And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering. (Moses 5:19-20)
While reading his most recent book on the Fall, Catholic OT scholar Mark S. Smith wrote the following about the offerings of Cain and Abel in Gen 4 which was rather interesting:
The Mystery of God in Genesis 4
The story in Genesis 4 is not only about Cain and Abel. It also tells us about God, which may be posed in the form of a mysterious question. Why does God accept Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s? To answer this question, commentator emphasize that Abel gave of “the firstlings of his flock” (Genesis 4:4), a detail missing from the description of Cain’s offering from “the fruit of the ground” (for firstfruits of crops, see Exodus 23:19; 34:26; Leviticus 23:17; Numbers 18:13; and Nehemiah 10:36 [10:35 NRSV]). A further detail about Abel’s offering in Genesis 4:4 suggests that it is inherently preferable to the Lord, though not necessarily for moral or spiritual reasons (as supposed by Hebrews 11:4). To the detail about Abel’s “firstlings,” the description adds “with [literally, and] some of their fat portions” (umechelbehen; my italics in the translation). This word mimics for the consents of Abel’s name (*hhl), which may furnish a clue for the solution of the divine choice. In descriptions of meat sacrifices, the scent of fat (cheleh) may be particularly pleasing to the Lord: “all fat [cheleh] belongs to the LORD” (Leviticus 3:16, a potential slogan for Weight Watchers).
So God preferring Abel’s offering may not simply be an issue of Abel’s superior character. It may also entail a more mundane preference or meat offerings considered “natural” or the deity. The point is illustrated also by the account of Noah’s offering to Yahweh in Genesis 8:20-21 (also, like Genesis 4:4, traditionally attributed to the so-called Yahwist source). What gains the divine attention in this passage is the burnt offering of the animals: “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar . . . The LORD smelled the pleasing odor.” Meat offerings seem to be considered to hold greater pleasure for the deity than “the fruit of the earth” (Psalms 50:8-13 and 51:19 [verse 21 Hebrew]). Still it remains mysterious why God does not also accept Cain’s sacrifice, especially given the burden that the divine disregard of Cain’s offering arguably places on him. This remains true despite the literary and theological fact that the story uses the two outcomes in order to illustrate good and sin in the human person. The divine response to human efforts may be mysterious. Finally, in Genesis 4, why doesn’t god punish Cain more for murdering Abel? Another case of one brother murdering another in the field calls for the death penalty (2 Samuel 14:6-7), yet God lets Cain live. God acts in ways that are unexpected. (Mark S. Smith, The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) And Original Sin in the Bible [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019], 72-73)
