Questions & Answers
Where did Cain
get his wife?
by David Churchill
In Genesis chapter four, where
did Cain get his wife? How could he find a wife
in the land of Nod if the only people then were Adam, Eve, Cain,
and dead Abel?
Im glad to answer a question
like this here partly because finding the right answer
is easier than the question suggests and partly because I like
questions that prompt people to think more deeply about what
they read in the Bible.
The first time I remember hearing
this question asked was as a small boy back in the 1960's. My
parents and other relatives were sitting around the kitchen table
having one of their evening discussions while the children played
in the living room. The conversation turned to the Bible
and one of the men raised this question about Cains wife
suggesting that Cain could not find a wife in Nod because there
were no people there or anywhere else. He then proceeded
to use his answer to the question as his proof that the Genesis
was fiction and the Bible was full of errors and contradictions.
The last time I heard someone ask
this question involved a woman who had not been a Christian very
long at the time. She was trying to study the Bible for
herself, but still knew very little about how to do that. She
was having difficulty finding an answer that both made sense
to her and yet was consistent with what facts she had already
learned from the Bible about God and creation.
The challenge of this question
comes from its assumption that there were no other people living
at the time other than Adam, Eve, and Cain. (Obviously,
if there were no other people on the earth, there would have
been no eligible women in Nod for Cain to marry.) If
we accept that assumption is true before we actually learn the
facts from our text, then were making whats called
a preconception or prejudice.
Our preconception then restricts us from reading out of
the Bible all the information it presents and causes us to read
into the Bible facts that are not there. Lets
read the beginning of Genesis chapter four again without this
prejudice.
1 Now Adam knew Eve his
wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have
acquired a man from the Lord. 2 Then she bore again,
this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper
of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to
pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground
to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of
the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering,
5 but He did not respect Cain and his
offering. And Cain was very angry,
and his countenance fell.
6
So the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance
fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And
if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And
its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.
8
Now 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 killed him.
9
Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother?
He
said, I do not know. Am I my brothers
keeper?
10
And He said, What
have you done? The
voice of your brothers blood cries out to Me from the ground.
11 So now you are cursed
from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brothers
blood from your hand. 12
When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength
to you. A
fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.
13
And Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than
I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven
me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden
from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth,
and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.
15
And the Lord said to him, Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark
on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.
16
Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in
the land of Nod on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife,
and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city,
and called the name of the city after the name of his sonEnoch.
25
And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him
Seth, For God has appointed another seed for me instead
of Abel, whom Cain killed. 26 And as for Seth, to
him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of
the Lord.
What plausible clues or facts
do we find to consider about Cains wife and/or other people
of that time?
Our first clue is the fact of the
amount of time that had passed since the creation provided
opportunity for Adam and Eve to have had other children.
Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3).
Eve named Seth as her replacement for the murdered Abel
indicating the two events happened reasonably close together
at least within a few years of each other. This
fact suggests that Adam and Eve had many decades to produce other
children who in turn had time to produce children of their own,
and so on. There was opportunity enough for several generations
of people by the time Cain killed Abel.
The next clue to consider is the
fact that Cain worried about other people killing him
out of vengenance for Abels murder. Obviously, Cain
knew other people who (1) were living at the time and (2) were
not directly mentioned in this passage.
Another clue is the fact is that
Adam and Eve were having other children. If we read
ahead to chapter 5, verse 4, we see that Adam fathered both sons
and daughters, yet verse 3 lists only Seth as a son without any
mention of his older brothers Cain and Abel or of these other
brothers and sisters. This example reminds us that Bible
passages typically mention only the people pertaining to that
particular passages discussion or subject. So even
though chapter four may mention Cain and Abel and then Seth,
we know from chapter five that they had other relatives who are
not specifically named, but living at the time.
Our final thought to consider is
that Cain may have already been married by the time he
moved to the land of Nod. After all, the passage does not
say if he found his wife in Nod. Nor does the passage describe
whether or not the land of Nod was already inhabited. The
text does treat his relations with his wife in the same matter-of-fact
language as Adams relations with his wife, Eve if
one had an established wife, then the other did, too. Also,
if we consider the later traditions of only heads of families
offering sacrifices as a retroactive clue to this passage, then
its quite likely that both Cain and Abel were qualified
to offer sacrifices because they were already married and probably
with children.
So what reasonable answer to
this question have we gleaned from the Bible?
Cains wife discussed in chapter
four is obviously one of Adam and Eves daughters or other
descendants discussed in chapter five. Cain was probably
already married before he moved to the land of Nod. |