Why was Cain's offering rejected by God?

Did you know that Matthew is written with the Jews in mind and only includes their history which starts with Abraham? It records the Lord’s royal lineage of King David through Abraham.

It was a selected geneology. Nothing wrong with that.
I'm more interested in who WAS included. That is truly worth study.
Why study things that tear down the Bible and erode our confidence in it?
Except to understand where the teachers of error are saying.

Those are interesting questions.

I especially wonder about what Moses wrote concerning the seventh day in the creation week. (Gen.2:2-3)
Many use that text to claim that the Sabbath day was from the beginning. But Moses was writing this in retrospect after the law had been given to the Israelites through him.

The word Sabbath does not appear in the Bible until Exodus chapter sixteen with the giving of the manna.
They were to collect manna for six days and rest on the seventh day. Then four chapters later the Sabbath commandment appears in the Ten Commandments.

So, what Moses wrote about the seventh day in Genesis chapter two was pointing back from the law that had been given to the creation week. There is no biblical evidence that anyone kept the Sabbath until Exodus chapter sixteen.

Yes it does. What's your point?

The Bible doesn't say that Cain couldn't have offered a lamb. God said to Cain, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" That shows that Cain could have.

I don't move away from the text when I say that Cain could have offered a lamb. That doesn't violate the text at all.

we have a record of Noah offering animals after the flood ((Genesis 8:20)). this intuitively seems to be a thanksgiving/peace type of offering, not a guilt offering - he's effectively doing this in reply to the grace God has shown him & his family in saving them. it is significant that this is an offering containing blood, and that Noah knows what is a 'clean' animal ((most likely in terms of sacrifice, not food - for Noah isn't given animals for food at all until Genesis 9:3, after he's made oblation)). on the other hand, Noah had been on the ark for a year -- he didn't have 'firstfruits' of any kind of grain available to him by this time, tho it's plausible that he may have had firstborn animals. in either case, Noah had personal access to livestock to sacrifice, belonging to him, so he's not in the same situation as Cain who we may presume did not have animals *of his own* to present. so i think Noah's offering is inconclusive as far as it speaks to whether a bloodless offering would have been acceptable.

there is also this, which may be an oblique record of sacrifice:


this is an hard verse to understand -- what does it mean that then men began to call on the name of the LORD?
Cain & Abel weren't doing this? probably a question worth it's own thread

No one understands all of God's Ways, that's where the obedience of faith comes in. Do you think Naaman understood all the reasoning and 'whys and wherefores' of the command to wash seven times in the Jordan? Or the Israelites to look on a bronze serpent on a pole?

More to the point, the text about Cain and Abel cannot be taken out of context of the chapter before (Gen 3) (chapters are man made) nor can it be removed from the context of the whole bible viz., our approach to God involves the shedding of blood.

There is too much bloodless Christianity today, people think they can approach God willy nilly through another Jesus...a bloodless one.

Yes. I know a lot about the gospel of Mathew.
It quotes the O.T. more than the other gospels and was written to show that Jesus was the awaited Messiah.

The Royal lineage of David, however, that does go back to Abraham, does not include each and every member of that lineage. It was separated by the number 14...see Mathew 1:17

As I have said already, your assumptions are not supported by the text.

You appear to be arguing just to argue. And no, I will not explain again. Re-read if you need to.
You have convinced yourself. Be satisfied with that, or consider an alternative view.
Could you successful debate this from the other side?

Shepherding IS farming, in my country. We have a department store called FARMERS and it does not even sell grain, seeds, sheep or farmers equipment. It sells everything else! Oringial name was farmers trading company and the farmers needed everything else to live on.

In america the division of labour is so industrialised and weird that they dont even know how to farm organically. One has grazing stock fenced off and also has garden / crops. The grassland and pasture is for the sheep and cattle, the stock manure the land and prepare it for crops its called land rotation. Most people who steward the land will do both its not a monoculture.

I don't know what "assumptions" you're talking about.

Cain did not do well because he did not believe God would replenish his offering, and so he offered his waste product in sacrifice.

I believe John has a good point Cain could have offered a lamb too if he also had kept some sheep.
Interesting that adam and eve did not offer anything.

Im still off the opinion that Cain wasnt offering his firstfruits as it did not mention. Maybe it was cursed because the first fruits were from the beginning not offered to God instead his parents decided to eat and kept it for themselves.

Again, I appreciate the fact that you are really digging into this topic. Thanks.
You are really giving this some serious thought while others are satisfied to give us the party line.

Very interesting points.
Add this to what I was saying earlier about Moses writing in Gen.2 about the seventh day.
It is written after the law had been given to Israel through him. It makes me wonder if Noah had some understanding of the law, or if he was just being obedient to God, not knowing the full implications of what he was doing. Then when Moses wrote about it he described it in terms that helped the Israelites reading/hearing the text to how it applied to them. (more than to Noah)

The Gen.4 reference you provided makes me wonder if God was becoming more and more distant and humankind became more and more wicked. Approaching the days of the flood. Earlier in the chapter, God was right there to talk to Cain. By verse 26 men are having to call on his name. And as you asked, what does it mean? Were they invoking the name, or praying, or calling out for God to come and speak with them?

you missed that Cain was firstborn -- Genesis 4:1

i was reading a little bit of midrash yesterday; it's conjectured that Cain was a farmer because Adam was, and the firstborn adopted the father's occupation. it's suggested that perhaps Abel taking after his mother who 'shepherded' children, took up tending livestock.

with what you were saying, that puts Cain in the position of having expected to have precedence in all things by virtue of being the eldest, and perhaps jealous/envious of his younger brother when he turns out to be the one favored - not unlike the situation with Joseph and his brothers.

You are scratching at straws.
Can you make a solid statement directly from the text?
What do we know for sure based on the text?

iirc one tradition is that God related all this to him when he was up on Mt. Sinai. he probably wouldn't have learned it as a child in the Egyptian royal household, but could have collected oral histories from the elders of the people when they left Egypt together.

he was 3 months old when his mother put him in his little ark ((Exodus 2:2))
but he was raised at least in part by his sister until he "was older" ((Exodus 2:8-10)) -- it's not clear whether this was in his own household or in the royal court, but it's possible Miriam passed down lore as she raised him, or his own parents if he was reared in their house before being brought to Pharaoh's daughter

Im thinking why when cain was born that adam and eve did not offer him up to God as he was their firstling. It doesnt say. EVe only remarked I have gotten a man from the Lord. But she didnt offer him to God.
Some of it I do think of as parental failure. It does not say how old cain and abel were at the time but they were actually the first children born i.e from babies.

Later in the Bible we read one of the requirements is that the firstborn thats opened up the womb is offered to God. And this goes for people too not just animals. Of course God may be merciful and give ones child back but its the act of offering thats improtant. This is why an animal is offered as a sacrficie instead.

Samuel was offered to God as Hannahs firstborn and he became a priest and prophet.