The Role of Natural Revelation in the Story of Cain and Abel
It is difficult to overstate the profundity of the story of Cain and Abel that is told in the space of just a few verses in Genesis 4. With a strict economy of detail, we are told a story that is incredibly dark about worship and fratricide within the first family on the earth that God created. Within one generation of paradise in Eden, the evil that has entered the world through Adam manifests itself in envy, malice, and even the destruction of a life created in the image of God. It would be reasonable to expect moral decline over time, but not immediate murder of a brother. As shocking as Cain’s murder of Abel is, what is even more puzzling about the story is Cain’s failure to please God with his offering. God seems to judge Cain unfairly. What is it that Cain did wrong? Why did God have respect for Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s? The story of Cain’s failure in worship is important for understanding natural revelation and its relationship to special revelation. If Cain’s failure to receive God’s blessing upon his sacrifice was due to his direct disobedience to God’s special revelation, why is there no mention of those instruction recorded for us in Scripture? What kind of hermeneutic allows us to assume that Cain disobeyed God’s commands much like Eliphaz in his counsel to Job? If we stick to the text, we may conclude that Cain’s failure to offer a sacrifice acceptable to God was not an act of disobedience to God’s special revelation to him but was a failure to act in accordance with what Cain knew to be true based on natural revelation.
The more modern Reformed and evangelical understanding of Cain’s failure is that Yahweh required a blood sacrifice on the altar and Cain disobeyed this command, substituting a sacrifice of vegetables instead. The Scriptural basis for a blood sacrifice requirement is found in Genesis 3:21 where Yahweh replaces the fig leaves Adam and Eve had sewn together for themselves in 3:7 and clothes Adam and Eve with “tunics of skin” (NKJV), implying the death of animal had taken place to supply a better covering for the shame they felt because of their sin.
Theologian Gerald McDermott in his New History of Redemption observes that while Yahweh “could have clothed Adam and Eve with other kinds of plant products. Perhaps, as many theologians ever since have observed, God was showing them that sin causes death, and justice demands that the life taken by sin must be replaced by another life.”[1] In the skins supplied to provide a covering for Adam and Eve, we can see an early precedent for animal sacrifice under the Mosaic law as well as a type of the righteousness of Christ that justifies sinners who are united to Him by faith.[2] John Calvin, in his commentary on Genesis, insists that “the custom of sacrificing was not rashly devised by [Cain and Abel], but was divinely delivered to them.”[3] Because the author of Hebrews says Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because of Abel’s faith, argues Calvin, it must have been a response to the command of God; and because God desires obedience more than sacrifice, Abel’s sacrifice was performed in obedience to a previously given command.[4] Ultimately, Calvin goes a little deeper in his analysis of Cain’s failure than attributing it merely the wrong substance offered and concludes that Cain worshipped as a hypocrite and offered his sacrifices with “impurity of heart” such that it would have been an unacceptable sacrifice even if an animal had been offered.[5] In any case, Cain’s sacrifice is not accepted because Cain has disobeyed Yahweh’s special command, either in bringing the wrong substance to place on the alter or in offering it without a proper desire to worship God in his heart. This view creates some problems exegetically. If Cain is guilty of the former, we are lacking an explicit command that is disobeyed and by which Cain could be held accountable. If Cain is guilty of the latter, we are introducing a level of subjectivity and introspection into worship that takes the focus from the object of worship to the complex internal motivations of the worshipper.
It is legitimate to infer the shedding of blood in Genesis 3:21 to provide a covering for Adam and Eve as a type of the sacrifices to come, culminating in Christ’s sacrifice, which serves as the royal robes of righteousness whereby we may enter the King’s wedding feast (Mt. 22:10-14). However, Scripture does not tell us anything about whether a regular blood sacrifice was required by the first family or how often it took place. Cain and Abel were adults by the time they offered their sacrifices in Genesis 4 and the text seems to suggest this was their first. Did they grow up offering regular blood sacrifices and Cain decided to experiment when it came time for him to offer his own? The text does not say. While the assumption that the shedding of blood was required fits with an atonement theory of sacrifice, this interpretation of the text requires the ceremonial rules of Leviticus to be read back into the Genesis account. This is not necessarily an impossible reading but is certainly an anachronistic one. The types of Christ in the Old Testament do not have to be fully understood or appreciated by those participants in the story at the time or even the first audience of the writing to be valid; however, they should naturally and progressively build on previous revelation rather than assume revelation yet to be revealed in the future. For example, it is understandable that the law of Moses would look backward and draw on the historical narratives in Genesis and Exodus, but it would certainly be odd to read it through the lens of the writings and experiences of the later Old Testament prophets. In the same way, Leviticus could reasonably draw upon the narratives in Genesis and Exodus, but we should not expect to read Leviticus into the narratives of Genesis. Such an anachronistic method runs the risk of imposing new metanarratives and trajectories onto the Old Testament narrative that are at odds with the revelation that we are given in the Scriptural text.
