Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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forbidden fruit seemed but a little sin, but it opened the door to the greatest.
2. A fruit of the enmity which is in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman. As Abel leads the van in the noble army of martyrs (Mt 23:35), so Cain stand in the front of the ignoble army of persecutors, Jude 1:11. So early did he that was after the flesh persecute him that was after the Spirit; and so it is now, more or less (Ga 4:29), and so it will be till the war shall end in the eternal salvation of all the saints and the eternal perdition of all that hate them. 3. See also what comes of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; if they be indulged and cherished in the soul, they are in danger of involving men in the horrid guilt of murder itself. Rash anger is heart-murder, Mt 5:21, 22. Much more is malice so; he that hates his brother is already a murderer before God; and, if God leave him to himself, he wants nothing but an opportunity to render him a murderer before the world. Many were the aggravations of Cain's sin.
(1.) It was his brother, his own brother, that he murdered, his own mother's son (Ps 50:20), whom he ought to have loved, his younger brother, whom he ought to have protected.
(2.) He was a good brother, one who had never done him any wrong, nor given him the least provocation in word or deed, but one whose desire had been always towards him, and who had been, in all instances, dutiful and respectful to him.
(3.) He had fair warning given him, before, of this. God himself had told him what would come of it, yet he persisted in his barbarous design.
(4.) It should seem that he covered it with a show of friendship and kindness: He talked with Abel his brother, freely and familiarly, lest Abel should suspect danger, and keep out of his reach. Thus Joab kissed Abner, and then killed him. Thus Absalom feasted his brother Amnon and then killed him. According to the Septuagint [a Greek version of the Old Testament, supposed to have been translated by seventy-two