. Most people say:: "Cain was angry and he had good reason to be so."

1.His position of only child in the family is challenged by the birth of Abel. 2. God preferred Abel's meat offering to Cain's vegetable offering.

These two events cause him to be angry and sad. These feelings control him. and cause him to carry out the crime of murdering Abel.

On closer examination, however, it's clear that God's words aren't a question,
they're a warning in the sense of "You're angry, you shouldn't be. Your countenance is fallen, it shouldn't be."

This is a. warning against allowing anger and sadness to take control of him..
It's a warning that being angry and sad will cause him to sin.
Those who see God's question as a warning understand the question to be God's way of saying:
"don't be angry even if you think that having suffered makes you justified in being angry and sad".

Cain's suffering arose from a feeling of rejection by God.
This was an erroneous conclusion, a delusion, that lead to anger and sadness.

God was telling him not to be angry or sad because if he knew the truth why God rejected his sacrifice he wouldn't have been angry and sad.

But Cain was angry and sad because he had jumped to a hasty and wrong conclusion about why God refused his sacrifice.

This conclusion was a delusion. Only a delusion can cause anger and sadness.
Truth can never be a cause of anger and sadness.

Cain's anger seemed so natural that it appeared to be based on the truth.
This is exactly the power of delusion.

It appears to be truth.

The only way to avoid being angry is to be totally convinced that truth is never a reason to be angry or sad.
Being angry or sad is in itself proof that we have been deluded.
The naturalness of anger and sadness is a delusion.

It only appears that you are justified in being angry and sad.

The true reason for God's rejection of Cain's sacrifice can be found in the punishment that God brings on Cain.

Gen 4:12

"When you till the ground, it shall not henceforth yield to you her strength...."

We understand from this that previously the ground yielded its strength without Cain needing to make any effort

In other words before Cain sinned it was easy for him to work the soil.

The true reason why God rejected Cain's sacrifice and accepted Abel's sacrifice is because offering to God must be the result of human labor and it must be from property that the sacrificer owns completely.

Cain did not work to produce the products that made up his offering and he didn't own the land on which it was produced.

According to the text .
Gen 4: 3
"...... Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock ....."

A sacrifice must be something that man has produced not something that he has been given to him without effort.

"Work in Biblical thought is a supreme value, Cain neglected to work and idleness caused him first to toy with the idea of bringing sacrifices and afterwards of murder."
(A Korman, The Journal of the Israel Society of Biblical Research.)

This is the true reason why God rejected Cain's sacrifice.
This truth was a lesson than man needs to learn so that he can live as a decent human being.

It was not a reason to become angry or sad. The cause of anger and sadness is a delusion of being rejected by God.

He is also deluded because he doesn't differentiate between deeds that are a sin and deeds which we need to learn.

Bringing an offering from produce that wasn't his wasn't a sin; it was a mistake in conduct that needed to be corrected.

Being susceptible to delusions, Cain must have suffered much in his life.
He was probably also deluded that his parents rejected him after the birth of Abel.
He must have suffered from the delusion that sheep farming was more honorable and perhaps profitable and that tilling the soil was a demeaning occupation.

His delusions must have filled him with hatred.
His suffering when God accepted Abel's offering and rejected his must have been the "last straw" that brought him finally to sin.

Cain could have avoided being deluded and so he wouldn't have become angry and sad.

He could have avoided being sad and angry by listening to God's advice.
He didn't and he was deluded and became angry and sad.
He didn't listen to God and so committed murder and sinned and was punished.
He finally learned what a sin is. Murder is a sin.

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