Genesis 4

Cain and Abel

Outside Eden, Adam and Eve’s son Cain brings an offering the Lord does not accept, refuses the Lord’s warning, and kills his brother Abel. Cain is driven out to wander, his line builds cities and crafts and boasts of vengeance, and in Seth’s line people begin to call on the name of the LORD.

Genesis chaptersChapter 4 of 50

The first generations after Adam and Eve were driven from Eden (Gen. 3:23–24). Genesis gives no years. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis 4 is the first story told outside the garden. Its seventeen verses on Cain and Abel record a string of firsts: the first offering in the Bible, the first murder, the first city.

Genesis 4 is the first story told outside the garden. Its seventeen verses on Cain and Abel record a string of firsts: the first offering in the Bible, the first murder, the first city. The rest of the Old Testament never refers to the story again explicitly.

Latter-day Saints read it with a much fuller account beside it. In the Book of Moses, part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, fifteen verses come before Moses 5:16, which is where the account begins to line up with Genesis 4:1. In them Adam and Eve are commanded to offer the firstlings of their flocks, an angel tells Adam that the offering “is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father” (Moses 5:7), and Satan comes among their children (Moses 5:13). The rest of Moses 5 parallels this chapter, with long additions about Satan, Cain, and Lamech, and Moses 6:2–4 parallels verses 25–26. The notes bring in Moses where it answers a question the Genesis text leaves open.

The New Testament remembers Abel as the first righteous man to be killed (Matt. 23:35) and as a man of faith (Heb. 11:4), and Cain as one “who was of that wicked one” (1 Jn. 3:12). The Book of Mormon traces secret combinations back to him (Hel. 6:26–27).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 4 echoes the Fall, one generation later. The Lord comes to Cain with a question, “Where is Abel thy brother?”

Genesis 4 echoes the Fall, one generation later. The Lord comes to Cain with a question, “Where is Abel thy brother?” (verse 9), just as He came to Adam with “Where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9); the Hebrew uses the same interrogative. “What hast thou done?” (verse 10) answers “What is this that thou hast done?” (Gen. 3:13). There is a curse tied to the ground (verse 11), and an exile eastward (verse 16). Even the warning in verse 7, “unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him,” is in the words spoken to Eve (Gen. 3:16). In chapter 3 the serpent is in the story; in chapter 4 Genesis names no tempter, and the Book of Moses names Satan at every turn.

The word that carries the story is brother. In Hebrew it comes seven times between verse 2 and verse 11: “his brother Abel,” “Abel his brother” twice in the murder, “Abel thy brother” and “my brother’s keeper” in the Lord’s question and Cain’s answer, and “thy brother’s blood” twice in the sentence. Cain’s one use of the word is his denial: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Then the chapter divides Adam and Eve’s posterity into two families, as “some accepted the gospel and others did not.” Cain’s line builds a city, herds, makes music and forges metal, and ends in Lamech’s boast that he will be avenged “seventy and sevenfold.” Adam and Eve receive Seth “instead of Abel,” and in his line men “began… to call upon the name of the Lord, and the Lord blessed them” (Moses 6:4).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–2

Two sons

In plain words

Adam lay with his wife Eve. She conceived and gave birth to Cain, and said, “With the LORD’s help I have gotten a man.” Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.

1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

Language #

A son gotten from the LORD

Eve names her first son with a pun. Cain (Hebrew qayin) sounds like the verb she uses, qaniti, “I have gotten,” from qanah, “get, acquire.”

Eve names her first son with a pun. Cain (Hebrew qayin) sounds like the verb she uses, qaniti, “I have gotten,” from qanah, “get, acquire.” She has acquired a son “with the help of” the LORD, and she gives Him the credit: her words convey “thanksgiving for God’s providence in providing a son.”

