When we last left the brothers Cain and Abel, the pair had – whether for the first time in all human history, or in the first case the Bible chooses to show us – brought an offering to God, perhaps at some prehistoric religious festival celebrated in their family. Each brought to God out of the results of his labor. Cain, servant of the earth as a farmer, brought some of the fruit of the ground, a portion of the grain harvest no doubt. Abel, shepherd of sheep, brought God a gift from his flock: not only any sheep, but tender lambs; not only lambs, but the firstborn among them; and not only that, but the tastiest ones (Genesis 4:3-4). This just illustrates, though, how Cain and Abel were set apart by their attitudes in worship and by the way they'd been living up to that point: Cain was unrighteous and is being presumptuous and careless, Abel was righteous and is being humble and careful.
So picture the scene. “The LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering” (Genesis 4:4). God had a positive reaction to what Abel gave, in large part because God had a positive reaction to Abel as the giver, looking on his heart. More literally, it says that God gazed on Abel and on his offering, that God paid them attention. Clearly, God accepted them. And God did so in a way that could be known on earth. Unlike a lot of what we do, they got feedback, maybe by fire from heaven. So somehow, it becomes obvious that Abel's offering was accepted by God. Naturally, if this is a social event, if some sort of celestial pyrotechnics made a big display at Abel's altar, all eyes are going to pivot to the ground-up grains and other veggies Cain has piled up, expecting a similar sign to follow shortly. Seconds tick past on the clock. They turn to minutes, and the minutes pile up. Nothing's happening. Heaven has no reaction to this average grain of convenience. Heaven has no reaction to Cain at all. “Cain and his offering he did not regard” (Genesis 4:5). It feels to Cain as though maybe God forgot he exists.
Cain, at this point, is the center of everybody else's attention, but not in a good way. He's feeling more sheepish than any of Abel's lambs. Cain expected to be the leader, expected to be the example. Cain cast himself as the protagonist and is wondering why he's not even in the script, why he's treated like a vagrant who just stumbled onto the set. He deserves, he reckoned, to be honored as the firstborn, as the founder of sacrifice, as the creative genius, as the hard worker worthy of his wages. He thought all his sweat and tears throughout the year would be rewarded in this one moment, his chance to be crowned with favor, his opportunity to secure approbation, his avenue to dispel all doubt, to prove himself, to store up securities.1 But heaven snubs him.
As Cain walks away – cue the slow, soulful music out of a Charlie Brown Christmas special – the Bible keeps the camera on him, zooming in on his face. Unbeknownst to Cain the Forgotten, it's actually time for his close-up, his most deeply focused attention. What is going on in Cain's life, in Cain's mind, in Cain's body, in Cain's heart right now? “It burned to Cain very intensely, and his face fell” (Genesis 4:5). That's what the Bible tells us.
First of all, Cain experiences a wave of embarrassment wash over him. His pride is wounded. His expectations dashed, he feels silly. He went out on a limb and was left high and dry. He's been exposed, in his own eyes and in the public esteem, as defective – at least, that's how he sees it. St. Ephrem imagined that, at least the way Cain saw things, “there was laughter in the eyes of his parents and his sisters when his offering was rejected.”2 Martin Luther similarly described Cain here as “shamefully disgraced in public.”3 This humiliation hits Cain's core sense of self. It leaves him feeling embattled, vulnerable, anxious, afraid of further judgment that may find him wanting, afraid he'll need to hide more and more of himself to disguise his sudden nakedness.
Then, Cain is also made deeply sad. He grieves the loss of honor he suffered. He grieves a wasted opportunity to nab God's blessing. He grieves the course that events took. Cain is wrapped up in sorrow. That's part of why his face has fallen: he's distressed, he's disappointed, he's despondent, he's despairing, he's down in the dumps. Cain's emotional stability, his inner equilibrium, has been disrupted; his walls are breached by advancing gloom.
