Raising Cain

Genesis 4

Cain is born and Eve credits God's help in the process. This seems pretty noteworthy. They've just had the reprimand of their short lives- thrown out of the garden- endured pain as punishment- and Eve voices praise. What a great lesson. How often do people experience disillusionment, loss, or pain and begin to question the existence of God (not really an option for Eve) or get angry at God? Eve may have really messed up early on- but her faith here is pretty cool.

It also strikes me that Cain is not your run-of-the-mill psychopath. First off, he gives a sacrifice. Maybe it wasn't what God wanted, maybe it wasn't the best of his crops, maybe he gave it begrudgingly- i can't tell from this chapter- but at least on some level, he sacrficed. And while God wasn't pleased, he doesn't blast him- in fact He encourages him to do better-

"Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

God reaches out His hand. Cain's too angry to see it-but while the sacrifice didn't please God- it's not what drove Cain away. When God punishes him, Cain's response in part is "I will be hidden from your presence." Cain wanted to be with God. He was more than impulsive- he commited great sin- but he wasn't evil. He did evil- but he wasn't evil.

There may be some Cain in all of us. Jealousy ,half-hearted service, vindictiveness- but ultimately a desire to be with God no matter how delusionally we behave.

Some weird stuff:

Lamech throws down the gauntlet for himself. God says that anyone who kills Cain will have seven times the vengeance shown him. When Lamech deals with a"homicidal" issue he says that anyone who takes vengeance on him will suffer 77 times the vengeance. Huh? How is Lamech able to authorize this on his own? What are we supposed to get from Lamech's smack?

Maybe this is a translation issue or maybe I'm reading too much into it- but it seems like Adam and Eve sleep together...and have children. I get the biology of it- but 1) they aren't having too much sex if every time results in a child and 2) Adam's quite a potent dude.

Vs 1Adam [a] lay with his wife Eve, and she becamepregnant and gave birth to Cain.

Vs 25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth  (NIV)

I guess it's the word "again" that makes the inference in my mind. Did they not have sex for pleasure? And if not, why not?

The chapter ends with the statement:
At that time men began to call on [j] the name of theLORD.

but the chapter goes through eight generations ofpeople. Does that mean that none of them until the last group called on God? If it doesn't, it seems an odd way to put it-but Eve calls on him at the beginning of the chapter. When was the time when God wasn't being called on?

Once again a whole lot of questions. Hopefully most of them are inconsequential.