The Book of Moses finishes her sentence and shows how her hope was answered. Eve adds, “wherefore he may not reject his words,” and the text goes on at once: “But behold, Cain hearkened not, saying: Who is the Lord that I should know him?” (Moses 5:16). The verse that begins with Adam “knowing” Eve (Hebrew yada‘, used here of the union of husband and wife) ends with a son who refuses to know the Lord. The intimate knowing that brought Cain into the world is “now contrasted with Cain, who does not know God,” that is, who “will not maintain a covenant relationship with him.” His brother is introduced the other way: “Abel hearkened unto the voice of the Lord” (Moses 5:17).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

Verses 3–7

Two offerings

In plain words

In time Cain brought some of the produce of the ground as an offering to the LORD. Abel also brought an offering: some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favor. Cain was furious, and his face fell.

The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not, sin is crouching at the door. His desire is for you, and you shall rule over him.”

3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

Context #

What was wrong with Cain’s offering?

Genesis never says why the LORD refused Cain’s offering: “Neither the Genesis nor the Moses account specifically states why Abel’s offering was accepted by the Lord but Cain’s was not.”

Genesis never says why the LORD refused Cain’s offering: “Neither the Genesis nor the Moses account specifically states why Abel’s offering was accepted by the Lord but Cain’s was not.” The Hebrew word for both offerings is the same, minchah, “gift, offering,” used of an offering to God “of any kind, whether grain or animals.” Nor was farming the wrong work; Adam himself “began to till the earth” after leaving the garden (Moses 5:1).

What the Book of Moses adds is Cain’s motive: “And Cain loved Satan more than God. And Satan commanded him, saying: Make an offering unto the Lord” (Moses 5:18). In the Church’s current reading, “Cain followed Satan’s instructions and his intentions were not pure.” He had “rejected the Lord—his words and his ways—before the Lord rejected Cain’s sacrifice.”

The kind of offering may have mattered too, though here the sources speak of possibilities. Adam and Eve had been commanded to offer two things, “the firstlings of the flock and the firstfruits of the field.” Abel brought firstlings; Cain brought only “of the fruit of the ground,” and “it is possible that Cain did not offer the firstfruits.” It is “also possible that at that point in time, the Lord’s requirement was for Cain to offer an animal sacrifice.” Offerings of produce “were acceptable at other times, especially under Mosaic law; however, for this particular offering, the Lord required the shedding of blood.” Even in later law, fruits were offered “only after the expiatory sacrifice used in similitude of the Son of God.” By leaving out the animal, “Cain was thus removing Christ from the equation.” Joseph Smith’s explanation is in the next note.

Sources: Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54. M. Russell Ballard, “The Law of Sacrifice”, Liahona, Mar. 2002, 10–15 (from an address to Church Educational System educators, Aug. 13, 1996). Carol Frogley Ellertson, “The Sanctifying Power of True Ritual Worship”, In The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, The 38th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. D. Kelly Ogden, Jared W. Ludlow, and Kerry Muhlestein (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).

4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

Witness of Christ #

By faith Abel offered

Abel’s offering was accepted because it was offered in faith in the coming sacrifice of Christ.

Abel’s offering was accepted because it was offered in faith in the coming sacrifice of Christ. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders in Kirtland wrote in 1834: “By faith in this atonement or plan of redemption, Abel offered to God a sacrifice that was accepted, which was the firstlings of the flock. Cain offered of the fruit of the ground, and was not accepted, because he could not do it in faith.” The reason is what sacrifice was for: “the sacrifice was instituted for a type, by which man was to discern the great Sacrifice which God had prepared.” An offering that left out that type could not be made in faith in it. The Church’s current wording: Cain “did not exercise faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ.”

The Book of Moses gives the origin of the type. When an angel asked Adam why he offered sacrifices, Adam answered, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me,” and the angel told him, “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father” (Moses 5:6–7). The same letter concludes that Abel must have been “instructed more fully into the plan than what the bible speaks.”

What Abel brought fits that meaning. He offered “from the firstborn” of his flock and their fat, and later scripture treats the firstlings as the most valuable of the flock and the fat as “the highly prized portion of the sacrifice.” Hebrews puts it in one line: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts” (Heb. 11:4).

