Summary & Comparison of the Lives of Cain & Abel!

CAIN

ABEL

• Cain was the older brother.
• Eve rejoiced when Cain was born.
• Cain was a farmer.
• Cain worshiped the LORD. (Probably for many years leading up to the written account.)
• Cain brought his offering one day and the LORD did not look with favor on Cain and his offering and did not accept him.
• Instead of repenting, Cain defied God and sin pounced on him.
• Cain murdered Abel.
• Cain lied to God: “I do not know.”
• Cain defied God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
• Cain murdered his brother because of his great anger toward God.
• Cain was cursed from the ground.
• Now Cain was a fugitive and a wanderer.
• Cain’s defiance shows again in his claim that God is unfair in his judgment.
• Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod.
• Cain was married and began a family.
• Cain’s descendants made developments in the arts and in technology.

• Abel was Cain’s younger brother.
• Abel was a shepherd.
• Abel worshiped the LORD. (Probably for many years leading up to the written account.)
• Abel brought his offering one day and the LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering and accepted him.
• Abel was in the field with his older brother and Cain murdered him.

• We are warned to not be like Cain. He murdered Abel because Abel was right before God and Cain’s deeds were evil.
  —(1 John 3:12 ESV) We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.
• The way of Cain is the way of greed, manipulation and rebellion.
  —(Jude 11 ESV) Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

• Abel was a man of faith and righteousness. Abel still speaks even today. Even now.
  —(Hebrews 11:4 ESV) By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
• Abel was the first in a long line of righteous men to be murdered by self-righteous men.
  —(Matthew 23:34–35 ESV) Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

• It seems that Cain must have been the first child of Adam and Eve. They were expelled from the garden of Eden and Cain’s birth was a hopeful moment.
• It is also very possible that Cain and Abel were almost as old as Adam and Eve—possibly close to 130 years old when Cain murdered Abel. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were two healthy, perfectly functioning humans, including their sex life. No children were born to Adam and Eve in their still-innocent state, so it is inconceivable that too much time would have expired before Eve would have become pregnant. Thus … their time in Eden was surely very brief. Thus … if is very possible that Adam and Eve were less than one year old when Cain was born. I know … crazy! 🙂
• After the murder of Abel, Adam fathered Seth when he was 130 years old. This is our only definite number as we try to calculate their possible age. However, since Cain joined another society when he left after the murder of Abel and found a wife, then the most probable scenario is that Cain and Abel are almost as old as Adam and Eve, and they have all been fruitful and multiplying over the last 100 years or so.
• Through the Genesis account and through Scripture, we must remember that God gives us what we need to know to come to him and to serve him with honor. Unless specifically stated, we do not count on Scripture to be a chronological and sequential account.
• What we do know is that from Genesis 1:26 when Adam was created there were 130 years of history and fruitful multiplying and filling the earth going on.