Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. 2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. 16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
There are times when we assume that the Bible says something when it really doesn’t say it. For example, many people assume that Cain found his wife in the land of Nod. But when you read the passage you find that it doesn’t say that at all. Cain dwelt in the land of Nod, but it does not say he found his wife there. It may very well be that Cain was already married when he went to the land of Nod and his wife traveled to Nod with him. Something else we assume is the time element involved. We don’t know how much time is involved in the phrase, “And in the process of time it came to pass.” It could be just a few years – it could be a hundred years. We don’t know how old Cain and Abel were when these events took place. We do know that Seth was born shortly after Cain killed Abel. We do know that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (Genesis 5:4). Verse five says, “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters.” How many sons and daughters he begat no one knows. But during an 800-year period there could have been many. As we said before the word “knew” in verse 17 does not refer to him getting acquainted with his wife by meeting her in the land of Nod. It refers to that which leads to conception of a baby.
It could very well be that Cain was already married when the events took place in Genesis 4 and that his wife traveled with him to the land of Nod. The only logical conclusion we can come to in harmony with what the Bible does tell us, is that Cain’s wife was one of his sisters or nieces. Thus, Cain’s wife came from among Adam’s children or grandchildren. I know we shrink from the idea today of such close marriages, but we should ever remember that everyone living today came from the original created human beings – Adam and Eve.
If there were only two people on Earth: Adam and Eve, then for the human race to “fill the Earth” at one point there must have been a brother and sister who would marry. This is not a perverse establishment by God since in that time there would have been no laws and problems with brother and sister marrying. This eventually changed certainly, but in the beginning there was nothing morally incorrect with that just like in the time of Abraham there was nothing wrong with his marrying his half-sister (Genesis 20:12), which marriage God blessed (Genesis 17:16), but later those kinds of marriages were restricted in the Law of Moses (Lev. 20:19).