Sources: Letter to the Church, circa March 1834, The Joseph Smith Papers, p. 143 (published in The Evening and the Morning Star). Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72.

5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Language #

The Lord pleads with Cain

The Lord’s first words to the angry Cain are an invitation, not a sentence.

The Lord’s first words to the angry Cain are an invitation, not a sentence. In Hebrew the promise is a single word: “if you do well, se’et,” literally a lifting up. Its sense here is “dubious,” and it has been taken as “acceptance,” “forgiveness,” or “uplifting of countenance.” The last answers verse 5, where Cain’s face fell (vayyiplu panav): do well, and your face will be lifted.

The Book of Moses makes the question a promise, “If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted” (Moses 5:23), and shows who was watching: when the Lord refused Cain’s offering, “Satan knew this, and it pleased him” (Moses 5:21). “Even after the unacceptable offering, the Lord did not reject Cain, but gave him specific warning about the dangerous path he was walking.” God is telling Cain that “he (not just his offering) will be accepted if he does what is right.” It was Cain who closed the conversation: he “was wroth, and listened not any more to the voice of the Lord, neither to Abel, his brother” (Moses 5:26).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54.

Language #

Sin crouching at the door

Sin is pictured as a beast crouching at Cain’s door, waiting to spring.

Sin is pictured as a beast crouching at Cain’s door, waiting to spring. The verb, rovets, is used of animals lying down, including a lion “in lair” (Gen. 49:9), and here it describes “crouching” in “a ready-to-pounce posture, not a passive lying down.” Israel’s neighbors in Mesopotamia told of demons called rabisu that were thought to “lurk outside a person’s door, waiting to attack the person when he or she came out of their house.”

The next words are harder. “Unto thee shall be his desire” uses the word for desire (teshuqah) that here means the desire “of beast to devour,” the same word and the same pairing with “rule over” spoken to Eve in Gen. 3:16. But whose desire? “Scholars of the Bible do not know to whom the personal pronoun his is referring.” It cannot easily be sin, because “the word sin in Hebrew is feminine and thus does not match the gender of the personal pronoun here, which is masculine.”

The Book of Moses names him: “sin lieth at the door, and Satan desireth to have thee; and except thou shalt hearken unto my commandments, I will deliver thee up, and it shall be unto thee according to his desire. And thou shalt rule over him” (Moses 5:23). So the crouching figure is “Satan, an embodiment of sin,” waiting “so he can pounce on Cain and thus ‘have’ him unless Cain hearkens unto the Lord’s commandments.” The last clause becomes a dark irony in one Latter-day Saint reading: Cain “will come to rule over Satan, demonstrating that a person possessing a physical body holds power over one who does not possess a body.” The next verse of Moses gives Cain his title: “thou shalt be called Perdition” (Moses 5:24). John’s epistle agrees that Cain “was of that wicked one” (1 Jn. 3:12).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54. Scripture Central, “Why Does the Lord Tell Cain That Sin “Lieth at the Door?””, KnoWhy #834, Jan. 13, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72.

Verses 8–16

The first murder

In plain words

Cain spoke to his brother Abel, and when they were out in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. The LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he answered. “Am I my brother’s guardian?” The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground that opened its mouth to take your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer give you its strength. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the face of the ground, and I will be hidden from your presence. I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” The LORD answered, “Then whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” And the LORD gave Cain a sign so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

Language #

What Cain said to Abel

The Hebrew sentence breaks off. It reads literally, “And Cain said to Abel his brother,” and then nothing is said; the next words are “and it came to pass, when they were in the field.”

The Hebrew sentence breaks off. It reads literally, “And Cain said to Abel his brother,” and then nothing is said; the next words are “and it came to pass, when they were in the field.” The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, supplies the missing words: “And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out into the plain.” The Latin Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Samaritan Pentateuch have the longer reading too, and it “lends an air of premeditation to Cain’s act of murder.”