To provide a comparable illustration that highlights the problems with such a methodology, we might consider the reading presented in the pseudepigraphal Book of Jubilees, a retelling of Genesis in which the author attempts to clean up the biblical accounts of the patriarchs. In doing so, the author(s) provides an alternative trajectory for the culmination of Israel’s history, one in which Israel has no need for a savior because the patriarchs never sin. The author(s) of Jubilees universalizes the Torah by reading Mosaic law back into Genesis account of creation as if it is itself part of the created order and not a temporary order existing with God’s larger plan of redemption. To provide just one illustration, compare Genesis 2:2-3, which says that God rested on the seventh day and sanctified the day, and Jubilees 2:17-33, wherein God’s resting is presented as a command to the people of Israel to keep the Sabbath “as a law for ever unto their Generations.[6] Instead of God’s rest on the seventh day presented as a creational principle that serves as the basis for the command to “remember the Sabbath day” (Ex. 20), Jubilees places the command in the creation account, prior to the Fall, such that Mosaic law becomes coterminous with created order. As long as the creation continues, the law of Moses is binding on all peoples. One need not say that a divine command for a sacrifice of atonement by Cain and Abel prior to the Mosaic law would continue beyond the sacrifice of Christ just as the Torah would for the author(s) of Jubilees. However, the similarity in methodology should at least cause us to ponder the possible negative implications of this hermeneutic.
Perhaps there is a better alternative to making sense of Cain’s failure. The first question that must be addressed in this matter is Cain and Abel’s motivation to sacrifice. If God did not explicitly command the sacrifice, nor provide instructions, what prompted the two brothers to bring an offering? All knowledge of God must indeed be revealed by God, whether through nature or through his Word. However, while God is the initiator of all interaction with man who is simply the respondent to what has been revealed, we must recognize that the order of being is inverse to the order of knowing. That is to say, God is the metaphysical starting point for all things, but man comes to an awareness and knowledge of the existence and attributes of God through the things that God has made, which testify to the necessity of a Creator (Rom. 1:20). Jewish scholar, Leon Kass, in his commentary on the book of Genesis, speaks to the way in which the natural man intuits the presence of the divine:
[T]hrough the experience of awe and wonder before the spectacles and phenomena of nature: sunrise and sunset, new and full moons, thunder and lightning, the fall of water out of the sky, the seasonal changes in the earth. Natural piety gives rise to the desire to close the gap between the human and the divine, to mediate the distance, to establish ties, to gain a close and firm connection to the whole and its ruling forces.[7]
This desire to “close the gap between human and the divine”, especially in a fallen world where man must labor by the sweat of his brow to survive, takes the form of sacrificial worship, a universal practice across all primitive cultures and civilizations in one form or another. Sacrifices may be offered in gratitude for what God has done, as substitutes to atone for sin, as was the case for the Hebrews, or may be offered as a means of appeasing or manipulating the gods to do man’s bidding, as was characteristic of most pagan societies. Thus, St. Cyril of Alexandria writes of Cain and Abel’s sacrifices,
[T]here is within us a law of divine knowledge that is innate. This was drawing the men to the fact that it was necessary to present thank offerings to the Maker of all, to the God who gives us every good thing. For although the intention that men should recognize who it is that made all things has been corrupted and is perhaps not truly apprehended among those who worship idols, yet an innate and compelling law prompts us and an instinctive knowledge stirs us up, in order that we should perceive that which transcends all—the one who is incomparably greater than we humans are, that is to say, God.[8]
Rather than responding to a special divine command, Cain and Abel were driven to bring their sacrifices by the “law of divine knowledge of God that is innate” within all human beings.
