Beware the Way of Cain

BEWARE THE WAY OF CAIN

An Exposition of Genesis 4:1-16

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: May 1, 2022

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard   Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says,

¹ Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” ² And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.³ In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, ⁴ and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵ but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. ⁶ The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

⁸ Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. ⁹ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” ¹⁰ And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. ¹¹ And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” ¹³ Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. ¹⁴ Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” ¹⁵ Then the LORD said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. ¹⁶ Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (Genesis 4:1-16)

INTRODUCTION

The fundamental issue in this passage, and the fundamental issue in your life, is whether the Lord God Almighty looks favorably on you and your worship. You are created for fellowship with the living God – you are created to know Him, worship Him, love Him, and walk with Him at all times. But the natural fellowship that existed between God and mankind in the garden of Eden is broken. Now mankind is born into a condition of alienation from God – and the question is: Will you remain in this condition of alienation from God? Or will you be reconciled to God? This passage forces you to reckon with the very real possibility that your attempt to worship the Lord might be displeasing to the Lord, in which case your relationship to God remains broken and you remain lost.

Both Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord. They both attempted to worship the Lord. But only one met with God’s approval. God looked favorably on Abel, but God disregarded Cain. If God favors you, then your life is properly anchored in Him, and you will have peace and joy, and you will produce an abundance of good fruits. But if God refuses to accept you, then your life is severed from the source of life, and you will be angry and downcast, and you will produce an abundance of evil deeds.

There are only two ways: the way of being favored by God or the way of being rejected by God; the way of being under God’s grace or the way of being under God’s judgment; the way of peace with God or the way of enmity with God. The entire trajectory of your life on earth and your never-ending conscious existence either in the heavenly city or in hell – your entire life trajectory turns on the massive fulcrum of whether God has favored you or rejected you. What else really matters, compared to that?

LET’S MEET CAIN AND ABEL (v. 1-2)

We meet Cain and Abel in verses 1-2. The plan from the very beginning was for mankind to “multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28) with children. Although Adam and Eve had plunged into deception and rebellion in Genesis 3, the Lord mingled justice and mercy in His response to them, and the Lord made it clear that the woman would still “bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). Although Adam and Eve had to live with the consequences of their sin, they also got to live as recipients of God’s grace. And in due course, children were born.

The firstborn son was named Cain. The Hebrew word ‘Cain’ sounds like the phrase ‘to get or acquire’. So you can see the play on words: ‘Cain’ sounds like “I have gotten” – as in, “I have gotten a man [with or from] the LORD.” Cain is ‘the acquired one’ who, like all children, is a gift given to the father and mother.

Then a second son came forth whose name was Abel.

After their birth announcements, the Bible immediately fast forwards to announcements concerning their respective careers: “Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.” (v. 2) Both men had honorable occupations. God had created Adam “to work the ground” (Genesis 2:5), and Cain followed in his father’s footsteps. Abel’s keeping of sheep is entirely consistent with mankind’s calling to “have dominion… over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

Cain and Abel grew up in the same home. Same parents. Same environment. No pagan influences coming at them from the outside, because at this point this is the only family on the face of the earth. Both men chose worthwhile occupations. And yet, the younger embraced the way of the righteous, while the older embraced the way of the wicked. Some of you have known the pain of one or more of your children going full steam ahead down the wrong path that leads to ruin, and this parental sorrow goes all the way back to the first family.

BOTH CAIN AND ABEL PRESENTED OFFERINGS TO THE LORD, BUT ONLY ONE WAS ACCEPTED (v. 3-5)

As we move to verses 3-5, notice that both Cain and Abel presented offerings to the Lord, but only one was accepted. The great issue in life is the health or unhealth of your relationship with the Lord. Since Cain and Abel grew up in the same home, they probably shared many cultural and fraternal similarities. And since Cain and Abel were different individuals, there were many personality differences between them. But all of these similarities and all of these differences are relatively unimportant in comparison to the main issue of life. Only one thing really matters: Where do you stand with God?

