Several things stood out to me in these chapters. Some things I have thought about before, and others are new thoughts.
The first thing I have never thought about before is why exactly Cain's sacrifice wasn't pleasing to God. I assumed in Sunday school as a child that God "had no regard" for Cain's offering of produce simply because it was produce. Since all I ever learned about was the animal sacrifices that were used in the Old Testament, then I thought that was the only thing God wanted to be sacrificed. However, since I have been lazy about blogging and am just now writing this after starting the book of Leviticus, I have a bit better insight into this situation.
The first several chapters of Leviticus talk about the different types of offerings. One of the offerings is a grain offering, which implies that something other than animals can be given as a sacrificial offering. However, there are very particular criteria about which this offering must be given. While I'm aware that Cain and Abel did not have the Levitical laws, there must have been some sort of law given to them about how and what to sacrifice (this is not recorded anywhere in Scripture, so it is mere speculation). Abel obeyed these laws with his sacrifice (which also matches up with some criteria of Levitical law: "the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions". Firstlings would refer to the best of the flock, animals without defect. "of their fat portions" could possibly refer to fat from particular parts of the animal as described in Leviticus that must be offered.) And therefore, "the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering." (Gen. 4:4)
So what we see in Genesis 4 is that Cain simply "brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground." There is no specifics on this offering being the best of his crops or anything like that. Meanwhile, Abel brought the best of his flock. Why exactly God wasn't happy with Cain's offering, I can't be completely sure. Maybe it was simply because he didn't bring the best that he had. Maybe it was because his heart wasn't in it when he offered the sacrifice. Maybe it was a culmination of both, among other things. But what I do know now is that it WASN'T because his offering wasn't an animal.
The second half of Genesis 4 and all of chapter 5 are genealogy, first of Cain and then of Adam. I never noticed before that there are 2 Enochs mentioned in these chapters, one being Cain's son and the other being the great-great-great grandson of Seth, Cain's brother. Not much is said about either of them. Cain's son Enoch had a city named after him, and he's the father of Irad. That's about all we know.
The Enoch of Seth's descent, however, has a bit more information revealed about him. His dad's name is Jared, which we don't ever hear much about. Jared just happened to be the second-oldest person on record, dying at 962 years of age. The only person who lived longer than him was Methuselah, who died at the ripe old age of 969. What makes it cool is that Methuselah's dad was none other than Enoch. So with his dad living to 962 and his son living to 969, you'd think that Enoch must've lived a long time, too. On the contrary, he only lived to be 365; to make things more interesting, he didn't die.
Genesis 5:24 says two very interesting things about Enoch: he walked with God, and God took him. Noah is the only other person in the Bible that is said to have walked with God. I can't imagine what kind of intimacy that is, to actually walk with God. I hope that's the kind of relationship that all Christians crave, so that others could say of us that we "walk with God."
The second half of verse 24 says that God took him. The verse implies that he did not die, but God took him to Heaven alive, just like he does Elijah later on. I'm not sure what all would go into something like that, like does he have a glorified body in Heaven, or does he still have the body he had on Earth? I'm not well-versed on this subject, so I can't even provide a Scripture-based theory (for anyone who has info on this topic, please let me know).
And the end of this section of Genesis leads into the corruption of mankind, Noah, and the great flood. Which is where I'll pick up next time.