Scripture attests that worship is the natural response of human beings who have been blessed by God’s provision for them. St. Paul writes in Romans 1 of the Gentiles that since God’s invisible attributes can be clearly seen in the things He has made, they are without excuse “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (1:21, NKJV). Human beings are driven to worship something, even if it is another creature in their defiance of the Creator. Romans 1 is clear that it is the Creator that is rejected, not the impulse to worship. St. Augustine expressed this truth most beautifully in his prayer in the Confessions in saying, “For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”[9] The practice of sacrifice among pagans is evidence of the restless human heart, which desires to worship, but will worship the wrong thing until its loves are properly ordered toward the One that is the most lovely. The redeemed of God are also called to continue to offer sacrifices of praise (Heb. 13:15) and offer their bodies as sacrifices unto God, which St. Paul calls a “reasonable service” (Rom.12:1, NKJV). The desire to sacrifice is not unique to the ancient world. Modern, unregenerate man is also naturally inclined to sacrifice by giving up something in the present while looking forward in hope for a greater outcome in the future. Such acts of sacrifice apart from Christ are nothing but filthy rags before God (Is. 64:6) but are good to the degree to which those sacrifices are in accord with the way that God has created the world. The unregenerate man who sacrifices his life for his country or who delays gratification by giving up pleasures in the present to invest for the future of his children are examples of a kind of civil righteousness, duties of which human beings are naturally aware and capable of performing apart from special revelation. Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson makes a profound observation in his lectures on Genesis that human beings have always understood that making sacrifices and delaying gratification in the present is one of the best ways to ensure a better future.[10] This differentiates the disciplined individual from the undisciplined. Children desire everything in the present because they have not developed the capacity to think beyond the next five minutes of their existence. As children grow into adulthood, maturity is measured by the ability to extend one’s time horizon further into the future by delaying gratification in hopes of greater future reward. Thus, human beings throughout history have made sacrifices, the fruit of which they would never see, with a firm conviction that such sacrifices would produce a future that was better than the present.
Further examples of such sacrifices are recorded in Genesis that provide a basis for comparison to the sacrifices of Cain and Abel. After coming off the ark, Noah built an altar and offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, not because it was commanded, but as the natural response of a pious man to being delivered from the flood (Gen. 8:20-21). In the absence of any direct command from God, Abraham offered a tithe to Melchizedek, the King of Salem, after rescuing his nephew Lot from the Canaanite kings (Gen. 14:18-21). Abraham’s tithe serves as a kind of precedent upon which the tithe required under the Mosaic law is based, but we should not read this anachronistically as if Abraham gave a tithe of his spoils because he is required to do so by law. Yet another relevant example from Scripture is Job who would regularly offer sacrifices on behalf of his children: “he would rise in the early morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts” (1:5, NKJV). Job was a pious God-fearer living in a pagan land apart from the special revelation given to Israel through the Torah and yet he feels compelled to offer sacrifices on behalf of his children to provide a covering for their sin absent any command to do so. All these examples from Scripture speak to man’s natural compulsion to worship by offering sacrifices to the Creator apart from any positive command communicated through special revelation.
If Cain’s offering of vegetables was presented in direct disobedience to God’s command, we should have a record of God’s command to Cain concerning sacrifices to which Cain could be held accountable. In Genesis 2:17, Adam was given an explicit command via special revelation not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil to which he and eve were held to account in Genesis 3:11: “And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?’” (NKJV). Furthermore, in addition to the absence of a command to sacrifice, we also have examples in Scripture where direct disobedience of God’s explicit instructions for worship are immediately punished quite harshly. We have other examples from Scripture in which the worship of God carried out in direct violation of his commands was swiftly and severely punished. When Moses was on the mountain and the people fashioned golden calves to worship, God’s anger burned against his people (Ex. 32:10), and many were slaughtered for their idolatry (32:27-28). When Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, presumed to be creative in their worship by offering “profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them” (Lev. 10:1, NKJV), and they were also swiftly devoured by fire sent by God. Yet in Genesis 4, God does not punish Cain but encourages him to do better and says that if he does so, God will bless him. Alternatively, God warns that should Cain continue his current trajectory, sin is “crouching at the door” waiting to rule him (4:7, ESV).
