Le Péché se Couche À la Porte
Caïn et Abel
Le Péché de Caïn
But sacrifice is only acceptable to God if it is perfect and costly (Lv. 22:20–22; 2 Sa. 24:24); he will not be satisfied with second best (Mal. 1:6–14; Rom. 12:1)
רָבַץ (fut. יִרְבַּץ) Être couché, se coucher
49. 9, il est couché comme un lion;
Gen. 4. 7, le péché est couché à ta porte (ou: à la porte, l’entrée, de ta tombe), il t’attend comme une bête féroce, pour te dévorer.
sin is personified as a wild beast, lurking at the door of the human heart, and eagerly desiring to devour his soul (1 Pet. 5:8).
Si tu agis mal [en persistant à haïr Abel], le péché se couche à ta porte, prêt à te détruire. Les désirs [d’Abel] se portent vers toi [il reconnaîtra ton autorité d’aîné] et tu domineras sur lui [si tu agis bien]. »
“God talks to Cain as to a wilful child, and draws out of him what is sleeping in his heart, and lurking like a wild beast before his door. And what He did to Cain He does to every one who will but observe his own heart, and listen to the voice of God” (Herder). But Cain paid no need to the divine warning.
It is an instance of God’s patience and condescending goodness that he would deal thus tenderly with so bad a man, in so bad an affair. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Cain was so angry he would not be talked out of his sin—even by God. Eve, however, had to be talked into her sin by Satan; but Cain “belonged to the evil one” (1 John 3:12).
God’s advice was that if Cain would please God by doing what is right, all would be well. But if not sin would be crouching (rōḇēṣ is used here in the figure of a crouching animal) at his door, ready to overcome him. Sin desires to have Cain (these words show God’s interpretation of “desire,” the same Heb. word, in Gen. 3:16), but Cain could have the mastery over it. Here is the perpetual struggle between good and evil. Anyone filled with envy and strife is prey for the evil one.
First, man fell out of relationship with God. Now he falls out of relationship with his brother.
Adam and Eve manifested fear following their sin. Not so Cain. He was impudent and hardened. He lied to God. To God’s question about the whereabouts of Abel, Cain replied, “I know not!” He then hurled a rhetorical question at God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Observez l’orgueil et l’incrédulité de Caïn. Il nia son crime, comme s’il pouvait le dissimuler devant Dieu. Il tenta de couvrir un meurtre délibéré, par un mensonge. Le meurtre est un péché que l’on ne peut cacher.
Adam accepted God’s judgment in silence, but Cain protested fiercely (13–14) and was despatched even further from Eden (16).
The ultimate penalty for a Hebrew is not death, but exile, a loss of roots.
God sets before Cain life and a blessing: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? No doubt thou shalt, nay, thou knowest thou shalt;” either, [1.] “If thou hadst done well, as thy brother did, thou shouldst have been accepted, as he was.” God is no respecter of persons, hates nothing that he had made, denies his favour to none but those who have forfeited it, and is an enemy to none but those who by sin have made him their enemy: so that if we come short of acceptance with him we must thank ourselves, the fault is wholly our own; if we had done our duty, we should not have missed of his mercy
God was more than gracious in his dealing with Cain. He proclaimed that anyone who slew Cain would suffer a sevenfold divine vengeance (4:15). This proclamation underscores the fact that vengeance belongs to God; it also serves as a warning against the crime of murder. To give Cain confidence in this promise of protection, God “appointed a sign for Cain” (4:15). What this sign may have been cannot be determined from the text.
Under the curse of God, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. Since God is omnipresent, it is not possible to go out from his presence physically. The text must therefore refer to the spiritual direction of his life. He went forth to build a godless society east of Eden, in Nod, the land of wandering (4:16).
