Genesis 4

Genesis 4:1

Gen. 4:1. “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” In Eve’s expressing herself thus, it is probable she had an eye to what God said, that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head: and now seeing she had a son, her faith and hope was strengthened that the promise should be fulfilled.

Gen. 4:3-4

Genesis 4:3-4

Gen. 4:3, 4. Cain’s and Abel’s sacrifice. Abel when he comes before God is sensible of his own unworthiness and sinfulness, like the publican, and so is sensible of his need of an atonement, and therefore comes with bloody sacrifices, hereby testifying his faith in the promised great sacrifices. Cain comes with his own righteousness, like the Pharisee, who put God in mind that he paid tithes of all that he possessed. He comes without any propitiation, with the fruit of his ground, and produce of his own labours, as though he could add something to the Most High, by gifts of his own substance; and therefore he was interested in no atonement, for he was not sensible of his need of any, nor did he trust in any; and so being a sinner, and not having perfectly kept God’s commandments, sin lay at his door unremoved, and so his offering could not be accepted, for guilt remained to hinder. This reason God intimates, why his offering was not accepted, in what way he says to him, verse Genesis 4:7, “If thou doest well - if thou keepest my commandments, thou and thine offerings shall be accepted; but seeing thou doest not well, as thine own conscience witnesses that in many things thou hast offended, the guilt of sin remains to hinder thy being accepted without an atonement, thy righteousness cannot be accepted, whatever offering thou mayest bring to me.” See Bp. Sherlock’s Use and Intent of Prophecy, p. 74, 75, and Owen on Hebrews 11:4, p. 18.

Gen. 4:7

Genesis 4:7

Gen. 4:7. “If thou doest well, shalt not thou be accepted; and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Cain was not accepted in his offering, because he did not well - because, 1. He was a wicked man, led an ill life under the reigning power of the world and the flesh, and therefore his sacrifice was an abomination to the Lord, Proverbs 15:8, a vain oblation, Isaiah 1:13. God had no respect to Cain himself, and therefore no respect to his offering, as the manner of the expression verse 5 intimates. But Abel was a righteous man: he is called righteous Abel, Matthew 23:35. His heart was upright, and his life was pious; he was one of those whom God’s countenance beholds, Psalms 11:7, and whose prayer is therefore his delight, Proverbs 15:8. God had respect to him as a holy man, and therefore to his offering as a holy offering. The tree must be good, else the fruit cannot be pleasing to the heart-searching God. 2. There was a difference in the offerings they brought. It is expressly said, Hebrews 11:4, Abel’s was a more excellent sacrifice than Cain’s: either, 1. In the nature of it. Cain’s was only a sacrifice of acknowledgment offered to the Creator; the meat-offerings of the first of the ground were no more, and for ought I know might have been offered in innocence. But Abel brought a sacrifice of atonement, the blood whereof was shed in order to remission, thereby owning himself a sinner, deprecating God’s wrath, and imploring his favor in a Mediator: or, 2.

In the qualities of the offering. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, anything that came next to hand, what he had not occasion for himself, or was not more charitable. But Abel was curious in the choice of his offering, not the lame, or the lean, or the refuse, but the firstling of the flock, the best he had, and the fat thereof, the best of those best. 3. The great difference was this, that Abel offered in faith, and Cain did not - “Abel was a penitent, like the publican that went away justified; Cain was unhumbled, and his confidence was in himself, like the Pharisee who glorified himself, but he was not so much justified before God.” Henry on verse Genesis 4:3-5. [“If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.”] Not at Cain’s door, but at God’s door. His wicked doings lay, as it were, at the door of God’s temple, to prevent his admittance and acceptance with God: they stood as a partition-wall between God and him. Wicked men’s sins are a cloud which their prayers cannot pass through, and which hinders their offerings from being brought into the holy place: they are a thick veil before the door of the holiest of all, to hinder their access to God. 1 John 3:21; 1 John 3:22, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

Gen. 4:14

Genesis 4:14

Gen. 4:14. It seems to me no way improbable that Cain’s house was intended, and by him understood, not only of him personally, but of his posterity. Such he might learn from his father Adam, seeing the covenant that was made with him was made not only for himself, but for his posterity. If Cain understood it only of himself personally, it seems somewhat strange that he should express himself after such a manner. The inhabited earth was not broad enough for such expressions. The expression, from thy face, may be in the same sense as David was shut out from the face of God when he dwelt in Ziklag, from his altar where his people sacrificed and worshipped him, and where he especially manifested himself. Doubtless there were then such things as well as afterwards.

