Now, the phrase here (and I just want to bring this out as kind of a point of interest) where it says she bore again, in the Hebrew it literally means "she added to bear." Now, according to Adam Clarke's commentary, and not that he is an authority on this or anything, but he does have some good insight sometimes. He said,
So, what does this mean? Is it possible then that Cain and Abel were twins? Very, most likely. Now, I would not say identical twins. They were more like Jacob and Esau, maybe. Because identical twins usually grow up liking the same thing, acting and behaving in the same manner, and many times they even go into the same occupation.
But we see in the last sentence in verse 2 where it says that, "Now Abel was a keeper of sheep." He decided he would be a shepherd. "But Cain was a tiller of the ground." And he decided he wanted to be a farmer. It kind of gives us an indication that they were actually probably nothing alike, that they had actually gone into opposite directions. And as we are fixing to find out, we are going to see that is exactly what has happened to them. In verse 3, it says,
There is a little aside here that we should get to before we go past it, but it will not take long. When these verses are combined with Genesis 1:28-29 and Genesis 4:1-5, it shows that this is not mankind's introduction into eating animal flesh. You can read verse 3 in chapter 9. But in Genesis 1, what God is doing is showing that all life, animal and human, ultimately depends on vegetation: I have given you all the green herbs to eat. And that is true.
Remember Genesis 4:1-5. Abel brought to God an animal sacrifice. That shows us that God had already showed them that their dominion over animals extended to the place that they were able to take an animal's life. God was well pleased with Abel's animal sacrifice. He was so well pleased that it is recorded back in Hebrews 11 that it still witnesses. So God was not overly concerned about the killing of an animal, but what we need to understand is that they understood about sacrificing, and some of the sacrifices had to be eaten. That was a requirement of God. The sin offering was to be eaten, part of it anyway, and the peace offering was to be eaten.
Now from these verses, there is certainly a lot that is not stated, but we can understand that Abel's offering was indeed respected and Cain's was not. Cain obviously did not do the right thing. God tells us, "If you do well, will it not be accepted?" There are clear indications that Cain not only brought the wrong offering, but the way in which he brought it forth was equally incorrect.