But more prominent than even the shame and sadness are what they birth together: anger. Anger in the Bible is the natural response to some sort of wrongdoing, real or perceived; and that's true of Cain's anger here.4 It's a hot sensation, something burning like a fire in his nose, reddening his cheeks, boiling his blood. Cain is ignited with anger; you can practically see the steam blowing out his ears. His anger, first of all, targets God. To Cain, God has done something wrong. God has snubbed him. God has dishonored him. God, if Cain tells the story, has done Cain an injustice, an injury. How dare God refuse Cain's gift? How dare God account Cain as a drop in the bucket? How dare God breach Cain's trust and fail to perform on schedule? Cain's anger burns at God; Cain's faith is therefore rocked. He is, in one ancient reader's words, “disenchanted with providence.”5
Cain is also “angry because the offering of his brother had been accepted.”6 Abel's success only throws into relief Cain's failure, underlining it, drawing attention to it. It would've been one thing if both offerings had been rejected. Maybe then it could've been a silly idea they could laugh at later. Or maybe then it could've been a shared injustice that would deepen their bond. Instead, it divides between them, isolating Cain. And this totally upends everything Cain thought about this relationship, in which he'd always been the doted-on firstborn son, the wonder child, while Abel had always been the addition, the appendix, the afterthought. Now, as one Jewish scholar puts it, “for Abel to receive any attention completely disrupts Cain's world; for Abel to receive exclusive attention is utterly devastating.”7 The reason this is so devastating is because Cain believes life is a competition, a zero-sum game, so Abel's advancement must come at Cain's cost.8 So Cain burns passionately to make things right again in his own eyes. He's “very angry,” or, as it's been said, “extremely vexed and terribly agitated.”9
Add all this up, and Cain is “drowning in the waves of his annoyance.”10 (Ever have that feeling?) He's a case study of intense emotion – the natural blossoming of the shame and fear Adam had at the approach of God in the garden. The immediate result of all this sorrow and anger is a pivot toward resentment and bitterness. In his fury, in his depression, in his bitter jealousies, Cain is deeply disaffected with and alienated from everyone and everything, and that bitter taste poisons his moment-to-moment experience, growing as it unfolds.11 Have you ever felt that? I know I have.
“And then the LORD said to Cain...” (Genesis 4:6). Let's not breeze past those words. If God said anything at all to Abel, we don't know it. But Cain – the man who counts himself cast off completely, the man convinced he's getting the silent treatment – now hears the word of the Creator.12 Cain isn't forgotten, Cain isn't ignored, Cain isn't left to rot. All this time, God has been trying to communicate with him, not lock him out! “The loving-kindness of the God of All is shown to be unmatched in dealing with the fallen: far from allowing them to reach the depths of sin, he prompts them to come to their senses and be converted to virtue, as happens also in this case with Cain.”13 So said one early Christian who read this story. God is a God who reaches out!
In this case, God's got some questions for Cain: “Why are you angry? And why has your face fallen?” (Genesis 4:6). “What are you so upset about, Cain? What's gotten you this hot under the collar? Where'd you find that frowny face you're wearing?” God interrogates Cain's emotional crisis, prodding him to reflect on it in reason.
Now, it's important for us to hear what God's not saying. God is not saying that emotions like anger or sadness are intrinsically evil, bad, or improper. God created human nature to include emotions – a whole lot of them! That's part of what it means that we're akin to animals and not just to angels. Living in the material world, we have these impulses which naturally and properly react with anger, with sadness, with other feelings, in certain kinds of situations. They're just part of us. As Lactantius put it, “emotions are a sort of natural exuberance of souls.”14 Just because you feel sad, it does not mean you are broken. Just because you feel angry, it does not mean you are damaged or sinful. The mere fact that Cain feels these feelings he feels is not an indictment. Nor is it a categorical indictment on all human embarrassment, fear, sorrow, anger, and so forth.
