Cain's wife

Cain had murdered his brother Abel and soon finds himself in the land of Nod. I always wondered where this land was. I also wondered who Nod himself was. I thought that maybe there was someone named Nod and the land was named after him.

Nod was not a person at all. The land of Nod wasn't even an actual place. The word Nod actually means "to wander about or live in exile".

Genesis reveals that Cain meets a woman and they have a baby and name him Enoch. Where did this woman come from? This is an age old question that many believing and nonbelieving people have asked.

Most people will tell you that Cain's wife was his sister or possibly a niece. But why would God allow Cain to marry a relative? God does not approve of incest, so why would he allow anyone, especially Cain, to do this?

The answer is in Genesis chapter 1. God created man and woman and told them to be fruitful and multiply. Then he formed a man and called him Adam. Created and formed are two different words that describe actions of God.

The word created in the Hebrew language is "bara". Bara means to create. The word formed in Hebrew is "yatsar". Yatsar means to mold or squeaze into shape. Two different words with two different meanings or actions declared by God.

Genesis 2:1 declares that God had finished his work of creating the heavens and the earth and all the host of them. The word host in Hebrew is "tsaba". Tsaba means a mass of people.

God had created people, men and women, and formed a man, Adam. The host, or mass of people was all the races of people, white, black, oriental and so forth. It was from these people that Cain had found his wife.