Cain
First son of Adam and Eve; farmer and fratricide
Cain (Hebrew: קַיִן, Qayin) was the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, a farmer and tiller of the ground whose rejected offering and subsequent fratricide of his brother Abel became the first murder recorded in Scripture (Gen 4:1-16).
The Two Brothers
Cain worked the soil as a farmer while his younger brother Abel kept flocks as a shepherd. When both brothers brought offerings to YHWH, Cain presented produce from the ground while Abel brought the firstlings of his flock. YHWH regarded Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s, a divine discrimination that provoked Cain’s anger and shame.
Fratricide and Judgment
Despite divine warning (“sin is crouching at the door”), Cain lured Abel into the field and killed him — the first act of fratricide and the first human death in Scripture. When YHWH confronted Cain with “Where is Abel your brother?”, Cain’s defiant reply — “Am I my brother’s keeper?” — became one of the most remembered phrases in the Torah.
The ground, now soaked with Abel’s blood crying out to YHWH, cursed Cain’s farming. He was sentenced to be a wandering fugitive, cut off from the fruitful soil. Cain feared being killed in turn, so YHWH placed a mark on Cain — a sign of divine protection guaranteeing sevenfold vengeance on any who harmed him.
Land of Nod and Legacy
Exiled east of Eden to the land of Nod, Cain settled and built a city, naming it Enoch after his son. His line — the Cainite genealogy — produced the ancestor Lamech, whose boast of seventy-sevenfold vengeance echoed and inverted the divine protection granted to Cain.