Verses 3-5 bring this all-important issue to our attention:

“In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.” (v. 3-5)

Before we even get to the question of why Abel’s offering was accepted and Cain’s offering was not accepted, we should take note of something really important here. It is possible to bring an offering to the Lord, and for the Lord to reject it. It is possible to be a worshiper who is consciously attempting to worship the Lord, and yet the Lord has no regard for you. As far as the Lord is concerned, you and your worship might stink to high heaven. And it is really important to say this, because we live in a highly relativistic, hyper-tolerant, overly-sentimental, don’t-judge-anyone kind of world. And on top of all that, some folks carelessly throw around the overused phrase ‘God accepts you just the way you are’ and turn God’s grace into an ‘anything goes’ mentality. But let’s be honest: it would be lame to tell an angry and downcast Cain, ‘Cheer up, man. God accepts you just the way you are.’ Really? The fact of the matter is that God didn’t accept Cain. God’s favor didn’t rest on Cain. Cain attempted to worship the Lord, but the Lord was not pleased. Later the prophet Isaiah told the Israelites that although they were bringing their offerings and prayers to the Lord, the Lord was not pleased (Isaiah 1:10-17). And Jesus told the Pharisees and scribes that their attempt to worship God was an exercise in futility: “in vain do they worship me” (Mark 7:7).

Don’t be fooled: the Bible is clear that God is not pleased with just any attempt that people might make to worship Him.  

Cain did not have God’s favor, and Cain knew it. The combination of God’s pleasure in Abel but God’s stiff-arm toward Cain, had the effect of making Cain “very angry, and his face fell.”

What was wrong with Cain’s offering?

As we reflect on verses 3-5, it is natural to ask the question: What was wrong with Cain’s offering? It is difficult to give a definite answer to this question, because the passage doesn’t go into detail.

Some people suggest that Abel’s offering was accepted because his offering involved a blood sacrifice – and it is only through the blood of a sacrificial offering that sinners can be forgiven and accepted by the Holy One. By contrast, Cain’s offering was from “the fruit of the ground”. This is a sensible suggestion, but it is important to emphasize that the text itself doesn’t spell this out. On the face of it, Abel keeps sheep and is thus in a position to offer a lamb from his flock, whereas Cain works the ground and is thus in a position to offer fruit from the ground. Each brother is attempting to worship the Lord out of the resources available to him, which seems reasonable enough. Although it is certainly true that sinners can only be reconciled to God through the blood sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God (John 1:29, 2 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Peter 1:18-19), whose sacrifice was foreshadowed in the sacrificial system under the old covenant, we don’t know how much God had revealed to Cain and Abel at this early stage in human history.  

Another possible explanation for the acceptability of Abel’s offering and the deficiency of Cain’s offering is that verse 4 specifically says that “Abel brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions” – which emphasizes that Abel gave the best of what he had to the Lord: “the firstborn”, “their fat portions”, the first and the best.  By contrast, Cain simply offered “the fruit of the ground”. Did Cain offer the firstfruits? Did Cain offer the best fruits?

There may be something to either or both of these possible explanations, but we have to respect the fact that God doesn’t call attention to the specific deficiency in Cain’s offering. What is clear, though, is that we must worship God on His terms; we must draw near to God in the way that He has appointed; we must bring our offerings to God in accordance with His instruction, with His Word. It is safe to assume that God had revealed enough instruction to Adam and Eve, and to Cain and Abel, so that they could worship Him in a way that pleased Him.

As we go further into the Bible, we learn that God’s Word really does tell us to do certain things in our worship, and to not do other things. There is acceptable worship and unacceptable worship, proper offerings and improper offerings, right sacrifices and wrong sacrifices. When “Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron” the priest, “offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them” (Leviticus 10:10), they were judged on the spot and put to death. (Leviticus 10:2). Don’t be so foolish as to worship God on your own terms.

Is the disposition of your heart to do things God’s way?

Once God reveals the proper way to worship Him, then the question becomes: How are you going to respond to what He has revealed? Will you honor the terms that He has set? Or will you insist on doing things your own way?

And this gets to the heart of the matter. If you were to ask me, What was wrong with Cain’s offering?, my first answer is: Cain. Cain is what was wrong with Cain’s offering. Cain’s heart is what was fundamentally wrong with Cain’s offering. The text is careful to put the worshiper before the offering, the man before the gift: “for Cain and his offering he [the LORD] had no regard.” By contrast, what was right with Abel’s offering. Answer: Abel. Abel’s heart is what was fundamentally right with Abel’s offering. Once again, the text puts the man before the offering: “And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering.”

The attempt to worship God is a failure from the get-go if the worshiper is unacceptable. Proper offerings are of no value in God’s sight if your heart is wrong, if your character is wrong, if you are wrong. Cain’s primary problem was not the stuff in his hands, but the junk in his heart. Get your heart right, and then get the offering right. Get your attitude toward God straightened out, and then make the proper sacrifice.

