Almost everyone that was raised with a Bible knows the story of two brothers named Cain and Abel. 

The older brother was Cain and the younger was Abel and in Genesis chapter 4 we read that Cain became so enraged with jealousy over his younger brother that he ends up taking his life.

It all began on a day when Cain and Abel had brought offerings to the Lord.   Cain was a farmer who had offered up to the Lord a crop from his fields.  Abel was a shepherd who had offered up a sheep. 

What happened afterwards is that the Lord looked with favor upon Abel’s offering but for some reason he was displeased with Cain’s offering. 

Why?

The issue is one of faith, obedience, and a willing heart of gratitude…

In the early days of Cain and Abel the offerings were not so much for sin as they were of gratitude and this was shown by giving some of the best firstfruits of what God had provided… whether fruit, grain or livestock. Deuteronomy 26:2 says, “Take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the LORD your God is giving you and put them in a basket.”- Keeping this idea in mind, let’s compare the nature of Abel’s sacrifice with Cain’s sacrifice.

ABEL: “…Abel too brought from the firstborn of his sheep, including their fat.”-Genesis 4:4
CAIN: “In the course of time Cain brought an offering to Adonai from the produce of the soil.”-Genesis 4:3

So Abel brought the first fruits of what he had and that was acceptable to the Lord. However, in contrast, the Scripture tells us that “in the course of time” Cain brought his offering to the Lord.

Actually, if you look at the original Hebrew, literally it says “in the end of days“! So instead of it being a “willing” offering of the firstfruits, it was a delayed, begrudging offering from an unthankful heart!

When we give to the Lord, we are supposed to give our first and our best and we’re supposed to give it immediately because delayed obedience is disobedience.

What Cain did was that he looked at what he had in his crops, and then AFTER determining that he had enough finally gave an offering to the Lord.
Such an attitude betrays a lack of faith. So the reason for the Lord’s disfavor had nothing to do with the fact that Abel gave an animal sacrifice and Cain didn’t. It wasn’t what Cain gave… It was how he gave what he gave!

He disobeyed by not giving the first fruits of his crop offering. This was disobedience plain and simple and reflected a lack of faith in his heart. And this is why Rabbi Shaul wrote,

“By faith Abel brought God
a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous,
when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.” -Hebrews 11:4

Jewish rabbinic commentary is also consistent with the interpretation that the Lord was displeased because Cain did not offer the best of what he had. Rashi notes:

“Of the fruit of the soil [means] the most inferior (Gen. Rabbah 22:5), and there is an Aggadah that states that it was flaxseed (Mid. Tan. Bereishith 9, Targum Jonathan). Another explanation: of the fruit from whatever came to his hand, not the best and not the choicest.”

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