The Book of Moses shows that the murder was planned, and with whom. Satan had Cain swear an oath of secrecy and promised, “this day I will deliver thy brother Abel into thine hands” (Moses 5:29). Cain then said, “Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain” (Moses 5:31), and after the killing he boasted, “I am free; surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands” (Moses 5:33). “Get gain” is “another play on his name”: Eve had “gotten” Cain from the Lord, and now Cain murders to get gain. The Book of Mormon names the same being as the one “who did plot with Cain, that if he would murder his brother Abel it should not be known unto the world” (Hel. 6:27).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54.

9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

Language #

Where is thy brother?

The Lord’s question is the one He asked Adam. “Where is Abel thy brother?”

The Lord’s question is the one He asked Adam. “Where is Abel thy brother?” begins with the same Hebrew interrogative as “Where art thou?” in the garden (Gen. 3:9). In neither case does God need the information: “Because the Lord knows all things (Moses 1:6), it seems the question was intended to elicit a confession of guilt.” Cain answers with a lie.

His retort turns on the word “keeper.” Abel was a “keeper” of sheep (ro‘eh, a shepherd, verse 2), but Cain uses a different word, shomer, from the verb “keep, watch, preserve”: am I my brother’s guard? To answer God that way is “not only dishonest but disrespectful.” And Cain says “my brother” in the same breath in which he disowns him, the fifth of the seven times brother sounds in verses 2–11.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

Witness of Christ #

Blood that cries from the ground

Abel’s blood calls out to God for justice. The Hebrew has the plural, literally “the voice of thy brother’s bloods,” and the image is of a victim whose shed blood demands redress.

Abel’s blood calls out to God for justice. The Hebrew has the plural, literally “the voice of thy brother’s bloods,” and the image is of a victim whose shed blood demands redress. Abel was the first “whose life was taken in innocence and righteousness,” and Jesus counted the righteous blood shed on the earth “from the blood of righteous Abel” onward (Matt. 23:35).

Hebrews sets that blood beside the Savior’s. Abel “being dead yet speaketh” (Heb. 11:4), but believers have come “to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:24).

Joseph Smith’s translation of Genesis shows that the likeness could be misread. In Abraham’s day, the Lord says, people who had strayed from His ordinances “have said that the blood of the righteous Abel was shed for sins” (JST, Gen. 17:7). Abel, “a profound human similitude of the Messiah,” had come to be treated “as though he were the real Savior.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17, Gospel Library.

11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

Language #

Cursed from the ground

Cain’s curse is to lose the ground he worked. The Church’s summary: “Cain’s curse was that the ground would not grow crops for him, he would wander as a fugitive, and he would be…

Cain’s curse is to lose the ground he worked. The Church’s summary: “Cain’s curse was that the ground would not grow crops for him, he would wander as a fugitive, and he would be separated from the presence of the Lord.” In Hebrew it is arur attah min-ha’adamah, “cursed are you from the ground.” The difference from Adam matters. For Adam, “cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Gen. 3:17); for Cain, he himself is cursed, and “there is no hint of Cain’s curse being for his sake.”

The ground (adamah) runs through the story: Cain was a worker “of the ground” (verse 2), brought “the fruit of the ground” (verse 3), the ground received Abel’s blood and cried out (verses 10–11), it will not yield to Cain (verse 12), and he is driven “from the face of the ground” (verse 14, where the KJV has “earth”). To an ancient reader this probably meant that Cain “was cursed by being exiled and disinherited from the family’s lands of inheritance.” Nothing in the curse touches Cain’s body or his descendants (see the note on verse 15).

Sources: Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. Scripture Central, “What Were the Curse and Mark of Cain?”, KnoWhy #836, Jan. 27, 2026.

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Language #

Punishment, or iniquity?

Cain’s words can be read two ways, and both say something about him. The key word, ‘avon, means “iniquity, guilt, or punishment of iniquity,” so gadol ‘avoni minnesso can mean “my…

Cain’s words can be read two ways, and both say something about him. The key word, ‘avon, means “iniquity, guilt, or punishment of iniquity,” so gadol ‘avoni minnesso can mean “my punishment is too great to bear” or “my iniquity is too great to be forgiven”; the phrase “can mean both.” The Septuagint took the second sense: “My crime is too great for me to be forgiven.”

