NOTES for Gen 4:1-26

Cain has long become a symbol of fratricide, and people usually do not even think about why everything turned out this way and what, exactly, Cain killed Abel for. Both brought sacrifices, and the Lord "looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favor." In other words, He accepted Abel's sacrifice and did not accept Cain's sacrifice. Two questions arise. First: what was it about Cain's sacrifice that did not please the Lord? Second: if He did not accept it, then He did not accept it; where is the tragedy? Let us begin with the tragedy. The Lord preferred one of the two brothers. He liked Abel's sacrifice more; He loves him more. Cain's reaction is jealousy. And now it is easier to answer the first question: what was it about Cain's sacrifice that displeased God? Most of all, he was probably already bringing this sacrifice with precisely such an inner feeling: with a desire to buy God's favor. What followed, the murder, proves that Cain's heart had not been open to God from the beginning. And therefore, however much the Lord might have wanted to, He could not accept such a sacrifice, a sacrifice brought not from the heart but for some purpose of Cain's own.