What is the parable of Cain and Abel about? And is it a parable at all? After all, this is about murder, the first after the fall, and with it the history of fallen humanity begins. In itself this is no surprise...
What is the parable of Cain and Abel about? And is it a parable at all? After all, this is about murder, the first after the fall, and with it the history of fallen humanity begins. In itself this is no surprise: how else would such a history begin? And there have been so many murders in human history that the story of Cain and Abel can be considered typical, characteristic of every age, including the age of prehistory that the sacred writer has in mind. True, this is not simply murder; it is murder out of envy. But that too is no rarity. People have killed out of envy so many times and, without doubt, will kill so many times again that in terms of motive as well, the event described by the author of the Pentateuch can be considered typical. Only the envy here is not quite ordinary: Cain envied not just anything, but Abel's faith, more precisely, his trusting relationship with God, which Cain himself, judging by the sacred writer's account, did not have.
A natural question arises: why? What hindered Cain? Evil intentions toward his brother? They would have served as a reason, but they appeared only after Cain became convinced that God did not need his sacrifice. The fact that Cain was a farmer and Abel a shepherd? From the point of view of representatives of certain specific movements within Yahwism, such an answer would have been fully adequate, but the author of the Pentateuch hardly belonged to them, although he undoubtedly knew about such movements and about how their participants regarded settled and nomadic ways of life.
Then what was it? When reading the parable attentively, one interesting nuance stands out: Cain knows perfectly well that God did not accept his sacrifice. From where? We know this from the sacred writer's account, but how and from where did Cain learn that God had rejected his sacrifice? Cain clearly had some ways to find out whether God had accepted his sacrifice or not. Historians of religion know many methods that were used in antiquity to determine whether a sacrifice was pleasing to God or the gods, or not pleasing. Cain had opportunities to learn what interested him and what was so important to him. And what about Abel? Not a word is said about him. So he was not interested in finding out whether God had accepted his sacrifice? If we follow the author of the parable, the answer is no. Abel simply brings his sacrifice to God and lives peacefully.
God confirms that this very position is the right one. He says to Cain: if you do good deeds, lift up your head; and if not, then look, sin is at the door, it reaches out for you, but you must rule over it. Everything is simple, but Cain is not satisfied precisely with this simplicity. He needs guarantees; he wants to understand whether God has accepted his sacrifice or not, so that afterward he will know what he can count on in return. You give to me, I give to you: for the fallen world these are normal relations, but not with God. Cain wants them to be the same with God as well. He is angry at God when he understands that his sacrifice has not been accepted (in the Hebrew text this is exactly so: Cain is angry rather than saddened), lowers his head, and turns away from God. A relationship with Him in freedom and love, but without guarantees, does not satisfy Cain.
That is why he kills Abel: after all, everything works out for Abel, but not in the way Cain would like. It appears to him that if Abel disappears, then everything will work out for him, Cain. But when he kills him, it turns out that nothing has changed, that it was all in vain; yet even after the murder Cain does not want to acknowledge the obvious, the spiritual failure that is perfectly clear to God.
It is no accident that Cain's descendants build a city and create civilization: this is precisely how fallen humanity seeks to guarantee its well-being and its security. It did not work out with God; well then, in the end one can get by without Him. Yet this is a dead end, and it is no accident that the genealogy of Cain's descendants ends without leading anywhere. But the line begun by Seth, who came in Abel's place, leads to Abraham, to the people of God.
