v10. And he said to him: What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.
God seriously questions Cain after killing Abel. And he does it seriously because his sin is serious. And we will hardly find someone who doubts that Cain’s sin is serious and therefore must be seriously questioned.
It is very easy to understand and assume it when it is a story apparently foreign to me, or when it is about another or one of the “others” (and not one of the “Mine” ). But alas! if we are talking about it is me.
I find a connection between many biblical fragments and this one that concerns us. But there are two that stand out to me from the rest. The first is found in chapter 12 of the Second Book of Samuel. In short: David falls in love with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, whom he sends to the battle front to be killed and thus stay with his wife. After that, the prophet Nathan uses a fictitious story of injustice, apparently foreign to David, so that he rages and Natán “finish” with “you are that man” < / em>. Deep down, even through Nathan’s mouth, it is God himself who asks about the injustice committed by David, just as he does with Cain and as he does with each one of us, “what have you done?” .
The other fragment is found in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and is the “well-known” (not “well-known” ) account of the Last Judgment. When God will ask each of us how we have treated each of our smallest (and weakest) brothers.
v14. Behold, you are driving me out of the earth today, and from your presence I will hide myself, and I will be a wanderer and a stranger in the earth; and it will happen that whoever finds me will kill me.
Has Cain sinned, killing his brother, just by outburst? It is clear from this verse that he has been cultivating a vindictive mentality. And with that mindset, he now believes that his sin against his brother will turn against him and he will also die at the hands of another. Hate begets hate. It is the so-called “culture of death”.
v15. And Yahweh answered him: Surely whoever kills Cain will be punished seven times. Then Yahweh put a mark on Cain, so that no one who found him would kill him.
But God responds to hatred, death, the “culture of death”, alive. From God, no matter how hard some try, only life flows and his spirit only pours out grace.
But how many times do we hear that about “if you don’t behave, God won’t love you” . What a big lie! God always loves and forgives. We are the ones who do not allow ourselves to be loved and forgiven by God. We insist on making God in our image and likeness and, thus, we come up with a cheap and even vindictive God.
The God of Life does not want revenge against Cain, he does not want his death. And some will say “but Cain is a murderer and deserves to die” . Only God is truly creator and giver of life and, therefore, only he can dispose of life. And it serves as much to illuminate the doubts about abortion or euthanasia as it does about the death penalty, of which this fragment seems the first argument against it.
v16. So Cain went out from before Yahweh, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
v17. And Cain knew his wife, who conceived and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and named the city after his son’s name, Enoch.
One last point to refute the so-called creationists. If, as they affirm, the creation must be believed as the text literally says, where did the woman that Cain found, knew and conceived his son Enoch come from?
And after reading verses 25 and 26 we also ask ourselves, and where did the woman who was the mother of Enos, the son of Seth, come from?
Be careful, let’s not do what the censors did with the movie “Mogambo” , which turned it into… incest to hide an adultery!
Quique Fernandez
Miracle Sound Radio