If it is true that the sacrifices of Cain and Abel were offered out of a natural duty to acknowledge God’s blessing and provision, we now have a different basis for evaluating Cain’s sacrifices and understanding why God was not pleased. The clue to discerning Cain’s failure in offering an inferior sacrifice can be found in comparing the descriptions of the two sacrifices provided in the text. Abel is said to have brought “the firstborn of his flock and of their fat” (4:4) while Cain brought “the fruit of the ground” (4:3, NKJV). These descriptions are to be read in parallel just as the accounts of the births of the two sons are presented in parallel in verses 1-2 and their occupations in parallel in verse 2. The details that are missing from these parallel descriptions speak as loudly as the words that are stated. Rather than say that Abel offered a sheep of his herd and Cain offered fruit of the ground, Abel is said to have offered the firstborn and the best or “fat portions” (ESV, NASB). No such descriptors are used in speaking of Cain’s offering. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that Abel’s offering was superior to Cain’s due to the superiority of its quality, not the substance, in the form of the produce, offered. The highly regarded 20th century, Jewish-Italian commentator, Rabbi Umberto Cassuto, points to the connection between the two clauses in verse 4, the former speaking to Abel’s intention in his offering and the latter speaking to Yahweh’s reception as forming a cause-and-effect relationship. In other words, because Abel offered the firstborn of his flock and the fat portions of it, God had respected Abel’s offering. “This twofold emphasis – on the firstlings, which are the best of the flock, and on the fat portions, which are their best parts…underlines…Abel’s desire to gratify his Creator, and to honour Him to the best of his ability; his oblation is accompanied by good intent.”[11]
Therefore, Cain’s failure was not that he brought the fruit of the ground, but that he did not bring his best of his harvest This reading is confirmed among the Apostolic Fathers who also find that which was lacking in Cain’s offering was not the proper substance, but the proper intent. Thus, St. John Chrysostom writes in his Homilies on Genesis:
And Abel offered of the firstborn of his sheep, and of the fattest of them. Notice how it hints to us of the piety of this man’s attitude, and the fact that he did not casually offer any one of his sheep, but ‘one of the firstborn,’ that is, from the valuable and special ones. In Cain’s case on the contrary, nothing of the kind is suggested; rather, the fact that he brought an “offering of the fruit of the earth,” as if to say, whatever came to hand, without any display of zeal or precise care.[12]
Likewise, Chrysostom’s fourth-century, Alexandrian contemporary, Didymus the Blind, also writes in his commentary on Genesis:
Insofar as Cain had made his offering with indifference, and Abel with sincerity, God took notice of Abel and his gifts, whereas to Cain and his offerings he paid no heed. Abel’s sincerity is manifest, in fact; he offered his firstborn, deciding to apportion to God the most precious, including the fattest. Cain should have done so as well by offering some of the first-fruits; offering first-fruits to God is particularly appropriate.[13]
St. Cyril is even more explicit when he writes that Abel offered “the most excellent and most outstanding animals. And as he was not ignorant of the manner in which to offer worship, he presented the fatlings.” However, Cain used “the better part of his ripe produce…to gratify his own excessive desires, and grieved the God of all by giving him the second best.”[14]
St. Augustine makes a distinction in his discussion of Cain and Abel’s sacrifices in City of God between an offering being “rightly offered” and “rightly discerned.” A rightly offered sacrifice is one that is offered to the true God. Using I John 3:12, St. Augustine argues that Cain’s sacrifice was rightly offered, but not rightly distinguished or discerned in that Cain “gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself.”[15] Cain’s failure was in offering a sacrifice to God with a selfish motivation and from an impure heart. The author of Hebrews says that Abel by faith offered a “more excellent sacrifice” (NKJV) or “more acceptable sacrifice” (ESV) than Cain. The sacrifice of Abel is contrasted with Cain’s using comparative language of degree rather than in terms of outright obedience verses disobedience. Abel acted in faith, knowing he could give up the firstborn of his herds and God would bless him with even greater abundance. Cain’s mediocre sacrifice was born out of a desire to do just enough to do his duty to appease God rather than trusting in God’s provision and future blessing. Whether the quality of the substance of the sacrifice was lacking, or the intents of Cain’s heart were impure, the deficiency in the sacrifice was not the lack of blood in it or disobedience to a divine command. Rather the deficiency of Cain’s motives and desire to act in faith in offering his best to the Creator caused him to fail to receive God’s blessing.
