On the fact
of it, this story makes no sense. Why should God reject Cain’s sacrifice, and
not Abel’s? The text emphasizes that the idea of making a sacrifice to God is
Cain’s It is Cain who inclines to piety, and thinks to take some of his meager
supply of food, which he has scraped from the soil, and sacrifice it to God in
gratitude. Abel only follows his lead. Even more disturbing is the fact that God
rejects what seems in context to be an act of submission on Cain’s part. God
has cursed the land and sent man to farm it, telling Cain’s father, Adam, “By
the sweat of your brow you will eat bread.” Then “the Lord sent him . . . to
work the ground from which he was taken,” which is exactly what Cain does: He
works the ground just as God had told his father to do. He submits to God’s
will, and even, amid the curse and the hardship, finds it in his heart to be
grateful to God for what he has. Why should God not accept the sacrifice of a
man of piety, who does what God has sent him to do, as his father did before
him?
On the
other hand, God has said not a word about shepherding. And when Abel takes it
up, he’s doing something that God has not sent man to do. Abel sees that
the ground has been cursed, and that man can only eat bread if he serves the
ground. But sheep can feed themselves without human toil, and so if a man will
keep shape, he can free himself from serving the accursed ground. Abel has, in
other words, found a way to escape the curse upon the upon the soil. And the
fact that this is about what Abel wants, first and foremost, rather than about
what God wants, is emphasized by the text itself, which tells us that Abel “also”
offers a sacrifice after Cain. Yet despite this, God accepts Abel’s sacrifice.
How can this be?
The contest
between Cain and Abel is carefully constructed to present the reader with two
archetypes, which appear time and again over the course of biblical History,
and on into the subsequent biblical works as well. Each archetype represents a
way of life and an approach to living as a human being, to ethics. The text
presents the reader with a rather stark choice and presses the reader to
recognize that God’s choice, the right choice, is not necessarily the
one we would have chosen. These archetypes are:
The life of the farmer. Cain has piously accepted the curse on the
soil, and God’s having sent Adam to work the soil, as unchallengeable. His
response is to submit, as his father did before him. And within the framework
of this submission, he initiates ways of giving up what little he has as an
offer of thanksgiving. In the eyes of the biblical author, Cain represents the
life of the farmer, a life of pious submission, obeying in gratitude the custom
that has been handed down, which alone provides bread so that man may life.
The life of the shepherd. Abel takes the curse on the soil as a fact, but
not as one that possesses any intrinsic merit, so that it should command his
allegiance. The fact that God has decree it, and that his father has submitted to
it, does not make I good. His response is the opposite of submission. He resists
with ingenuity and daring, risking the anger of man and God to secure
improvement for himself and for his children. Abel represents the life of the
shepherd, which is a life of dissent and initiative, whose aim is to find the
good life for man, which is presumed to be God’s true will.
As the
biblical story is told, it’s evident that shepherding is not what God had in
mind when he sent man forth from Eden. But as it turns out, it’s something that
God wants anyway: an improvement in man’s station, a greater goodness which
comes of man’s own unsolicited efforts. Although God has not spoken on this
subject previously, once the sacrifices have been offered and Cain’s sacrifice
has been refused, God delivers precisely this message in explaining why Cian
has been rebuffed:
“Why are
you angry, and why is your face fallen? If you improve [teitiv], will
you not be lifted up?”
God accepts
the offering of a man who seeks to improve things, to make them good of himself
and his own initiative. This is what God finds in Abel, and the reason he
accepts his sacrifice.
Perhaps this
is not so difficult to understand. But what is rather shocking here is the fact
that God does not accept both sacrifices: the fact that despite Cain’s
evident virtues, God rejects his way outright. Why should this be? Why should
God not accept Cain’s innovation and initiative, which is the very fact of
bringing a sacrifice to God in thanksgiving? Here, as elsewhere in Scripture,
it transpires that God is not particularly impressed with piety, with
sacrifices, with doing what you are told to do and what your fathers did before
you. He is not even that impressed with doing what you believe has been decreed
by God. All these things, which Cian has on his side of the ledger, can
be a part of a beast-life, or even of a life of evil. They are worth nothing if
they are not placed in the service of a life that is directed toward the active
pursuit of a man’s true good. (Yoram Hazony, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012], 107-9)
The explanation
often offered is that in reporting that “Abel also brought from the firstborn
of his flock and form their fatty parts” (Genesis 4.4), the text intends to
signal that Abel brought the best of his flock, while Cain brought less
desirable parts of his produce. See, for example. R. David Kimche on Genesis
4.3. But this can’t be right. The “also” (which in Hebrew, gam hu,
carries a double emphasis) just as easily suggests that Abel was bringing from
the first of his flock just as Cain had brought from the first of his produce
when he sacrificed. (Ibid., 307 n. 23)
See Rashi’
on Genesis 4.2, which links Abel’s decision to the curse on the soil. See also Seforno’s
comment on Gen. 4.2, to the effect that shepherding requires more intelligence,
and so is a turn away from the menial labor involved in farming. Abravanel on
Genesis 4.1-8 likewise recognizes that Able’s choice involves a rebellion
against the constant involvement with man’s material needs, the coarse and the
vulgar, and sees him as a slave of the soil. The turn to shepherding, on the
other hand, reflects an effort at self-improvement. But Abravanel’s reading of
shepherding as being a turn toward the political life of man seems to me to
have little or no resonance in the History. As discussed, this understanding of
the shepherding metaphor does appear in the Orations of the Prophets and in the
Writings. But I think it is a mistake to introduce it here. (Ibid., 307 n. 25)
