Fathers in the Bible: Cain – A Sweet Father
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 son—Enoch. – Genesis 4:17
Interestingly, we are starting the fathers in the Bible series with Cain, a bitter and murderous individual who killed his own brother for no good reason and was thus banished by God.
It is important to refresh our minds about the objectives of this particular diet of Daily Dew, it is primarily devoted to highlighting the persons and entities in the Bible by spotlighting their strengths and weaknesses, their virtues and vices, their good and bad sides, so that we can appreciate their humanness and, perhaps, learn from their examples.
By beaming the searchlight on the good and the bad sides of biblical characters, we infer that no one is absolutely perfect, without their fair share of flaws, and that no one is absolutely wicked, without some good attributes to them. Hence, the case of Mr. Cain, who was the first person to build a city and the first father to immortalize his son.
From the reference passage above, even after being punished by God and being condemned to a life of fugitiveness and vagabondage, Cain still did something worthwhile with his life. He built a city. He did not just build this city, which he was not destined to live in for long before being harassed to vacate it (remember he was now a fugitive and a vagabond), he also named the city after his son, Enoch. Now, isn’t that sweet?
Cain obviously still has many critics today who would call for his head for the heinous act of murdering his innocent brother. However, even with the weight of his sin, the guilt and the verdict of God upon his shoulders, he still gave himself no excuse for indolence but went ahead to build a city!
While getting land to build a city in his days must have been easier than today, building a city in his era, using crude tools in the absence of modern tools and equipment we have today, must have been a harder endeavor. This challenge, notwithstanding, Cain was still able to build a city, and he showed his affectionate and sweet side as a father by naming the city after his son, and not after himself.
No matter what we think of him, that surely represents a challenge to any of us who may want to play the judge over him. Perhaps, we may not have enough ground to denigrate this his achievement unless we have a better result to show, pointing at what we have built compared to what he did, even with the limitations he had to contend with.
Selah!
Also read:
- Men in the Bible: Cain and the First Misery
- The Ordinance of Firstborn (2): Some Cases of the Firstborn Curse
- What are You Holding On to?
- This Beautiful Journey
You can support the Daily Dew Ministry by clicking here