The Book of Moses shows what was on his mind: “Satan tempted me because of my brother’s flocks. And I was wroth also; for his offering thou didst accept and not mine” (Moses 5:38). He complains about losing his crops and fears for his own life (verse 14), but “there is no sign of remorse.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

15 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Context #

The mark protected Cain

The verse states what the mark was for: “lest any finding him should kill him.”

The verse states what the mark was for: “lest any finding him should kill him.” It was “a sign for others to not seek revenge and kill him.” In later Israel the nearest relative of a murdered man, the “avenger of blood,” was obliged to kill the murderer (Deut. 19:6; Deut. 19:12), and the mark “somehow exempted Cain” from that duty. “Sevenfold” means completely: “God guarantees Cain’s life sevenfold, or completely.” Cain’s punishment was left in God’s hands.

What the mark was, no one knows. The Hebrew word, ’ot, is the ordinary word for a “sign, pledge, token,” and the Lord set it le-qayin, “for” or “to” Cain, not necessarily on him. Readers have imagined a physical mark, “something the Hebrew seems to negate,” and the word “is not normally attached to physical appearances or characteristics.” “It is unclear what Cain’s mark was, though many have speculated about it.” Instead of a physical mark, the Hebrew points to Cain’s becoming “a ‘marked man,’ meaning that the people knew who he was and that they were to keep their hands off him and let God deal with his punishment.”

One later guess did great harm. The idea that the mark had to do with dark skin “can be traced no earlier than to the Middle Ages”; it is not in the text, and “a racial reading was apparently unknown in ancient times.” The Church has rejected it: “Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse.” “We should avoid speculating about the nature or appearance of the mark placed on Cain or that the curse applied to anyone other than him. The Church rejects and condemns racial and cultural prejudice in any form.”

Sources: Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Scripture Central, “What Were the Curse and Mark of Cain?”, KnoWhy #836, Jan. 27, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Race and the Priesthood”, Gospel Topics Essays.

16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Language #

The land of Wandering

Nod means “wandering.” It comes from the same verb, nud, “wander aimlessly, as fugitive,” that the curse used in verse 12 and Cain repeated in verse 14: na‘ va-nad, “a fugitive…

Nod means “wandering.” It comes from the same verb, nud, “wander aimlessly, as fugitive,” that the curse used in verse 12 and Cain repeated in verse 14: na‘ va-nad, “a fugitive and a vagabond.” The man condemned to wander settles in the land of Wandering. The name “is undoubtedly symbolic.”

“East of Eden” continues the movement of chapter 3. Adam and Eve were driven out and the cherubim placed “at the east” of the garden (Gen. 3:24); Cain goes further east. In the Book of Moses he is “shut out from the presence of the Lord,” and he does not go alone: he went “with his wife and many of his brethren” (Moses 5:41).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 17–24

Cain’s line

In plain words

Cain lay with his wife; she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. Enoch had a son, Irad; Irad was the father of Mehujael, Mehujael of Methusael, and Methusael of Lamech.

Lamech married two women, Adah and Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal, the ancestor of those who live in tents and keep livestock. His brother was Jubal, the ancestor of all who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah gave birth to Tubal-cain, who forged all kinds of tools of bronze and iron; Tubal-cain’s sister was Naamah. Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Context #

Where Cain’s wife came from

Genesis seems to make Cain and Abel the first children, yet Cain fears that “every one that findeth me shall slay me” (verse 14), and here he has a wife.

Genesis seems to make Cain and Abel the first children, yet Cain fears that “every one that findeth me shall slay me” (verse 14), and here he has a wife. The Book of Moses answers both questions. Before Cain was born, Adam and Eve had “sons and daughters,” and “the sons and daughters of Adam began to divide two and two in the land” and had children of their own (Moses 5:2–3). “Many children were born before Cain and, therefore, his finding himself a wife would not have been a problem.” Moses names her family: “Cain took one of his brothers’ daughters to wife, and they loved Satan more than God” (Moses 5:28). Marriages between close kin, even a brother and sister, were “common and acceptable in very early biblical times”; the law of Moses later forbade marriage to a sister (Lev. 18:9).

