Genesis 4:2

2. She again bare Literally, she added to bear; which expression has usually been construed to mean that Cain and Abel were twins; but such meaning is not necessarily in the words . They simply mean that Eve bore another son . Nor is it necessary to suppose that Abel was born next after Cain; between the two, Adam and Eve may have begotten many sons and daughters . Genesis 5:4. The name Abel, (which means a breath, a vapour, vanity, or nothingness,) suggests that the mother, so joyful and hopeful over her firstborn, had now perceived her error, and the vanity of hopes of human birth . Or, perhaps, the name Abel was given with a fearful presentiment of his lamentable death .

A keeper of sheep… a tiller of the ground Thus the occupations of shepherding and agriculture appear side by side in this most ancient history . The notion that man’s primitive condition was that of savagery, in which he lived by hunting, and from which he subsequently advanced into nomadic pursuits, and later still into the pursuits of agriculture, has no support here . Adam was put in the garden to dress and keep it, (Genesis 2:15,) and on his expulsion thence he was probably instructed to keep sheep for sacrifice and clothing, (Genesis 3:21. ) But there is no evidence that the first generation of men were endued with any superior gifts or with a high civilization . The conditions of such a civilization were, from the nature of the case, wanting . The first men were neither savages nor barbarians; but their numbers were limited, and their habits and pursuits of the most simple kind .