Having received Yahweh’s verdict on the sacrifices, Cain was very angry, and this inner anger was manifested in his downcast face. Instead of responding to Yahweh’s encouragement to do better in a positive way, Cain is moved to murder Abel in the field. The darkness of this act serves to reveal the true nature of Cain’s heart. Not only is the text clear that Cain did not give his best, we see in Cain’s reaction of violent hatred toward his brother that the sacrifice was never about worshipping the Creator, but about glorifying himself and besting his brother in the eyes of God. Cain burns with envy since God found that Abel’s sacrifice is more pleasing than his own, which evidences the malice in his heart toward Abel prior to the sacrifice. Jesus Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount that before a gift is offered at the altar, one should first be reconciled to his brother (Mt. 5:23-24). St. Ireneus recognized how Cain’s violent act reflected on the quality of Cain’s sacrifice when he said that God “had no respect unto the offering of Cain, because his heart was divided with envy and malice.”[16] It is hard to imagine how disappointment over his failure to offer a voluntary sacrifice pleasing to God could lead so quickly to murder. However, the surrounding context of the story offers more insight into Cain’s murderous mindset.
Cain is introduced into the narrative in 4:1 as the first child of Adam and Eve. His birth invokes an utterance from Eve. No two Bible translations seem to agree on the exact wording or interpretation of Eve’s words. Based on Cassuto’s careful, technical analysis of the Hebrew words and grammar, he concludes that the best rendering of Eve’s response is “I have created a man equally with the Lord.”[17] In other words, Cassuto explains, “the first woman, in her joy at giving birth to her first son, boasts of her generative power, which approximates in her estimation to the Divine creative power. The Lord formed the first man, and I have formed the second man.”[18] Though Rabbi Cassuto cannot fully appreciate the significance of the proto-evangelium of Genesis 3:15 wherein Yahweh promises that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, his rendering of Eve’s pronouncement upon Cain’s birth is consistent with the hope Eve would be looking toward. If God created the first man, Adam, who had fallen and through whom sin entered the world, perhaps Cain would be the second man, the promised seed of the woman. Such great hope likely rested on the shoulders of Cain along with an accompanying sense of superiority over his brother. In contrast, no such pronouncements are made upon the birth of Abel. In comparing the birth of the two brothers, once again, we are drawn to what is missing from the text: Cain, the first human born by natural means, is greeted with great hope, while Abel, the second human born with no fanfare or comment whatsoever. Allowing the extremely brief birth narratives of the two brothers to help inform our understanding of the motivation for the first murder, we can see how God’s displeasure with Cain’s sacrifice would result in Cain’s deeply wounded pride. Writes Kass,
Cain feels the sting of shame, as the world does not affirm his lofty self-image. But, still proud, he takes the disappointment as a slight or an insult; he not only hangs his head in disgrace, he fills his heart with rage, for he believes that he has been not only shamed but also injured.[19]
The story of Cain concludes by providing another detail that sheds light on the man’s intention in sacrifice and his motivation to murder his brother. For his violent act against Abel, Yahweh condemned Cain to be a wanderer for the rest of his life. This runs completely contrary to Cain’s life as tiller of the soil up to this point. Despite this divine pronouncement of judgment, Cain decided not only to settle down but to build a city that bears the name of his son, Enoch, who name means “to initiate” or “to dedicate”, which presents an interesting contrast to the word used in Genesis 1:1 for “beginning” (reshith).[20] Cain’s is initiating a new beginning for himself as a city builder. The French philosopher, Jacque Ellul, so insightfully contrasts Cain’s project with the God’s act of creation when he writes,
For God’s Eden he substitutes his own, for the goal given to his life by God, he substitutes a goal chosen by himself – just as he substituted his own security for God’s. Such is the act by which Cain takes his destiny on his own shoulders, refusing the hand of God in his life.[21]
Unlike his brother Abel in the sacrifice, Cain still refuses to exercise faith in God’s provision even now sentenced to be a wanderer on the earth, which was the point of his punishment. Given that there is never a moment of repentance for Cain in the entire narrative, it is fair to allow these details to inform our understanding of Cain’s motivation in the sacrifice. Cain had no interest in giving his best to God, but instead sought to go through the motions, offering God enough such that He might be appeased and would make Cain great. Failing that, Cain eliminated his competition and began building a city that would bear the name of his son so that his legacy would be preserved. Cain will be the first in a line of city and empire builders. His story parallels that of the Roman legend of Romulus, who also killed his brother, Remus, and then founded the great city of Rome.
