Genesis 4

This chapter details the tragic story of two Adamic brothers, Cain and Abel, in whose lives there appeared a dramatic acceleration of the disastrous consequences of the Fall, just related in the preceding chapter. Not even the source-splitting critics dared tamper with the placement of this chapter, despite the use of a different name for God. Not only is it a logical development and consequence of events in Genesis 3, but it lays down the basis for the destruction of the world in the Great Deluge, showing how Cain started a wicked generation that ultimately corrupted mankind and "precipitated the Flood,"[1] the narration of that event apparently being already in the mind of the narrator. This, of course, is a marvelous demonstration of the unity of Genesis and another confirmation of the fact that the multiple sources theory postulated upon the use of different names for God "has no substantial basis in the Biblical text."[2] Nor can we accept the assertion that this story is merely a myth. Jesus Christ himself referred to Abel as a "righteous man" (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:50); and both Cain and Abel are repeatedly referred to in the N.T. as real characters, as in Hebrews 11:4,12:24; 1 John 3:12; and Jude 1:1:11.

The great message of the chapter is that sin is a cancer that grows progressively worse and worse. Eating of the forbidden tree might have appeared to Adam and Eve as a minor event, but when they stood by the grave of Abel, the true nature of what they had done began to be visible. But even that heart-breaking sorrow was only the first little pebble of that tremendous avalanche that would soon engulf all mankind in the floods of the Great Deluge.