Person
Cain
In Genesis 4, Adam and Eve's first son, a farmer, who kills his brother Abel and is sent away to be a wanderer.
See Genesis 4:1, Genesis 4:2, Genesis 4:8, Genesis 4:12.
A basket of produce marks Cain in the reading view: he brought an offering of the fruit of the ground (Genesis 4:3).
Mentioned in 16 verses across 4 books, first in Genesis 4:1. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).
How artists have pictured him
3 works from different centuries and traditions. Each shows how its time and place imagined Cain, not how he looked.
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In these stories
In the Bible
All 13 verses in Genesis, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 4:1
And Adam had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man,” she said.
- Genesis 4:2
Later she gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the soil.
- Genesis 4:3
So in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruit of the soil as an offering to the LORD,
- Genesis 4:5
but He had no regard for Cain and his offering. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell.
- Genesis 4:6
“Why are you angry,” said the LORD to Cain, “and why has your countenance fallen?
- Genesis 4:8
Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
- Genesis 4:9
And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
- Genesis 4:13
But Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.
- Genesis 4:15
“Not so!” replied the LORD. “If anyone slays Cain, then Cain will be avenged sevenfold.” And the LORD placed a mark on Cain, so that no one who found him would kill him.
- Genesis 4:16
So Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
- Genesis 4:17
And Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch.
- Genesis 4:24
If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”
- Genesis 4:25
And Adam again had relations with his wife, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another seed in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”
Events
Events the dataset lists Cain as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 3875 BCCain kills Abel
- c. 3875 BCGod curses Cain
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
The first-born son of Adam and Eve ([Gen. 4](/gen#Gen.4)). He became a tiller of the ground, as his brother Abel followed the pursuits of pastoral life. He was “a sullen, self-willed, haughty, vindictive man; wanting the religious element in his character, and defiant even in his attitude towards God.” It came to pass “in process of time” (marg. “at the end of days”), i.e., probably on the Sabbath, that the two brothers presented their offerings to the Lord. Abel’s offering was of the “firstlings of his flock and of the fat,” while Cain’s was “of the fruit of the ground.” Abel’s sacrifice was “more excellent” (Heb. 11:4) than Cain’s, and was accepted by God. On this account Cain was “very wroth,” and cherished feelings of murderous hatred against his brother, and was at length guilty of the desperate outrage of putting him to death (1 John 3:12). For this crime he was expelled from Eden, and henceforth led the life of an exile, bearing upon him some mark which God had set upon him in answer to his own cry for mercy, so that thereby he might be protected from the wrath of his fellow-men; or it may be that God only gave him some sign to assure him that he would not be slain (Gen. 4:15). Doomed to be a wanderer and a fugitive in the earth, he went forth into the “land of Nod”, i.e., the land of “exile”, which is said to have been in the “east of Eden,” and there he built a city, the first we read of, and called it after his son’s name, Enoch. His descendants are enumerated to the sixth generation. They gradually degenerated in their moral and spiritual condition till they became wholly corrupt before God. This corruption prevailed, and at length the Deluge was sent by God to prevent the final triumph of evil.