This brief story about fratricide within the first family on earth raises important questions about the role of natural revelation and its relationship to special revelation. First, a robust doctrine of natural revelation prevents us from adding to Scripture or making the text carry weight it was not meant to bear. Natural revelation is not at odds with special revelation, rather the latter assumes and perfects the former. In reading Scripture, we are acting on the assumption that ideas exist, that they can be communicated through the written word, and that the meaning of words can be ascertained by the reader. If this was not so, we would have no basis for trusting the special revelation that has been revealed in God’s Word. Cain is held accountable for what he knows from nature: namely, that God exists and that He is to be worshiped. Second, in the story of Cain and Abel we see how quickly human nature can descend into deeper levels of depravity apart from God’s grace. While Yahweh had desired to teach Adam and Eve as he communed with them in the garden and prepare them to rule as his vice-gerents on earth, Adam and Eve decided to grasp for the forbidden fruit so that their eyes might be opened, and they could be like gods. Once the fellowship with God had been lost, it was only a generation later in which the first family descended into murder. The chilling lesson that emerges from this story is how quickly man descends into wickedness when a minimum of God’s grace is displayed on earth. Within just a few generations, Cain’s act of violence will not be considered an anomaly or an exception but will be chief descriptor in God’s judgement on the earth (Gen. 6:11). It is at this point God will intervene to destroy the wickedness that had multiplied on the earth and save a remnant for Himself.
[1] Gerald McDermott, A New History of Redemption: The Work of Jesus the Messiah through the Millenia (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024), 32.
[2] Ibid.
[3] John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, Vol. First, trans. John King (Grand Rapids: Baker Books 2009), 1:192.
[4] Ibid, 193.
[5] Ibid, 196. This particular claim by Calvin gets closer to St. Augustine’s view discussed below and has some merit but does not go far enough to stand alone as an adequate explanation.
[6] Book of Jubilees 2:33 in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R.H. Charles (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913). https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/jubilees/2.htm
[7] Kass, 134
[8] Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Volume I: Genesis, trans. Nicholas P. Lunn, of Fathers of the Church Series (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022), 68.
[9] Augustine, Confessions, trans. by F. J. Sheed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993), 3.
[10] Jordan Peterson, “Biblical Series V: Cain and Abel: The Destruction of the Ideal”, https://singjupost.com/transcript-cain-and-abel-the-destruction-of-the-ideal-jordan-b-peterson/?singlepage=1. Peterson is certainly not an orthodox commentator on Scripture and his comments should be considered in that light and given appropriate weight. While the Bible’s view of sacrifice is not in any way like the pagan view that sought to manipulate the gods so that they would do what man wanted and was rather an act of thankful remembrance for what the sovereign God had already done for them, there is a future component that forms a basis for action in the Old Testament. The people are to follow Moses’ ethical instructions and perform the sacrifices and ceremonies in Deuteronomy lest they be vomited out of the land like the Canaanites before them (Lev. 18:25, 28; 20:22). Peterson is correct then to recognize that sacrifice is at least in part motivated by an eye looking to the future and a desire to maintain covenantal continuity.
[11] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Part I): From Adam to Noah. (Skokie, Ill: Varda
Books, 2012), 206.
[12] John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis: Homilies 18-45, trans. Robert C. Hill, Of The Fathers of the Patristic Church Series (Washington DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2018), 14.
[13] Didymus, Commentary on Genesis, trans. Robert C. Hill, of Fathers of the Church Series (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 117.
[14] Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra, 68.
[15] Augustine, City of God, 15.7. trans. Marcus Dods in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2 ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004), 288.
[16] Ireneus, Against Heresies, 4.18.3 trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. In Anti-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Coxe (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 485.
[17] Cassuto, 196. Leon Kass also translates Eve’s pronouncement the same way and interprets the words similarly to Cassuto.
[18] Ibid, 201.
[19] Kass, 137.
[20] Jacque Ellul, The Meaning of the City, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 5-6. Ellul makes the keen observation connecting these two Hebrew words.
[21] Ibid, 5.