But just because these types of emotions are natural, that doesn't mean that every token of them is well directed or appropriate. Lactantius added: “It is good to be emotionally moved in the right direction, and bad in the wrong direction.”15 So, for example – pay attention, Cain – “anyone given to anger can exercise his anger on someone he shouldn't or at an inappropriate time.”16 Though even here, our initial emotional reactions to things – even if they're inappropriate – usually aren't immediately under our control. They're movements that get set in motion before you can reason your way through them or make a willful choice about them.17
Okay, so what is God saying to Cain? First, God is hinting that Cain should pay attention to the reason behind his emotions. What is it that set all this off? Who is it that caused Cain grief and pain? Abel has shown zero malice or aggression toward Cain. The offering of a gift imposed no obligation on God whereby God would owe Cain any particular response, so God did nothing unfair. What really causes Cain's pain are Cain's choices.18 One rabbi put it this way: “The core of his problem lay entirely in the choices Cain himself was making, in the nature of the relationship he was building with God.”19 His anger is misdirected at its root.20
Second, Cain's particular anger and particular sadness are inappropriate in his situation, and that's Cain's choice too. “Insofar as the passions are subject to the control of reason and will,” it's been said, “moral judgments do apply to them.”21 When they're willfully out of place, then “feelings which one may correctly exercise become vices.”22 Cain toward Abel, Jonah toward Nineveh – both had anger that was willfully out of place (Jonah 4:4), since “a person's possession of the good is by no means diminished when another comes or continues to share in it.”23 Because Cain doesn't think that, his emotional reaction is misguided. He ought to feel humbled by the correction; he ought to feel charitable toward Abel; he ought to feel happy that, if not by himself then at least by someone, God has been glorified. But Cain chooses to abide elsewhere, wallowing in “unrighteous anger.”24
God wants Cain to realize that his emotional reactions aren't productive. It's doing Cain no good to be sad with a sorrow that does nothing but bring him down. It's doing Cain no good to be angry with a rage that's burning him up inside. It's doing Cain no good to stew in his shame. It's definitely doing Cain no good to be infected with bitterness or to think resentful thoughts. Why build a house in the swamp? Why not just pass through, move along?
Note, by the way, that God didn't show up to monologue all this at Cain. God sits down at the table for a dialogue with Cain. What would be productive, what would maybe help Cain move on, is to talk about it. And God is saying to Cain, “Hey, I'm here. I'm listening. You're not abandoned, you're not forgotten. You are loved in the midst of your pain, of your depression, of your upset. Tell me what you're going through.” If Cain needs a therapist, God has officially applied for the job. Maybe if Cain opens up, he'll realize how silly his feelings are when he has to explain them. Or maybe he'll vent to God and achieve a sense of catharsis from no longer bottling it up inside.25 Or maybe Cain's begrudging dialogue will create space for God to answer back and teach him – if only Cain will just engage. But now Cain is the one who is silent. Cain has nothing to say to God.
What God is trying to get Cain to see – and all of us to see who've ever felt anything like Cain feels – is that Cain's emotional reactions aren't wholly beyond his control. For one, they stem from decisions Cain is free to revise. For another, Cain can consciously interrogate his emotions and work to redirect them: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him” (Psalm 42:5). Cain can cultivate the character, the habits, that will dispose him to a healthier emotional life: “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).
God wants Cain to realize that, in this very abysmally low and seemingly godforsaken point in his life, actually it's the valley of decision he's walking through. Cain's emotions may have him looking back at that sacrifice debacle, and they may have him looking around at his all-hushing gloom and his loud-clamoring ire, which both enslave the present to the past.26 But God aims to yank Cain's focus out of his funk and onto the futures that fork in front of him. Thoughtfully or thoughtlessly, Cain's next step shapes his fate. This is his standing-before-the-Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil moment.27 So God lays out the two paths and invites him to look down each.