The New Testament confirms this lesson that the heart of the worshiper comes before the propriety of the offering. Hebrews 11:4 says, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.” (Hebrews 11:4) The key phrase in verse 4 and throughout Hebrews 11 is ‘by faith’. As Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

So here’s the thing: Abel had true faith, but Cain didn’t. Abel trusted God, but Cain didn’t. Abel had a heart for God, but Cain didn’t. Abel believed that the best rewards in the universe would come to him from the gracious hand of the Creator God who had made the universe, but deep down Cain didn’t believe this. Abel had a disposition to hear God and then put what he heard into obedient practice, but Cain wanted to do things his own way.

Don’t miss the lesson: Abel wasn’t accepted by God and commended by God merely because he got the outward act of worship correct. Outward acts of worship will never compensate for a heart that doesn’t trust God. But if you do trust God, then you will demonstrate your faith through obedient action and acceptable worship.

So, was Abel’s offering to God “more acceptable” than Cain’s sacrifice? Yes, that’s what Hebrews 11:4 says, which of course fits with what Genesis 4:3-5 shows us. Something about Abel’s sacrifice was objectively better than Cain’s offering – and it may well be that what was better about it was that Abel gave from the first and best of what he had. When you have a heart for God, you give your best to God. Or it may be that what was better about Abel’s sacrifice is that it involved blood sacrifice. When you trust God as He has revealed Himself throughout the Bible, you know and humbly embrace that the only way you can come into His holy presence is through the sacrificial blood of a spotless substitute. Only the death of God’s firstborn lamb can take away our sins.

But don’t miss the underlying lesson in Hebrews 11 and in Genesis 4: the first rule of acceptable worship is to be an acceptable worshiper. An acceptable worshiper is someone who has genuine faith, who is trusting God, who is banking on God as the generous and all-sufficient Provider, who is humbly depending on the Lord as the sovereign Creator and the gracious Redeemer. If you do not have this living faith, then God will reject you and your worship.

GOD ENCOURAGES CAIN TO REPENT (v. 6-7)

As for Cain, he is angry and downcast because God “had no regard [for Cain and his offering]”. Even so, it is important to see that the Lord does not immediately send Cain into exile. Instead, in verses 6-7, the Lord engages with Cain, reasons with him, warns him, and encourages him to repent:

“The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”” (v. 6-7)

The Lord sees Cain. The Lord sees Cain’s anger and countenance. The Lord knows that Cain’s heart is amiss. However, the Lord doesn’t immediately shut the door and lock the deadbolt, but instead gives Cain the opportunity to repent.

The Lord God Almighty invites Cain to “do well”: “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” The word translated ‘accepted’ literally means exalted, dignified, lifted.[1] If you do well, will you not be lifted up and honored in my presence? In this context, to “do well” or to do what is good and pleasing means to bring the proper offering from a heart that is trusting God. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5) Don’t bring God the offering that makes sense to you and your fleshly mind. And don’t ever think that God is impressed by outward acts of devotion when the heart is cold and dull. Gifts in your hand will never compensate for the gunk in your heart. If you would do well, then humble yourself under God’s mighty hand, tremble at His Word, believe what He says, and then do what He says because you have come to believe that His way is the best way.  

The Lord also warns Cain of what will happen if he doesn’t do well: “And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

How to protect yourself from the sin that is crouching at the door

As we look at verses 3-7, there are two sins in view here. The first sin is the sin that has already tripped Cain up – the sin in verses 3-5. The first sin is the sin of failing to worship God with the right heart and in the right manner. That is the first sin, the foundational sin, the root sin. And when the Lord encourages Cain to do well, He is telling Cain to cut this sin at the source, to uproot his faulty worship and become a true worshiper.

But in verse 7 the Lord alerts Cain to a second sin – the sin that “is crouching at the door”. The sin “crouching at the door” like a roaring lion hasn’t pounced on Cain yet. And the sin “crouching at the door” will not pounce on Cain if Cain does well and straightens out his heart and becomes a humble worshiper. But if Cain continues to go down the path of faulty worship, then guess what? The menacing lion of a sin-dominated life is going to come roaring through that door and this sin is going to eat him alive.

