Ok, now for my commentary on Genesis 4.
Having read this passage just a short while ago, I noticed something about it I never noticed before in any of my prior readings of it, and that is that Genesis 4 does not really flow that well from Genesis 3. There seems to be some disconnect going on, in that (in Genesis 4) Adam and Eve were probably not the only humans directly formed by God as the passage seems to contain references to human outsiders, those not a part of the tribe of Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3, however, Eve is deemed the mother of all human beings. Furthermore, it doesn't feel like the fall (depicted in Genesis 3) was a thing in Genesis 4. If anything, it seems like Adam and Eve and their children were all very much "in the presence of the LORD" irrespective of what happened in Genesis 3, whereas other human beings living at the time were not (i.e., they were not in an intimate relationship with God). At least that's how I'm currently seeing it.
As for the story itself, it was a good one. And in fact, you could consider this passage the first indicator of the fall/depravity of humankind. It's just, without much context, it's not really clear what led Cain to kill his brother Abel. Was it simply because Abel's offering was accepted by God while Cain's offering wasn't? And was Cain willingly defying some unwritten divine requirement by offering God only some of the fruits? Or was God just not happy with fruits and needed more blood sacrifice to appease his aversion to human sin?
Whatever the case may be, I feel nothing but empathy towards the character of Cain, if only because it feels like there's something more to the story than what's actually written. I'm doing nothing but projecting here, but perhaps Abel was not as innocent as it seems in the text. He may have been the type of person who did all the right things in God's eyes but went about it in a way that continually provoked jealousy and bitterness in Cain. Or perhaps God accepted Abel's offering simply because he liked Abel, whereas God's like of Cain was conditional on whether or not he did the right thing (Genesis 4:6).
What Cain eventually did to Abel was extreme, but I can still sort of understand [intellectually] why he would be driven to kill his own brother in a fit of rage, if he felt he was being treated unfairly by everyone especially God. It may explain why God went easy on him as well, so that instead of imposing a death sentence on him or something like that, he simply banished Cain out of the paradise he was in while making sure Cain was protected from harm by outsiders.
But anyway ... that's the first depiction of murder in the Bible.
Now for the rest of the passage:
Cain makes love to his wife (hopefully not also his sister), and they give birth to Enoch (not to be confused with the more popular Enoch). A city built by Cain is named after Enoch (probably the first city ever built in biblical mythology). From Enoch, a man by the name of Lamech was an eventual descendant. This Lamech had two wives: Adah and Zillah. Adah, through her son Jabal, was the mother of the people of tents and livestock and, through her son Jubal, was the mother of the people of stringed instruments and pipes (thus, the presence of such people is now explained in this particular genealogical myth). Zillah, on the other hand, was the mother of Tubal-Cain, who was known for forging tools of various kinds out of bronze and iron (the first blacksmith perhaps).
There is also a very brief substory about how Lamech, after killing a young man for injuring him, informed/warned his two wives that "if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times". I'm not going to pretend to know what the point of all these apparent irrelevancies is supposed to, so I'll leave it at that.
Finally, we find out that Adam and Eve have given birth to a third son, calling him Seth, making a happy woman out of Eve once again. Seth grows up and brings forth Enosh into the world.
The last part of the last verse of the passage:
"At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD."
Does this mean not all people at the very beginning relied on the God of the Bible? Or is it supposed to be taken more literally to mean that people finally began to refer to God as the LORD when they didn't before?
The LORD knows ...
Having read this passage just a short while ago, I noticed something about it I never noticed before in any of my prior readings of it, and that is that Genesis 4 does not really flow that well from Genesis 3. There seems to be some disconnect going on, in that (in Genesis 4) Adam and Eve were probably not the only humans directly formed by God as the passage seems to contain references to human outsiders, those not a part of the tribe of Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3, however, Eve is deemed the mother of all human beings. Furthermore, it doesn't feel like the fall (depicted in Genesis 3) was a thing in Genesis 4. If anything, it seems like Adam and Eve and their children were all very much "in the presence of the LORD" irrespective of what happened in Genesis 3, whereas other human beings living at the time were not (i.e., they were not in an intimate relationship with God). At least that's how I'm currently seeing it.
As for the story itself, it was a good one. And in fact, you could consider this passage the first indicator of the fall/depravity of humankind. It's just, without much context, it's not really clear what led Cain to kill his brother Abel. Was it simply because Abel's offering was accepted by God while Cain's offering wasn't? And was Cain willingly defying some unwritten divine requirement by offering God only some of the fruits? Or was God just not happy with fruits and needed more blood sacrifice to appease his aversion to human sin?
Whatever the case may be, I feel nothing but empathy towards the character of Cain, if only because it feels like there's something more to the story than what's actually written. I'm doing nothing but projecting here, but perhaps Abel was not as innocent as it seems in the text. He may have been the type of person who did all the right things in God's eyes but went about it in a way that continually provoked jealousy and bitterness in Cain. Or perhaps God accepted Abel's offering simply because he liked Abel, whereas God's like of Cain was conditional on whether or not he did the right thing (Genesis 4:6).
What Cain eventually did to Abel was extreme, but I can still sort of understand [intellectually] why he would be driven to kill his own brother in a fit of rage, if he felt he was being treated unfairly by everyone especially God. It may explain why God went easy on him as well, so that instead of imposing a death sentence on him or something like that, he simply banished Cain out of the paradise he was in while making sure Cain was protected from harm by outsiders.
But anyway ... that's the first depiction of murder in the Bible.
Now for the rest of the passage:
Cain makes love to his wife (hopefully not also his sister), and they give birth to Enoch (not to be confused with the more popular Enoch). A city built by Cain is named after Enoch (probably the first city ever built in biblical mythology). From Enoch, a man by the name of Lamech was an eventual descendant. This Lamech had two wives: Adah and Zillah. Adah, through her son Jabal, was the mother of the people of tents and livestock and, through her son Jubal, was the mother of the people of stringed instruments and pipes (thus, the presence of such people is now explained in this particular genealogical myth). Zillah, on the other hand, was the mother of Tubal-Cain, who was known for forging tools of various kinds out of bronze and iron (the first blacksmith perhaps).
There is also a very brief substory about how Lamech, after killing a young man for injuring him, informed/warned his two wives that "if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times". I'm not going to pretend to know what the point of all these apparent irrelevancies is supposed to, so I'll leave it at that.
Finally, we find out that Adam and Eve have given birth to a third son, calling him Seth, making a happy woman out of Eve once again. Seth grows up and brings forth Enosh into the world.
The last part of the last verse of the passage:
"At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD."
Does this mean not all people at the very beginning relied on the God of the Bible? Or is it supposed to be taken more literally to mean that people finally began to refer to God as the LORD when they didn't before?
The LORD knows ...
