Who Was Cain's Wife?
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Proverbs 3:5–10 (ESV)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Speak about cain and how God put a mark on him.
Genesis 4:16–17 (ESV)
Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.
Skeptics of the Bible have used Cain’s wife time and again to discredit the book of Genesis as a true historical record.
SLIDE: In 1925 in Tennessee we had the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.
SLIDE: William Jennings Bryan, who stood for the Christian faith, failed to answer the question about Cain’s wife posed by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) lawyer Clarence Darrow.
Q—Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?
A—No, sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.
Q—You have never found out?
A—I have never tried to find.
Q—You have never tried to find?
A—No.
Q—The Bible says he got one doesn’t it? Were there other people on the earth at that time?
A—I cannot say.
Q—You cannot say. Did that ever enter your consideration?
A—Never bothered me.
Q—There were no others recorded, but Cain got a wife?
A—That is what the Bible says.
Q—Where she came from you do not know?
SLIDE: We also have Carl Sagan in his book “Contact.”
In the book, we read the fictional character Ellie’s account of how she could not get answers from a minister’s wife, who was the leader of a church discussion group
“Ellie had never seriously read the Bible before . . . . So over the weekend preceding her first class, she read through what seemed to be the important parts of the Old Testament, trying to keep an open mind. She at once recognized that there were two different and mutually contradictory stories of Creation . . . and had trouble figuring out exactly who it was that Cain had married.”
Why Is It Important?
Why Is It Important?
Many skeptics have claimed that for Cain to find a wife, there must have been other “races” of people on the earth who were not descendants of Adam and Eve.
This had became a stumbling block to accepting the creation account of Genesis and its record of only one man and one woman at the beginning of history.
You will see why this is important.
The First Man
The First Man
1 Corinthians 15:45 (ESV)
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
God did not start by making a particular race of men.
The First Woman
The First Woman
Genesis 3:20 (ESV)
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
All people other than Adam are descendants of Eve—she was the first woman.
Matthew 19:4–6 (ESV)
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
So far we can see
All humans are of “One Blood”
Acts 17:26 (ESV)
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
So lets look at the family tree(Picture)
Even though these three males are specifically mentioned, Adam and Eve had other children.
The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters.
When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
Remember, they were commanded to “be fruitful, and multiply”
When there was only the first generation, brothers would have had to marry sisters or there wouldn’t have been any more generations!
Cain’s wife was either his sister or a close relative.
Incest was possible during this time because the world was free from pollution, most diseases, and most genetic disorders.
Objections
Objections
1. It’s Against God’s Law.
This law forbidding close relatives marrying was not given until the time of Moses.
The law was giving as part of the Mosaic covenant, approximately 2,500 years after God created Adam and Eve.
This was due to mutations.
Mutations = A change in the usual DNA sequence.
The closer we get to Adam and Eve, the fewer genetic mistakes people would have.
Noah’s grandchildren must have married brothers, sisters, or first cousins.
Abraham married his half-sister.
Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
Noah’s grandchildren must have married brothers, sisters, or first cousins.
Abraham married his half-sister.
Isaac married Rebekah, the daughter of his cousin Bethuel.
Jacob married his cousins Leah and Rachel.
1. It’s Against God’s Law.
2. Cain and the Land of Nod.
Genesis 4:16–17 (ESV)
Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.
Cain was married before he went to the land of Nod. He didn’t find a wife there but “knew” (had sexual relations with) his wife.
Recap (Picture)
How Does This Affect The Gospel?
How Does This Affect The Gospel?
If God created different people groups at the beginning that would mean Cain’s wife would have come from people not descended from Adam.
If some people are not descended from Adam, then the gospel is not for all people!
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Since it was man who brought sin and death into God’s perfect creation, humanity needed one of its own to pay the perfect, infinite price to satisfy God’s righteous wrath.
But how, since “all have sinned and fall short”?
God became flesh!
God became flesh!
God the Son became the perfect man, the Last Adam. He is of our blood, yet sinless—the just, perfect, infinite kinsman redeemer. Dying on the Cross, Christ paid our debt, absorbed God’s wrath due us, that those shackled by sin in the first Adam may repent and believe to receive salvation through the Last Adam.
1 Corinthians 15:21–22 (ESV)
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Answering the Questions
Answering the Questions
What verse shows Adam was the first man?
What verse shows Eve is the “mother of all living”
What verse shows we are of “One Blood”
Who did Cain marry? (Key Verse G 5:4)
The Law forbids marrying close relatives?
But why was marrying a close relative originally okay and later forbidden by God?