So how do you rule over the second sin – the sin that is “crouching at the door”? You rule over the second sin by addressing the first sin. You rule over the sin at the door by ruling over the sin that is already in your heart. You rule over tomorrow’s sin by ruling over today’s sin. You rule over the temptation to go out into the field and kill your brother (v. 8) by worshiping God with all your heart at His holy altar (v. 4). Listen, folks: the foundational weapon against every other sin in the universe is to have vibrant fellowship with the living God; to be stunned and stabilized and satisfied by the amazing good news that He invites you to come and worship Him; and to actually come and worship Him by faith in His grace, in which case He looks favorably upon you and justifies you and receives you as a beloved son or daughter. That is how you protect yourself from the sin that “is crouching at the door.” As the hymn says,

“There is a place of quiet rest,

near to the heart of God,

a place where sin cannot molest,

near to the heart of God.”[2]

Abel discovered that “quiet place, near to the heart of God.” The Lord invited Cain to discover it, but he refused. And as Cain stubbornly sank deeper and deeper into his own unbelief and idolatry, he traveled farther and farther from the heart of God. And when the lion at the door pounced, Cain had no recourse. The second sin captured Cain, because he never escaped the clutch of the first one. When the sin that is “crouching on the door” successfully pounces on you, it is proof positive that your worship is dysfunctional. After all, Milton Vincent is right: “Eyes do not rove, nor do fleshly lusts rule, when the heart is fat with the love of Jesus!”[3]

CAIN’S BROKEN RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD WREAKS HAVOC ON THE TOTALITY OF HIS LIFE (v. 8-16)

Now what happens when the second sin pounces on you? Verses 8-16 is what happens. When you fail to approach God on His terms, when you refuse to draw near to God in His appointed way, what results is an avalanche of devastation.

As we out of verses 5-7 and into verse 8 – what we find is that Cain remains in the condition of being rejected by God. It is obvious that Cain did not heed God’s gracious appeal to him in verses 6-7. And so, Cain’s continued and well-deserved rejection by God has the effect of wreaking havoc on the totality of his life (as we see in verses 8-16). This is Cain’s story; and this is the story of the ancient world leading up to the days of the flood; and this is the story of the modern world, which is overrun with sin and folly.

If you want to know why the world is such a mess, and if you want to know why the political world is such a mess, and if you want to know why the religious and cultural world is such a mess, and if you want to know why two-thirds of the visible church is such a mess, take a close look at what happens from verse 3 all the way to verse 16.

When you get the fundamental issue in life wrong, when your relationship with God is out-of-order, when your attempt to worship is not making it past the ceiling, when you don’t have God’s favor, when all you have is God’s displeasure – then look out, folks, because when the worshiper is faulty and the worship is faulty, your entire life is going to be a train wreck. Faulty worship perpetuates your broken fellowship with God (v. 3-5), which leads to anger and angst (v. 5), which leads to hatred and murder (v. 8). which leads to increasing levels of dishonesty and failure to take responsibility (v. 9), which leads to God’s increasing displeasure (v. 10-12), which leads to ordinary life not working well (v. 12), and you end up being a self-pitying homeless fearful wanderer on the earth who is far, far away from the gracious presence and smile of God (v. 13-16). And that’s the world we live in, where almost everyone is attempting to do life far away from the favor of God. The relationships and politics and ethics and insanity of our world will never get fixed until sinners are reconciled to God by faith and they thereby become true worshipers whose offerings are like a sweet aroma in the courts of heaven. There will not be renewal in life unless there is first of all a renewal in worship. But when the heart is renewed and you discover the satisfaction of trusting God and being graciously accepted by Him, then anger turns to peace, angst turns to joy, hate turns to love, lying turns to truth-telling, and life starts to work the way God intends for it to work, and you live all of life in the presence of the King watches over you with delight.

Perhaps someone is here this morning, and you know deep down that life isn’t working very well for you. I’m not talking about trials and persecutions and challenges, which faithful believers will face on a regular basis. When I say life isn’t working well, what I mean is that you know that everyday relationships and ordinary responsibilities and personal decision-making isn’t going well for you, and you know that it’s not going well for you because you don’t have God’s favor upon your life, and what you do have is a lot of Cain-like anger, angst, hatred, self-pity, and fear. You actually feel like “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” You feel homeless. And the reason you feel homeless is because you are homeless, spiritually speaking. You have a worship problem. Your heart is not truly seeking after God by faith; your worship is not flowing out of a heart that trusts God; you’re just cranking out some afterthoughts and leftovers for prayers and offerings, but God doesn’t regard you or your offering. And that is the problem. Your problem is not with people, your problem is not with your circumstances, your problem is not with your environment. Your problem is with God: His wrath abides on your unbelieving heart (John 3:36); you don’t have His Holy Spirit renewing you from the inside; and therefore your life is a wilderness that doesn’t work well.

