WHO DID CAIN MARRY?

WHO DID CAIN MARRY? This is one of the first questions people ask when they start reading Genesis. If Adam and Eve were the first people, where did Cain get his wife? Who was Cain afraid would kill him? Who lived in the city he built? The answer starts with something Genesis makes perfectly clear. Adam and Eve had daughters. “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters.” Genesis 5:4 KJV The Bible names Cain, Abel, and Seth because their stories matter to the account. It doesn’t give us the names of every child Adam and Eve had. Cain’s wife would have been his sister, or possibly a niece if enough time had passed. Yes, that means the first generation married within the family. They had to. Every human being came from Adam and Eve. God’s law against marrying close relatives came much later under Moses. You can’t take a law given in Leviticus and pretend it had already been given at the beginning of the human race. Cain was afraid because he had murdered his own brother. “Every one that findeth me shall slay me.” Genesis 4:14 KJV He wasn’t worried about some other race of people living outside the garden. He was worried about his own brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and the generations coming behind them who would know exactly what he did to Abel. Genesis never tells us how old Cain was when this happened. Adam lived 930 years. There was plenty of time for that family to become much larger than the handful of people whose names were recorded. Then Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch. Don’t picture Los Angeles. This could have been a small fortified settlement built for Cain’s household and expanded as his descendants multiplied. Genesis is tracing the beginning of humanity and the bloodline that eventually leads to Jesus Christ. It isn’t trying to hand us Adam’s complete family photo album. Cain’s wife wasn’t a mystery woman from some unmentioned race. She was family. #MoreJoyMinistries