A Pagan World Awaits Cain

The last phrase of Gen. 4.13, “anyone who meets me will kill me,” poses quite a problem.  Who, indeed, can these ‘anyone’s’ be?  The previously accepted analysis infers that the sons of Adam would be willing to kill Cain for his grievous insult to the family and humanity.  Since murder is not acceptable to God, and this would initiate a revenge killing, this viewpoint is not favorable to the overall biblical perspective.

The second view is that ‘they’ refers to other human beings, specifically those who may know nothing about God.  The existence of pre-Adamites appears to be clear from this scripture.  Furthermore, the notion that the Garden is a special site within a larger landscape must now be reinvestigated, with the principle of ‘set apart’* given a more defined meaning.  It is certain that Cain discovers pre-Adamites who are godless or perhaps nature worshippers.  It has been proposed that these humans exist from a previous earth cycle, and one which ended in widespread destruction.  

*Being ‘set apart’ will become an underlying principle for those who walk in the Way, with the term ‘set apart’ often associated with priesthood or discipleship, as we discover in the account of Adam and Eve.

As we continue, apparently God agrees with Cain on this point concerning the term ‘anyone,’ for, in v. 15, the Lord said to him, “I promise if anyone kills Cain, sevenfold vengeance (seven generations) shall be taken on him.”   Cain is sent away.  The human race now awaits the wrathful Cain.                  

It is not certain what culture Cain encountered.  Here, he takes a wife.*  He and his family will not dwell in the nearby Garden environs, and for a time they may have lived hardscrabble.  At first he probably lives among people who have few assets and live in a more neglected condition.  Cain is sentenced to wander (=Nod) but there is no indication he took part in a more organized nomadic culture.  Josephus relates he did begin to raid and conquer.  Cain may have encountered smaller cities, but in the Hebraic account Cain’s heritage is described as the city-building archtype.  

*Josephus says he took his wife (sister) with him.

God lays a mark upon him to give a final settlement on Cain so no one will even attempt to kill him.  Finally, in v. 16, “Cain left the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of  Eden.”

The City Cain Builds

In chapter 4, verse 17, we begin a whole new story.  “Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.  And he then founded a city, and named the city after his son Enoch.”  Cain founded what biblical scholars refer to as the city of Eridu (also known as Enoch).  However, there is much left unsaid in the above scripture.  Josephus provides a more comprehensive treatise on Cain and his activities.

Josephus tells us that Cain does not “…accept his punishment to amendment, but to increase his wickedness,” and that he procured for his own “…bodily pleasure, though it obliged him to be injurious to his neighbors.  He augmented his household substance with much wealth, by rapine and violence” (Ant. 1.2.2).  Just as Cain perceived himself as ‘gaining’ when he killed his brother, Cain abuses his neighbors to gain according to his lust, and “…became a great leader of men into wicked courses.”  Cain amassed great wealth by pillaging and subduing the land, a world that we still inherit today.

Next, Josephus makes a curious statement:  “He also introduced a change in that way of simplicity wherein men lived before, and was the author of measures and weights.”  Why would simplicity and weights and measures be contrasted in the same sentence?  Would not weights and measures be simplicity itself?  What does all of this mean?

Cain builds the first walled city,* but not as a convenience nor to keep the wind out of his camp.  He constructs the town to protect his loot.  Boundaries on conquered lands are then measured, therein to tax according to the yield.  Cain does not develop weights as a standard for commerce so much as to weigh metals, grain, and other produce to give ‘measure and weight’ to his wealth.  It becomes a matrix of qualifiers that allow for a tangible pursuit of wealth, with enhanced greed to follow.  This is perhaps the more accurate intent of Josephus’ statement.  Essentially, Cain is depicted as establishing the first government.  In other words, weights and measures are inserted into this world for an unrighteous reason and not to assist humankind, except to assist Cain.  Commerce had changed, and men changed with it.

*Josephus names the city as Nod.

Weights and Measures

Mankind has entered a new world of complexity at the behest of the corrupted Cain.  Cain’s mind now bends toward acquiring and pursuing gain, accumulating wealth, by evil means.  “And whereas they (the populace) lived innocently and generously while they knew nothing of such arts, he changed the world into cunning craftiness.”  Josephus describes the altered tribal society.  Where once we had a peaceful and pastoral society, we now have a society scouring to garner wealth, a society consumed by gain.

