CAIN, A TILLER OF THE GROUND 

From the beginning, Cain was connected with the cursed earth as a ‘tiller of the ground’. This possibly made him physically stronger than his brother Abel who was a shepherd. However, it was not Cain’s occupation that brought about the tragic results for himself and his family, but his fundamental character.

After some time, Cain looked at the results of ‘the sweat of his face’ as a cultivator, and out of it chose what he thought was the best, and proudly presented it as an offering to the Lord, satisfied no doubt in his own mind that it should be accepted. Abel also brought his offering, but his was a sacrifice of ‘the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof’, his thoughts going back, no doubt, to God’s provision of the coverings of skin for his parents and the animal death involved in producing them.

Cain’s offering had no true spiritual content, but in spite of that it formed the basis of all later man-made religions, stemming from man’s own reasonings and his own efforts, see Rom. 1. 21-28. The Lord accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s, and Cain was, as a result, very angry.

The Lord’s comment on this was, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, [a] sin [offering] lieth at the door’, v. 7. In other words, Cain, like his brother had every opportunity of doing well, and even if he failed, there was a sin offering at hand, available to him as it had been to Abel. However, he did not do well, nor did he have any respect for the sin offering. The awful end result was the unprovoked murder of his brother, whom he probably overcame with superior human strength.

Why did Cain kill Abel? The Bible gives the clear answer, ‘Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous’, 1 John 3. 12 – it was his own love of evil, hatred of that which was good and jealousy of its results, for he craved praise for his own efforts. Human religion, so misguided, has always misused worldly power to persecute the true believer who seeks to worship in spirit and in truth.