Daily devotion – what should we remember of a man called Cain
Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. Genesis 4:16
Cain’s story in Genesis is one of tragedy, sin, and God’s grace. We know Cain killed his brother Abel. How this must have hit their parents Adam and Eve!
By hating and murdering his brother and refusing to repent, Cain created for himself an intolerable life. In Genesis 4:7, Cain opened the door to temptation and closed the door on his family, God and his future. No matter where he lived or what he did , Cain would always be a restless man for whom there was no remedy.
But we read that God did a stranger thing: He put a mark on Cain that would protect him from the assaults of people who wanted to kill him. What that mark was we are not told. This was an act of mercy on God’s part.
But the biggest question people often raise about Cain is – where did Cain get his wife? This rises up again and again.
And Cain knew his wife: Genesis 5:4 Adam had other sons and daughters. Cain obviously married his sister. Though marrying a sister was against the law of God according to Leviticus 18:9, 18:11, 20:17, and Deuteronomy 27:22 (which even prohibits the marrying of a half-sister), this was long before God spoke that law to Moses and the world.
Here, necessity demanded that Adam’s sons marry his daughters. And at this point, the gene pool of humanity was pure enough to allow close marriage without harm of inbreeding.
But as a stream can get more polluted the further it flows from the source, there came a time when God decreed there no longer be marriage between close relatives because of the danger of inbreeding.
Even Abraham married his half-sister Sarah (Genesis 20:12). God did not prohibit such marriages until the time of Moses (Leviticus 18:9). Marrying a brother or sister was not forbidden until God forbade it.
But back to the main issue of Cain’s life. Why would God allow a murderer like Cain to go free? In His mercy, God does not give us what we deserve, and in His grace, He gives us what we don’t deserve.
This is the nature of God. God spared Cain’s life – but that was not the end of the story – eventually Cain died and “after this the judgment” – Hebrews 9:27!
The entire civilization that he built was destroyed in the flood, and the record of his life is left in the Word of God as a warning to anybody who pretends to worship, plays with sin and does not take God seriously.
Jude reminds us of this – “The Way of Cain” – Jude 11 – is not the narrow way that leads to life!
This is the most important thing we need to focus on in the tragic life of a man called Cain!