Genesis 4 Footnotes

4:4-5 God preferred Abel’s offering not because he liked meat more than vegetables or shepherds more than farmers, but because Abel’s offering was made in faith (Heb 11:4). He offered the best of his flock (“the firstborn”), and Cain offered only “some” of his produce (Gn 4:3; see Ex 23:19; Lv 2:14).

4:17 The age-old question, “Who was Cain’s wife?”, has raised the specter that Cain committed incest, which was prohibited (Lv 18:6-18). But the Mosaic laws were not given until much later, and even the implied condemnations of incest in Genesis (Lot in 19:30-38; Reuben in 35:22; 49:3-4) relate to a time later than that of Cain and his siblings.

4:19,23 The Bible nowhere explicitly forbids polygamy, and Lamech is the first of many polygamists in the OT, including favored patriarchs and kings (e.g., 29:21-30; 1Sm 27:3). We must not assume, however, that the absence of explicit prohibition entails divine approval. Plural marriage is not, and never has been, biblical marriage. When polygamy occurred, it had predictably disastrous results for the family (e.g., 2Sm 13:4-37). We may not fully understand why God did not denounce Abraham, Jacob, David, and others when they corrupted true marriage in this way, but we should not take his silence as indicating his lack of interest in the matter.