Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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exposes us to sin and gives us most opportunity of serving and enjoying God.
3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the
fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
Here we have,
The devotions of Cain and Abel. In process of time, when they had made some improvement in their respective callings (Heb. At the end of days, either at the end of the year, when they kept their feast of in-gathering or perhaps an annual fast in remembrance of the fall, or at the end of the days of the week, the seventh day, which was the Sabbath)--at some set time, Cain and Abel brought to Adam, as the priest of the family, each of them an offering to the Lord, for the doing of which we have reason to think there was a divine appointment given to Adam, as a token of God's favour to him and his thoughts of love towards him and his, notwithstanding their apostasy. God would thus try Adam's faith in the promise and his obedience to the remedial law; he would thus settle a correspondence again between heaven and earth, and give shadows of good things to come. Observe here,
1. That the religious worship of God is no novel invention, but an ancient institution. It is that which was from the beginning (1Jo 1:1); it is the good old way, Jer 6:16. The city of our God is indeed that joyous city whose antiquity is of ancient days, Isa 23:7. Truth got the start of error, and piety of profaneness.
2. That is a good thing for children to be well taught when they are young, and trained up betimes in religious services, that when they come to be capable of acting for themselves they may, of their own accord, bring an offering to God. In this nurture of the Lord parents must bring up their children, Ge 18:19, Eph 6:4.
3. That we should every one of us honour God with what we have, according as he has prospered us. According as their employments and possessions were, so they brought their offering. See 1Co 16:1, 2. Our merchandize and our hire, whatever they are, must be holiness to the Lord, Isa 23:18. He