Outside the garden, life goes on. Eve bears Cain and says, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.” She may have hoped he was the promised Seed. Then she bears Abel. Abel becomes a keeper of sheep and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the process of time both bring an offering to the LORD, and “the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering.”
Why the difference? Genesis tells us that Abel brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat — the first and the best. Hebrews 11:4 explains the heart behind it: “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” Abel came in faith; Cain came with a gift but not with a trusting heart. God looks at the worshiper before He looks at the offering.
Cain is very angry and his countenance falls. God speaks to him with patience: “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” Then He warns that sin lies at the door like a crouching animal, and its desire is for him — but he should rule over it. Cain does not listen. He talks with Abel his brother in the field and rises up and kills him. The first death recorded in the Bible is a murder that grew out of envy in worship.
God asks, “Where is Abel your brother?” and Cain answers, “I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?” God replies, “The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Cain becomes a fugitive and a vagabond, yet God puts a mark on him so that no one who finds him would kill him. Cain's line builds a city, makes music and forges tools, but it also produces Lamech, who boasts of violence. Culture advances while the heart grows harder.
Then God gives Adam and Eve another son, Seth, and in the days of Seth's son Enosh, “men began to call on the name of the LORD.” Genesis 5 traces this line from Adam to Noah with a solemn refrain: “and he died.” But one man breaks the pattern. “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” In a world marked by death, Enoch shows that a person can walk with God in fellowship every day.