One of the paths, as it happens, would actually resolve Cain's problems.28 “Will there not, if you do good, be a lifting up?” (Genesis 4:7). If you do well, Cain, it'll be swell! Even from within this prison of hurt and sorrow and outrage and heaviness of heart, it's possible to begin the right path, to start batting a thousand from here on out. So what good is Cain capable of? For starters, he can fix what went wrong with his sacrifice, either by repairing it or repeating it. His apparent rejection was a reversible judgment, meant to remind Cain that he's settling for too little in his relationship with God.29 Cain “ought surely to have changed his ways and imitated his good brother” by presenting Cain's own best to God; that would be good.30
Cain could also channel his emotions in a healthy way. The same inner assertiveness that generates such fiery anger could also passionately motivate a changed life and a bettered world. He could steer these emotions to appropriate cases, appropriate outlets, and handle himself well. Then, swallowing his pride, he could cheer for his brother's successes. Suppose Cain could say of Abel, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Suppose Cain could aspire to greatness, not by competing with his brother, but by serving him (Matthew 20:26). Suppose Cain made it his mission to congratulate Abel, rejoice with Abel, encourage Abel to even better things. So, too, it would be good for Cain simply to marvel at the wisdom of God, to make peace with it, to embrace it.
Then, God's saying, there could be a lifting up! His sacrifice would be lifted up to God's presence in acceptance at last.31 Cain's fallen dignity will be lifted up, exalted.32 Cain's past misdeeds will be lifted up off of him in gracious forgiveness.33 Cain's fallen face will be lifted up, because if he just does something good and helpful, it'll break him out of his cycle of self-pity, and that breath of fresh air will gladden his heart.34 And, as the Bible reminds us, “a glad heart makes a cheerful face” (Proverbs 15:13). By lifting up his brother Abel in charity, Cain's relationships will be strengthened, Cain's community will prosper, and they say a rising tide lifts all boats – for St. Augustine pointed out that “goodness is a possession that spreads out more and more widely insofar as those who share in it are united in undivided love.... The more he is able to love the one who shares it with him, the greater he will find that his own possession of it becomes.”35 Plus, Cain will be lifted up within the ways of God himself. “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding” (Proverbs 14:29).
But God also talks about the other path, the one where Cain does not do good. And that, God warns, brings its own dangers. For that's where sin lives – that's the dwelling place of error, misdirection, failure. This verse is so grammatically bonkers in Hebrew that ancient rabbis and modern commentators alike despair of making heads or tails of it.36 The Greek translation has barely anything in common with it. On one reading, sin is “couching at the door,” like some kind of predatory beast lounging right outside your house. Any false move could rouse it suddenly and abruptly into vicious action. On another reading, there's a rabitsu at the door – a demon-like spirit that Israel's neighbors thought lurked in gateways to seize the guilty for judgment.37 These dark-angel deputies or bailiffs, pagans said, were sent out by the gods to whip earthlings into shape; originally good or bad, they were later seen as evil spirits ambushing victims with disaster where they least expected.38
This stretch of Genesis is so fond of double entendres, words that can be read two different ways, that I'd bet both senses are in view.39 There's a predatory beast lounging around like a sleeping lion, a resting snake; there's a demon-deputy sent out to punish wrong, waiting in ambush where you least expect. Whatever's out there, it's active and passive, it's animal and spiritual. There's something dangerous and unsavory, and it has a hankering for Cain. “His desire is for you,” God warns Cain (Genesis 4:7). It looks at Cain the way Eve looks at Adam on the days they'll tell their marriage counselor about later. Behind this image, some suggest, is the Genesis 3 serpent: that's the beast, that's the demon, lying in wait to seduce and snack.40 The Old Serpent wants you, Cain – he aims to slither his way in through any door you're careless to leave open; he longs to grab you by those potent passions of yours, all the better to steer you with; he's ready to bite your heel, to pump into you his venom until you're all poison, until you're just like him.41 Sin wants to master Cain. Sin wants to master us.
To even set out on the road of persisting in inappropriate or untempered anger, to set up a caravan where our passions run free, is a dangerous proposition. That's why Jesus preached that “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:22) – the active or passive cultivation of anger opens wide this door to the dark path, and to the companionship of “this indwelling beast that broods on the unfairness of life.”42 The next stop on the dark path is foolishness. “He who has a hasty temper exalts folly” (Proverbs 14:29), and “when a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the LORD” (Proverbs 19:3).
