For Eve had reason why she should congratulate herself in her firstborn and no blame attaches to her for having proposed, in her second son, a memorial to herself and to all others, of their own vanity, to induce them to exercise themselves in diligent reflection on their own evils.ДЄnd Abel was a keeper of sheep. That some censure the judgment of Eve as absurd, because she regarded her just and holy sons as worthy to be rejected in comparison with her other wicked and abandoned son, is what I do not approve. Therefore, she wished that a monument of her sorrow should exist in the name she gave her second son and she would, at the same time, hold up a common mirror, by which she might admonish her whole progeny of the vanity of man. And certainly, though the new blessing of God was an occasion for no common joy yet, on the other hand, she could not look upon a posterity devoted to so many and great evils, of which she had herself been the cause, without the most bitter grief. (228) The opinion of some, that he was so called by his mother out of contempt, as if he would prove superfluous and almost useless, is perfectly absurd for she remembered the end to which her fruitfulness would lead nor had she forgotten the benediction, вЂњIncrease and multiply.вЂќ We should (in my judgment) more correctly infer that whereas Eve had testified, in the name given to her firstborn, the joy which suddenly burst upon her, and celebrated the grace of God she afterwards, in her other offspring, returned to the recollection of the miseries of the human race.

(227) The same explanation is not given with respect to Abel.

For his mother said, Ч§Ч Ч™ЧЄЧ™ ( kaniti,) I have gotten a man and therefore she called his name Cain. And she again bare his brother Abel (226) It is well known whence the name of Cain is deduced, and for what reason it was given to him.

Cain and abel bible verse