1And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
2And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Gen 4:1-2 KJV
We have already explored how the creation and the Fall of Man are rich with foreshadows of Jesus Christ. As we move into the next phase of man’s history, we find two sons born to the first created couple. We also find new whispers of the Redeemer.
It’s worth considering that Eve’s exclamation, “I have gotten a man from the LORD“, may reveal her mistaken belief that this son would be an immediate fulfillment of God’s prophecy. Recall from our last post how God proclaimed woman’s seed would crush the head of the enemy, removing the curses placed upon mankind. Surely this must have crossed her mind. How sad that instead this son would only reveal the true depths of depravity found in the heart of sinful man.
Cain’s Hebrew name is commonly translated “spear”, while his brother Abel’s name is translated “vapor”. The imagery here seems obvious. The violence of Cain’s murder of his brother is symbolized by his namesake – a weapon, while Abel’s short life is but a “vapor” – an image used throughout the scriptures to describe the brevity of life (cf. Ps. 39:5, Jas. 4:14).
Looking again, Cain is representative of the whole-scale rejection by the world of anyone and anything that reveals the will of God. Jesus even uses Cain’s murder of Abel in His scolding of the Jewish leaders of His day:
33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Matt. 23:33-35
It is interesting that as the serpent was the catalyst of man’s Fall and of Cain’s murderous jealousy, Jesus condemns the Jewish leaders as “serpents” and a “brood [offspring] of vipers“. Once again, the Genesis account points to ultimate fulfillment in God’s working of our Redemption.
Furthermore, could there be any richer foreshadowing of the death of Jesus than the death of Abel? Abel was a shepherd who offered a pleasing sacrifice to God and was murdered by his jealous brother. Jesus is the “good Shepherd” whose entire life was marked by sacrifice of self to please the Father. Because of their jealousy and pride, Jesus was murdered by his own national and spiritual brothers.
While we want to avoid taking the symbols further than they were intended, please humor one last observation. Consider the seemingly needless, final blow in His hour of death when Jesus (the ultimate Abel) was pierced by the namesake of Cain himself – a spear.
But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. John 19:34
[...] lift the curse…just as Eve had expressed at the birth of both Cain and Seth (see our posts The Spear and the Vapor and Another [...]