The Hebrew says Cain “was building” a city (boneh, a participle), so “perhaps Cain did not complete the city.” Either way, the wanderer of verse 12 ends up founding the first city in the Bible and naming it for his son.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

Context #

Not the Enoch who walked with God

Cain’s Enoch and Cain’s Lamech are not the men of the same names in chapter 5.

Cain’s Enoch and Cain’s Lamech are not the men of the same names in chapter 5. Seth’s line there has an Enoch, son of Jared, who “walked with God” (Gen. 5:24), and a Lamech who is Noah’s father (Gen. 5:28–29), and some of the other names sound alike: Irad and Jared, Methusael and Methuselah. In one reading the names, “though similar in sound, are very different in meaning,” and the repeated Enoch and Lamech stand in “different places” in the two lines.

Restoration scripture keeps the two families apart. Cain’s Enoch had a city named for him and “other sons and daughters” (Moses 5:42–43); the other Enoch was Jared’s son, and “Jared taught Enoch in all the ways of God” (Moses 6:21).

19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

21 And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

Language #

Lyre and pipe, bronze and iron

The instruments are a lyre and a pipe. The kinnor (KJV “harp”) is a “lyre,” a “stringed instrument used for popular as well as sacred music.”

The instruments are a lyre and a pipe. The kinnor (KJV “harp”) is a “lyre,” a “stringed instrument used for popular as well as sacred music.” The ‘ugab (KJV “organ”) is not the keyboard instrument the English word suggests today; early translations took it as “a reed-pipe or flute” or “a Pan’s pipe.” The KJV’s “brass” in verse 22 is nechoshet, “copper, bronze,” and Tubal-cain was literally “a forger of every implement” of bronze and iron. The second half of his name fits his trade: Cain in Hebrew can mean “‘smith’ or ‘metalworker,’” which ties Cain’s descendants back to him.

Herding in tents, music, and metalwork all begin in Cain’s family. Genesis does not condemn them. The arts “were invented by the Cainites, and carried out in an ungodly spirit; but they are not therefore to be attributed to the curse which rested upon the family,” and they “have become the common property of humanity.” In that reading what is wrong with the family is its spirit, which “reached its culminating point” in Lamech’s song.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

23 And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.

Related Scriptures #

Lamech’s song

Lamech’s words to his wives are a poem, with “rhythm” and “poetic diction.”

Lamech’s words to his wives are a poem, with “rhythm” and “poetic diction.” In Genesis he boasts that he has killed a man, or a young man, for wounding him. He claims the protection God gave Cain, multiplied: “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” The Hebrew is “seventy and seven”; the Septuagint has “seventy times seven.” God promised to protect Cain; Lamech promises to avenge himself.

The Book of Moses explains what Genesis only hints. Lamech had entered “into a covenant with Satan, after the manner of Cain,” and become “Master Mahan” himself. When Irad, Cain’s grandson, “began to reveal it unto the sons of Adam,” Lamech killed him, “not like unto Cain, his brother Abel, for the sake of getting gain, but he slew him for the oath’s sake” (Moses 5:49–50). He told the secret to his wives, and they “rebelled against him, and declared these things abroad” (Moses 5:53). Lamech was cast out, “and thus the works of darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men” (Moses 5:55). Five generations after Cain, murder is done to keep the oath itself.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

24 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

Verses 25–26

Seth

In plain words

Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has appointed me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” Seth also had a son, and he named him Enos. At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD.

25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

Related Scriptures #

Seth, the appointed seed

Seth’s name means “appointed.” Shet (Seth) is explained by shat, “he has appointed” or “set”: God “hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel.”