The world is soon pillaged by Cain and by his craftiness.  The people are left to rectify circumstances as they may.  Or, much like Cain, they
rectify conditions as they see fit.  Violence follows.  Craftiness and slyness take the place of fairness, and being crafty, even deceitful, is now considered fair bargaining.  The intent is carved out of the fallen intellect of man, and in the biblical story is focused on Cain, and leads to the distraction (sin) determined as the love of money, as opposed to the love of God, of which Cain has none.

This shift in consciousness begins to move across the planet like a storm.  Godly standards cringe under the unremitting ethos of ‘gain’, understood today as greed.  It is not the making of the wealth, the judgment is determined by the attitudes and standards by which the wealth is assumed.  The implementation of weights and measures does not become the kind of broader success or accomplishment many of us would envision.  Counting, measuring, numbering, and categorizing may free man by the ease of use, but weights and measures may also be used to extract a cruel toll.  For Cain and his progeny, and others also followed, the toll extracted for such gain will include murder, taking slaves, harnessing women, and theft.  The destruction of other cities must be included, entailing arson and random killing.

Beforehand, commerce was person-to-person, with needs supplied simply and directly.  Each man or woman adhered to local standards.  Although this way of doing business may seem rudimentary, it accessed a particular kind of honesty, an attribute that should be valued in soul development.  People were required to treat each other with kindness, and a strong faith had to be maintained, at least in the broader sense.  Weights and measures, as useful as they are, now reveals its one pitfall—the bend toward greater accumulation begins to consume the elements of trade.  Abundance is no longer the adequate standard, but wealth and riches begin to supplant it.

Cain is used as an archetype, and he cuts out what we know today as the modern world.  Cities are built (architecture).  Metallurgy enters the scene.  Coordinated civilization is introduced, but even so, this civilizing influence is at the behest of Cain’s darkened mind.  These pagan civilizations will war against each other and war against God’s plan.  Pantheons of gods will later be created in ignorance and laid before the people.  Worshippers of the One True God will become few and often isolated.

The need to quantify acquired wealth, stolen wealth in the case of Cain, would become helpful in Cain’s unbending pursuit of grandeur, status, and power.  With this change in trading practice, all people would now be ‘measured’ by the same standards—the standards initiated by Cain.  It is in this manner that the world has followed, however one may perceive and judge the results.

*The more conservative elements within Judaism forbade usury.  Essentially, usury became a debt trap.

Writing from ancient times often leaves unspoken intent for the reader to discover.  While reading scripture, it is sometimes helpful to ponder what is not said or mentioned.  If we take scripture as written, “And then he founded a city, and named the city after his son Enoch,” we must ask, where did Cain assemble the where and withal to become prosperous, much less build a city?   The city seems built by ‘measures,’ or measured out, but is it that the need for city walls derives from accumulated booty extracted by terror and theft?  The principle of wealth assumed by any means is now loosed upon the world.

Believe it or not, Cain still has the remnants of a godly mind.  Adam and Eve left with Garden-knowledge.  This understanding and the experiential learning assumed by Adam and Eve outside the Garden was passed down to Cain and Abel.  Later, these understandings pass on to Seth and from Seth to his son Enosh, leaving us with the thought that Cain’s mind is much more powerful than those around him.  Cain possesses the knowledge imparted by Adam and Eve and would necessarily have cognitive abilities that others lack.  In a sense, Cain was one step away from the original mold, and those now around him cannot make such a claim.  However, he bends the creation power of knowledge and the intuitive grasp of matters toward evil.

The outcome is that some populations might benefit, but could never be exalted amidst the rapid exercise of chaos.  We assume they are pagans.  Until Cain’s arrival, Josephus tells us they lived in peace.  It may not have been a perfect peace, without squabbles or fights, but God intends for intercourse between people to stay content.  Even so, a whole new worldview has now been initiated upon the earth, not godly but born out of a corrupted mind and its machinations.

             Cain’s misdirected consciousness thrusts him into the role of Destroyer,    

and quite the opposite of the latter Deliverer, Jesus.

Within the story, Cain becomes the first true conqueror, and through his cunning ways, whether by building walls or employing measures, he enslaves the people and personifies the first dictator, the first city-state king, who taxes by measure and weight.  Due to his expanded knowledge and his integration into the pagan world, he may have eventually ascended to a priest-king status.  How many historical figures have we noted as following the same route?

God Bless!