Offerings and Sacrifices of OT

How did Cain and Abel know to give offerings to God? Who taught them? and what kind of offering were they performing?

Cain and Abel learned about worship and sacrifice from their parents, Adam and Eve1. Adam and Eve taught their sons the necessity of worship, including the place, purpose, and period of worship, as well as the nature of sin and the need for sin offerings2. The parents demonstrated this by recounting how God had replaced their fig leaves with animal skins—a covering achieved through blood sacrifice—making clear to their sons that approaching God required a blood offering2.

When God killed animals to clothe Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:21, He may have also communicated foundational principles about sacrifice that would later be formalized in the Levitical system3.

Types of Offerings

Cain brought an offering from the fruits of the earth, while Abel brought an offering from the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions4. Both offerings were minkhah—tribute offerings designed to acknowledge God as overlord by presenting him gifts, rather than sin offerings seeking forgiveness5. However, the critical difference lay in the substance and spirit of each gift.

Cain’s offering represented acknowledgment of the Creator, while Abel brought a sacrifice of atonement3. Abel’s heart was set on the coming sacrifice; he brought the first and best of his flock, acknowledging through this act that he deserved death and that God required a substitute6. By faith, Abel offered greater gifts, whether out of worship or piety4, whereas Cain did not bring his offering in faith but asserted his independence by choosing to worship God in his own way3.

1

Philip H. Eveson, The Book of Origins: Genesis Simply Explained, Welwyn Commentary Series (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2001), 118.

2

Dean M. Weaver, 100 Various Sermons on Vital Subjects: Alliterated Texts for Teaching Truth (Wordsearch, 2018), 201.

3

Mrs. T. M. Constance, Genesis (Dickson, TN: Explorer’s Bible Study, 2000), 1:30–32.

4

Rupert of Deutz, “On the Trinity and Its Works: Comments on Genesis (Genesis 4–8),” in The Book of Genesis, ed. Joy A. Schroeder et al., trans. Joy A. Schroeder, The Bible in Medieval Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 87.

5

Iain M. Duguid, “Genesis,” in Genesis–Numbers, ed. Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2025), 1:73.

6

Brian Simmons and Candice Simmons, The Image Maker: Dust and Glory (BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC, 2019). [See here.]