Gen. 4:23-24

Genesis 4:23-24

Gen. 4:23, 24. “And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, here my voice, ye wives of Lamech,… I have slain a man,” etc. The probable design of the Holy Spirit in relating this, is to show the great increase of the depravity and corruption of the world of Cain’s posterity, and those that adhered to them at that day, in the generation next to the Flood. This is shown in the particular instance of Lamech, the chief man of Cain’s posterity in his day. Lamech had been guilty of murder, he had slain some man that he had had a quarrel with, and he justifies himself in it, and endeavors to satisfy his wives that he shall escape with impunity, from the instance of Cain, whose life God had protected, and even took especial care that no man should kill him; and had declared if any man killed him, vengeance should be taken on him sevenfold, though the man he slew was his brother and a righteous man, and had done him no injury. But this man he had slain in, or for his wounding (as the words are interpreted by some learned men (see Pool, Synop. in loc.) See instance Joshua 24:32, [the Hebrew word for “an hundred pieces of silver”), - i.e., the man he had slain had injured and wounded him; and therefore if Cain should be avenged sevenfold, doubtless he seventy and sevenfold. By this speech to his wives he shows his impenitence, presumption, and great insensibility.

When Cain had slain his brother, his conscience greatly troubled him; but Lamech, with great obduracy, shakes off all remorse, and as it were bids defiance to all fear and trouble about the matter. That he should set the price of his life so high; that he should imagine that the vengeance due to the man that should take it away ought to be so vastly beyond that which was threatened for the killing of Cain, must be owing to a prodigious pride of heart, esteeming himself a man of such great value, and accounting it so heinous a thing for any to hurt or wound him; and then it shows a vile abuse of God’s goodness, long-suffering, and forbearance, in the instance of Cain, which ought to have led men to repentance. But instead of this, that instance of God’s forbearance probably was so abused as to be one great occasion of that violence that the earth was filled with in Lamech’s days. The sins for which the old world was destroyed were chiefly sensuality, pride, violence, presumption, a stupid, seared conscience, and abusing God’s patience, of each of which Lamech (the head of that wicked world) is here set forth [as] an example, in his polygamy and his murder (which probably was some way occasioned by his polygamy), and in this speech to his wives about what he had done. It need not be wondered at that Lamech should express his mind to his wives any more than that Ahab and Haman should express the wicked workings of their hearts to their wives, [1 Kings 21:5; 1 Kings 21:6; Ephesians 5:10-14;] and it is the less to be wondered at in Lamech’s case, for it is natural to suppose that his wives, knowing what he had done, were full of fear lest the friends of the persons murdered would avenge themselves on him and his family, and that they themselves should lose their lives by the means; which would be more natural still if the quarrel he had had with the young man that was slain, was about his wives, as is probable. This may well account for the earnestness of Lamech’s speech to his wives, as we may well suppose it would require some pains to remove their fears in such a case.

Gen. 4:25

Genesis 4:25

Gen. 4:25. “Hath appointed me,” etc. Eve does not say, God hath appointed us another seed, but hath appointed me. She speaks of Abel and Seth, the righteous children of Adam and Eve, as her seed; and so the Church, or generation of the righteous which was to proceed from Seth, she calls her seed, doubtless with respect to the promise (chap. Genesis 3:15).

Gen. 4:26

Genesis 4:26

Gen. 4:26. “And to Seth, to him also,” etc. The right translation probably is, “Then began men to call by the name of the Lord,” or “in the name of the Lord,” - i.e., then they began to call themselves and their children by or in His name, signifying that then the people of God, - of whom Seth was the principal man, and, as it were, their head leader and chief priest, being with his posterity appointed another seed (seed or generation of God) instead of Abel, - I say, then the people of God, openly to distinguish themselves from the wicked apostate world of the posterity of Cain and those that joined with them, began to appear in a visibly distinct society, being called the children of God, when the others were called the children of men. The children and posterity were looked upon as being in the name of the father and upholding his name. See Numbers 27:4; Deuteronomy 9:14; Deuteronomy 25:7; 1 Samuel 24:21; 2 Samuel 14:7; 2 Samuel 18:18; Rth 4:5; Job 18:17; Isaiah 14:22; Genesis 48:16, compared with Numbers 6:27. On the birth of Enos, it probably first began to be a custom for parents openly to dedicate their children to God and call them by His name, and, as it were, insert them into His name by bringing them to the place of public worship, the transaction being performed by the parents’ solemn declaration and covenant, attended with prayer and sacrifice. See Pool, Synop. in loc.