So Cain and Abel bring gifts to God and God plays favorites once again. Poor Cain, bringing wheat to a fatted lamb fight.
“I am not my brother’s keeper,” is perhaps the most important part of this story. Remember those words, because Cain says them. Cain the fratricide, the primordial bad guy, the first murderer, says them. Not some good guy who is saying something pleasing to God.
So what can we take from this? A list of genealogy and a desire to sacrifice fat to God rather than the fruits of the soil (I’d like to believe Cain showed up with some turnips, personally)? Yes, that’s what folks for thousands of years have been getting out of Genesis 4. And it certainly sets a precedent to hate the descendants of Cain (who are, I should point out, not vampires). We even get the terrific name Tubal-Cain to use as a Masonic symbol.
But that’s not the important thing.
“I am not my brother’s keeper,” is synonymous with, “I killed my brother.” So if you say it, you’re identifying with murder.
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