In Genesis 4 we find the first members of mankind doing the very thing that the Lord had commanded them to do from the very beginning, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…” (Genesis 1:28). Most scholars seem to presume this was done very close to the time of creation, days or weeks. However, I disagree, because such a rapid scenario before the judgment of casting Adam and Eve out of the garden, which symbolized the presence of God, is completely foreign to the character of God, we see imaged out in the life of Jesus in the Gospels (cp. Hebrews 1:3). God is forgiving and merciful beyond our comprehension. To say he judged mankind before we matured enough to know what we were doing is not only too much to demand of my understanding, but it is simply not supported in the text. Therefore, I believe that the trial in the Garden, itself, had taken years.[1] That being the case, Adam and Eve wouldn’t have had any children, until years after the creation record of Genesis 1 and 2.
After the birth of Cain, who seems to have been the favorite, son due to Eve’s belief that he was the promised Savior to come, Eve bore another son, Able. There is a Jewish tradition that they were twins, but I don’t see this in the text, but neither do I see evidence to the contrary, so it is possible they were twins. In any case, Abel grew to be a keeper of sheep, and Cain was a farmer, who tilled the ground (Genesis 4:2).
Some years (in the process of time) had past, when Cain, now an adult, brought an offering to the Lord out of the fruit of the ground (Genesis 4:3), but Abel, a shepherd, brought an offering from the firstlings of his flock. The Lord showed his respect for Abel’s offering, but not for Cain’s (Genesis 4:4-5). Probably this took the form of fire coming down from heaven to consume Abel’s offering, but no fire consumed that of Cain. Why? If both Cain and Abel brought the fruit of their labor in an offering to the Lord, why would the Lord show partiality toward the one but not the other?
First of all, we need to consider what the two men did. Cain’s offering was an offering of fellowship. It was a meal offering. In the context of the offerings Israel made to God, some of the offering would be consumed on the altar, but the rest would be eaten by the offeror and his family and friends. Secondly, and in the context of Genesis 3:21, the Lord had slain an entire species of animal in order to clothe the man and the woman, Cain’s parents. In other words, the Lord showed mankind what was needed in worship—life for life. The whole species of the beast was exterminated in order for mankind to be clothed in a physical body and live thereby. Able understood this and practiced it, but Cain, assuming he understood, did not. The favored son saw that his brother’s offering was favored by God. Cain was jealous, and he became very angry, and the appearance of his face changed, expressing his disappointment, and his feeling of being dishonored (Genesis 4:5).
The Lord noticed Cain’s reaction and asked him why he was angry, and why was he so disappointed (Genesis 4:6)? If he had done well, vis-à-vis if he had done what the Lord had shown what was necessary (cp Genesis 3:21), he would have been accepted. On the other hand, if he had not done well by doing what the Lord had prescribed to do, the same sin offering was still in his gate. In other words, Cain had what he needed for an offering for sin, and it was his to offer or not, as he pleased (Genesis 4:7). It was all a matter of his own choice. If his desire was to be accepted by God, he knew what to do. The fellowship offering was fine, but it wasn’t the prescribed method of coming to the Lord to be accepted as a sinner. He came to fellowship, not to worship. He was rewarded accordingly. Nevertheless, Cain was not satisfied with the Lord’s reply. Still angry that he didn’t have his own way, Cain spoke with his brother, Abel, taking him away from the presence of others and slew him in a field, when they were alone (Genesis 4:8). Moreover, the only reason he could have done this was because Abel’s works were righteous, while his own were not (1John 3:12).
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[1] For example, no one seems to take into account how long it would have taken to name the animals (Genesis 2:19-20). There are currently 4629 different species of mammals [See: Wilson, D.E., and D.M. Reeder (eds.). 1993. Mammal Species of the World. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1206 pp]. We know that some species have become extinct, but a “kind” in Genesis may incorporate more than one specie, as we define one today. Nevertheless, even if we cut the number of species to only 2000, in a 24-hour day, Adam would have had to name 83 per hour. That’s over one per minute! Add to this fact, that Adam would have had to study their behavior before naming them, we can conclude the task would have taken several years at the very least, even if he was able to name each species at a rate of one per day. This is not by any stretch of the imagination a task that could have been completed in a single day; after all, some scientists study animal behavior for decades, sometimes it’s their life’s work. So, the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, prior to their having a family was years not days or weeks.
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