Let Verses 8-16 Sink In

Remember, faulty worship perpetuates your broken fellowship with God (v. 3-5), which leads to anger and angst (v. 5), which leads to hatred and murder (v. 8). Cain failed to love his brother because Cain was not properly related to God. It says in 1 John 3:12, “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.” Cain had been taken captive by the deceitful serpent that we met in Genesis 3, and this spiritual bondage to the evil one filled him with hatred toward his ‘goody-two-shoes’ brother. When your vertical relationship with God is out of order, your horizontal relationships with other people will also be out of order.

Cain’s expanding shipwreck in verse 8 then leads to increasing levels of dishonesty and failure to take responsibility in verse 9. The Lord asks Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain refuses to come clean but digs in his heels and lies: “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

As Cain adds more layers of muck upon his already disordered heart, he only succeeds at incurring God’s increasing displeasure (v. 10-12). The Lord knows exactly what Cain has done and tells him so (v. 10), tells Cain that henceforth “you are cursed from the ground” (v. 11) and that the ground “shall no longer yield to you its strength” (v. 12). Going forward, Cain “shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” (v. 12)

The withdrawal of God’s favor and the imposition of penalties leads to ordinary life not working well – instead of being a productive gardener, now Cain will be a frustrated wanderer. Instead of lamenting his own sin and turning away from it, all Cain can muster is the self-pitying complaint that life is going to be hard: “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” (v. 13) Listen, folks: human beings were not created to bear punishment. Human beings were created to bear the image of God with integrity, grace, and joy. You were created to live a life of love in the light of the Father’s beaming smile. But when you forsake this high calling, you will bear sin’s consequences instead. Whether or not it is greater than you can bear, be assured that it is well-deserved. And hell will only be worse.

So Adam and Eve’s firstborn son has managed to turn himself into a self-pitying homeless and fearful wanderer on the earth who is far, far away from the gracious presence and smile of God (v. 13-16). The homeless wandering is evident in verses 12, 14, and 16. The fearfulness is evident in verse 14: “whoever finds me will kill me.” In response, the Lord vows to defend Cain’s life and establishes some kind of mark or sign in order to protect him from potential attackers (v. 15). Even in the midst of judging, the Lord gives Cain a small token of grace. But this token of grace will do Cain no ultimate good unless Cain repents, which as far as we know he never does. The tragic reality is that Cain will now have to live away “from [the LORD’s] face (v. 14) and “away from the presence of the LORD” (v. 16). At the end of Genesis 3, Adam had been driven out of the garden, but still lived in Eden. Now in Genesis 4:16, Cain left Eden altogether and “settled in the land of Nod” – which is to say, in the land of wandering, because ‘Nod’ means ‘wandering’. Cain goes where every unrepentant sinner must go – into exile.

A FINAL WORD

Are you in exile? Or has God’s grace found you?

By faith, are you drawing near to God and taking refuge in Him? Or are you turning away and hardening your heart? Scripture says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 95:7-8). Cain heard God’s voice in Genesis 4:6-7, but he hardened his heart. Do not follow the way of Cain. 

The way of Cain is to think that God should accept whatever gift you happen to bring him and in whatever manner you bring it, and then you get mad when that doesn’t work out so well. The way of faith is to not even be impressed by the gift you give, but instead to believe with all your heart that God “rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Although you learn to give God the first and the best, you really don’t live on the basis of what you give to God, but instead you live on the basis of what God promises to give you. And the heart of faith knows that nothing in all the world is better than having the Lord gaze upon you with His fatherly smile.

ENDNOTES

[1] See the word study entry “7613. seeth” at https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7613.htm.

[2] From the hymn “Near to the Heart of God” by Cleland B. McAfee.

[3] From Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Ariel’s Bible Commentary: The Book of Genesis. Fourth Edition. San Antonio: Ariel Ministries, 2020. 

Morris, Henry M. The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976.

Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A theological, historical, and scientific commentary on Genesis 1-11. Powder Springs: Creation Book Publishers, 2015.

Andrew E. Steinmann, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Volume I). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.