Next stop: envy, the sick sort of sorrow we aim, not at anything bad that actually happens to us, but at good things happening to others as if it were a bad thing to us.43 Envy in itself is a horrifying thing. St. Cyprian put it like this: “What a plague of one's thoughts, how great a rust of the heart..., to turn the good things of another to one's own evil, to be tormented by the prosperity of illustrious men..., to apply (as it were) hangmen to one's own heart... You are the enemy of no one's well-being more than your own.”44 The Bible says, more succinctly, that “envy makes the bones rot” (Proverbs 14:30). In Cain's case, it'll be even worse than that, “the diabolical envy that the evil feel toward the good simply because they are good while they themselves are evil.”45
Plus, the Bible says, “where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16). The next stop on the dark path is hatred, an utter contempt where anger's potential good desire to restore order through justice becomes nothing but pure rejection. Cain's diabolical envy has to lead here, to “hate one who is blameless” (Proverbs 29:10). Hatred of people, in this sense, is never healthy.
The dark path that covers anger and hatred won't stay safe inside. It's written that “a hot-tempered man stirs up strife” (Proverbs 15:18). “Pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife” (Proverbs 30:33). So too, “hatred stirs up strife” (Proverbs 10:12). Now all that anger and envy and hate become interpersonal, leaking out in words or gestures or other outward signs. Suddenly strife poisons relationships – and that makes everything unpleasant for everybody (Proverbs 17:1). “While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man?” (1 Corinthians 3:3).
Nor will the dark path necessarily stop there. The Bible warns that this swirl of emotions inside us, stoked by the conflict between what life is and what we think it ought to be, can be a source not just of arguments but of violent outbursts and forceful assaults (James 4:1-2). It's the next horrifying step in the natural course that Cain and his anger will take if burning has no imposed limit. Once Cain gets here, sin will “reign in his mortal body, to make him obey its passions,” to the extent that he'll “present his body parts to sin as instruments for unrighteousness” (Romans 6:12-13). And so the Serpent will be master. If this is where Cain will go, then John's right: “We should not be like Cain” (1 John 3:12), “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:15).
But God's last words to Cain are good news for us, too, even if we feel overwhelmed by passions and tempted to follow this darker path of least resistance. Even before Cain's circumstances or his feelings change, it is genuinely possible for him to gain the upper hand. Sad and bitter as he is, ashamed and angry as he is, Cain is not helpless or hopeless or defenseless. Cain is a human being! Cain is an image of God, made for dominion! “You have it in your power,” God tells Cain and tells us, “to be weaned away from sin.”46
What Cain's got to do is learn how to manage his passions, his emotions – not to surrender control to them, not to obliterate them, but to rule over them (Genesis 4:7). As Aquinas put it, “passion leads one towards sin insofar as it is uncontrolled by reason, but insofar as it is rationally controlled, it is part of the virtuous life.”47 That is, if it can be well-ruled, it's actually what will make Cain a good person with a good life. For “whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Cain may think he'll be great if only he can conquer Abel. Actually, the only way for Cain to be truly great is for Cain to conquer Cain – for Cain to rule his passions. Tame that beast, and it'll be a useful guardian for your heart, assertively protecting you from real injustice and allowing you to fulfill your mission.48
If Cain can do that, then he'll have victory over sin, victory over darkness, victory over the Serpent. And that's very important for Cain to do – to “be angry, and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no place to the devil,” as Paul puts it (Ephesians 4:26-27). “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Hold strong the mastery over these passions and temptations, and victory awaits the patient.