Seth’s name means “appointed.” Shet (Seth) is explained by shat, “he has appointed” or “set”: God “hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel.” In Latter-day Saint reading Seth “would become an ‘appointed’ priesthood leader ‘in place of Abel.’” The Book of Moses shows him filling his brother’s place: “God revealed himself unto Seth, and he rebelled not, but offered an acceptable sacrifice, like unto his brother Abel” (Moses 6:3). Latter-day revelation adds that Adam ordained him and that he was “a perfect man, and his likeness was the express likeness of his father” (D&C 107:42–43).

“Another seed” looks back to the promise in the garden that the woman’s seed would bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15; Moses 4:21). The phrase “recalls the ‘seed’ of Eve from the Fall narrative,” and Seth “restored the hope that Adam and Eve could have a righteous posterity who lived the gospel, a lineage through whom the Messiah would come.”

26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

Language #

Calling on the name of the LORD

This is not the first prayer in the world. Adam and Eve had already “called upon the name of the Lord” and been taught to call upon God “in the name of the Son forevermore” (Moses…

This is not the first prayer in the world. Adam and Eve had already “called upon the name of the Lord” and been taught to call upon God “in the name of the Son forevermore” (Moses 5:4; Moses 5:8). The Hebrew is impersonal, literally “then it was begun to call on the name of the LORD,” that is, “men began.” The Book of Moses says who: “then began these men to call upon the name of the Lord, and the Lord blessed them” (Moses 6:4), that is, Seth and Enos. The verse shows “the priestly duties of the family of Adam and Eve continuing through Seth.” To call on the name of the LORD is a “solemn calling of the name of God,” the same thing Abraham does at the altars he builds (Gen. 12:8).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 6: Enoch”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 255–84. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 4

The chapter’s center is an offering. Adam and Eve were given “the law of sacrifice, which symbolized the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ,” and the angel told Adam that the firstlings of the flock were “a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father” (Moses 5:7). Abel offered that similitude in faith; Cain, at Satan’s bidding, “removed the symbolism of the Redeemer out of his sacrifice.”

Abel is also a likeness of Christ. “Cain and Abel represent in several ways the story of Jesus Christ and Lucifer”: “Abel carried out his father’s will just as Jesus Christ carried out his Father’s will.” Abel’s blood cried from the ground against Cain, but the blood of Jesus “speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:24). And when Abel is gone, Eve receives “another seed” (Gen. 4:25), the line through which the promised seed would come (Gen. 3:15).

Worth exploring next

The fuller account. Read Moses 5:1–59 and Moses 6:1–4 beside this chapter.
Cain in later scripture. Hel. 6:26–30; Ether 8:15–25; 1 Jn. 3:11–15; Jude 1:11.
Abel in the New Testament. Heb. 11:4; Heb. 12:24; Matt. 23:35.
The mark of Cain. KnoWhy #836 (Scripture Central), “What Were the Curse and Mark of Cain?”, sets out what ancient Jewish and Christian readers guessed and where the racial reading came from.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 5: Cain’s Offering and the Curse”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 229–54.
Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, “Moses 6: Enoch”, In The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 255–84.
Andrew C. Skinner, “Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and Moses 5)”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 43–72.
Scripture Central, “Why Does the Lord Tell Cain That Sin “Lieth at the Door?””, KnoWhy #834, Jan. 13, 2026.
Scripture Central, “What Were the Curse and Mark of Cain?”, KnoWhy #836, Jan. 27, 2026.
Letter to the Church, circa March 1834, The Joseph Smith Papers, p. 143 (published in The Evening and the Morning Star).
Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17, Gospel Library.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Race and the Priesthood”, Gospel Topics Essays.
M. Russell Ballard, “The Law of Sacrifice”, Liahona, Mar. 2002, 10–15 (from an address to Church Educational System educators, Aug. 13, 1996).
Carol Frogley Ellertson, “The Sanctifying Power of True Ritual Worship”, In The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, The 38th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. D. Kelly Ogden, Jared W. Ludlow, and Kerry Muhlestein (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009).

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