Two Offerings and a Field

The first son is a worker of the ground and the second a keeper of sheep. Each brings an offering from what he has, produce from one and firstlings with their fat from the other, and God regards the second and not the first. The narrative gives no reason. Every later reading has had to supply one, from the quality of the offering to the disposition of the giver to a straightforward divine preference the text declines to explain, and the gap is what has made the episode so productive for commentators. What the text does report is the reaction: the face falls, and God speaks directly to the anger, warning that sin is a crouching thing at the door whose desire is for him, and that he may yet rule over it.

He does not. The brothers go out into the field, and the older kills the younger. The questioning that follows echoes the questioning in the garden: God asks where the brother is, receives the answer that he does not know and the counter-question whether he is his brother's keeper, and then says that the blood cries out from the ground. The sentence is that the ground will no longer yield to him and that he will be a restless wanderer, which he protests is more than he can bear, since anyone who finds him will kill him. God sets a mark on him for protection and declares a sevenfold vengeance on whoever does. The mark is a safeguard for the murderer, not a brand of shame, which is the reverse of how the phrase is usually used in English.