Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

Cain and Abel were the first people born into the world, descendants of Adam and Eve. But Cain killed Abel. – And the Bible tells how Cain afterward found a wife for himself from a foreign land. How is this explained? The question is often posed in a deliberately misleading way, so that the Word of God would appear faulty. Mockingly, it is asked: “Where did Cain get a wife, when there were no other people?” But the Bible does not say that there were no other people at that time! For Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters, including Seth. Genesis 4:25. “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters.” Genesis 5:4. The descendants of the first human pair spread out into a “foreign land,” including Cain, who had murdered his brother. In due course, Cain took a wife from his sisters, or even a descendant of his sisters. Genesis 4:17. There is therefore no contradiction in the matter. However, the Bible does not present events in chronological order, but the events as presented are completed by the following pages. An example is the creation account (Genesis 1), which is completed in chapter 2.

It should be noted that Adam’s lifespan was 930 years, and during his lifetime humanity multiplied into hundreds of thousands, who spread out in different directions. There they met one another, took wives, and bore children.

Also Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve (Genesis 5:3), took a wife from Adam’s daughters, or from the daughters of his daughters.

Thus humanity began to multiply through the one human pair created by God. This is reasonable and logical. It was only during Moses’ time that unions among close relatives were forbidden. Leviticus 18.

PS. The natural water, air, and food in Adam’s time were 100% pure. Because of this, the lifespan of people was nearly a thousand years. For example, the oldest person in the world, Methuselah, lived to be 969 years old. Genesis 5:27.

Weijo Lindroos
Turku