Now, verse 7 leaves off, and Cain hasn't yet chosen a path. He's neither surrendered to nor mastered this demon beast. As God finishes speaking, the decision remains in Cain's hands. Only in verse 8, which we'll hear next week, will Cain collapse the paradox, determine his direction, seal his destiny, to see whether God's words to him will heal his heart or harden it.49 But God's words to Cain are even better for us to hear. For even though we didn't do good, God's mercy still provided the promised lifting up: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth,” said the Lord, “will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Lifted on the cross and then into heaven, Jesus poured back down the Spirit of “a wisdom that comes from above,” which is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:15-17). If we abide in Christ's grace, then “sin will have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:14). Christ is Master.. So “refrain from anger, forsake wrath..., be still before the LORD, and wait patiently before him” (Psalm 37:7-8). Amen.
1 Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 49.
2 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 3.3.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:125.
3 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 4:5, in Luther's Works 1:260.
4 Matthew R. Schlimm, From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 140; cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.46, a.4, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 21:95.
5 Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 4:6-7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:120.
6 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 3.3.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:125.
7 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 60.
8 Matthew Levering, The Betrayal of Charity: The Sins That Sabotage Divine Love (Baylor University Press, 2011), 72.
9 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 1.3.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:68-69.
10 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 18.21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:16.
11 Johnson T. K. Lim, Grace in the Midst of Judgment: Grappling with Genesis 1-11 (Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 154-155; Deena E. Grant, A Prototype Approach to Hate and Anger in the Hebrew Bible (Routledge, 2023), 77.
12 Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 50.
13 Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 4:6-7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:119.
14 Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6.15.8, in Translated Texts for Historians 40:363.
15 Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6.16.8, in Translated Texts for Historians 40:365.
16 Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6.16.10, in Translated Texts for Historians 40:365.
17 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.24, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 19:33.
18 Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 4:6-7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:119.
19 David Fohrman, The Beast That Crouches at the Door: Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, and Beyond (Maggid Books, 2021), 136.
20 Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 49.
21 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.24, a.1, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 19:33.
22 Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6.16.7, in Translated Texts for Historians 40:365.
23 Augustine of Hippo, City of God 15.5, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:143.
24 Tremper Longman III, Genesis, Story of God Bible Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 90.
25 Matthew R. Schlimm, From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 137.
26 Paul Borgman, Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard (IVP Academic, 2001), 32.
27 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 98.
28 Donald E. Gowan, Genesis 1-11: From Eden to Babel (Eerdmans, 1988), 68.
29 David Fohrman, The Beast That Crouches at the Door: Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, and Beyond (Maggid Books, 2021), 130-131.
30 Augustine of Hippo, City of God 15.7, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:146.
31 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 3.4.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:126.
32 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 139.
33 James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 1-11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2018), 80.
34 John Day, From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1-11 (T&T Clark, 2021), 84.
35 Augustine of Hippo, City of God 15.5, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:143.
36 Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11, Christian Standard Commentary (Holman Reference, 2023), 225.
37 Pamela Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 15-16; John Day, From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1-11 (T&T Clark, 2021), 86.
38 Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (British Museum Press, 1998), 63; Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Brill, 1999), 682-683.
39 Matthew R. Schlimm, From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 138.
40 Robert P. Gordon, “'Couch' or 'Crouch'? Genesis 4:7 and the Temptation of Cain,” in James K. Aitken, Katharine J. Dell, and Brian A. Martin, eds., On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies (De Gruyter, 2011), 208-209; John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 98.
41 Brian K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 98.
42 Ingrid Faro, Evil in Genesis: A Contextual Analysis of Hebrew Lexemes for Evil in the Book of Genesis (Lexham Press, 2021), 157.
43 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.35, a.8, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 20:107.
44 Cyprian of Carthage, On Jealousy and Envy 7, 9, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 36:298, 300.
45 Augustine of Hippo, City of God 15.5, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:143.
46 Ambrose of Milan, Cain and Abel 2.7 §24, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 42:425.
47 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q.24, a.2, ad 3, in Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae 19:37.
48 Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11, Christian Standard Commentary (Holman Reference, 2023), 226.
49 James B. Prothro, “Patterns of Penance and the Sin of Cain: Approaching a Sacramental Biblical Theology,” Nova et Vetera 21/4 (Fall 2023): 1384.
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