Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

And God blessed them, and God said  unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.  (Genesis 1:28)

A few days ago someone asked me did Cain marry his sister? Originally this was a conversation developed out of simple text message, but later I realized much more was needed.  In order to give a clear answer I was forced to send a lengthy letter. From that letter I am publishing this brief excerpt.

Discerning What's Really Being Asked

1. First  I could hear the truth of what was being asked,  I could hear its contempt of the word of God. and therefore I perceived the question as “If God is so righteous then why does he condone incest in the bible?”.  I prepared myself to defend  the Word of God as we should.  Please don’t listen to those that would teach that God can defend Himself ( of course He can) However, the Bible requires us to defend the word of God.  In 1 Peter 3:15,  we read "..be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you ( with meekness and fear)"
2. Secondly, in knowledge of the will of God which is again a Biblical requirement to those that are in the faith that we study to show ourselves approved [before God] (2Timothy 2:15). It is in this studying that we are able to defend the word of God, (for he that has no knowledge can neither have a defense of or any faith in God). I’m going to say that once more, so that there is no mistaking what I’m saying. “He that has no knowledge ( of scripture) can neither have a defense of scripture , or any faith in God.”  (Romans 10:14)  

So I added this to my newsletter because it’s about defense of the word, I hope for both mine and your sake.

Answering not a Fool (Proverbs 26:4)

I start this letter with a warning, “Never let anyone put  your faith against the wall." The enemy will try to get you to think in the natural, (like the rest of the world) so that he can persuade you to address his attacks without scripture.  They will ask you things like "can you explain God without the bible?"  Don't be foolish, that  is like explaining  the theory of relativity without using  a science book, or going to a gun fight with no weapon at all!  It just cannot, and should not be done.  Even Jesus when he was tempted by the devil kept reverting back to the Bible for his answer, time after time Jesus answered Satan with, "It is written, or Again it is written" Because His answers were grounded in scripture, He was able to quickly shut the enemy's mouth. There is a lesson in this for us in this event.

Please understand that questions about God formed in such a way that cause you to remove the Bible from your answer have the purpose of disarming you and make your gospel impotent.

For instance in this question it would appear that the devil’s intent was to receive a biblical answer, but in truth he wanted you to reason according to the modern worldview, not with Godly wisdom. Be not deceived this is a tool the enemy uses to turn you away from God, to cause you to doubt God, and to cause you to fail to walk as a Christian. Now please understand, I am in no way calling the person that asked the question a devil, nor am I saying that he/she had in any way evil intents. However, all of us can and will on occasions be used by the devil, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unwittingly. No one is above the devil's schemes.  Unwittingly he employs even men and women of God as his minions to fill our heads with doubt; through science, and intellect, logic and reasoning even the most innocent sounding questions of the enemy has a hidden motive.(Mark 12:13, Luke 11:54) With that said let us address the nature of the question.

The question says in the natural “If God is so righteous than why does he condone incest in the Bible?”  This question sets you up to accept unintelligible logic and cause you to come against scripture because it is written with the intent of forcing you to cling to a non-christian worldview as correct.  The non-christian worldview says incest is bad, and if God is good, than God would not allow incest, if God allowed incest than God cannot be good. Which of us really realized that the question was an attack on our faith in God?

 Let us intelligently reason the truth. By virtue of numbers alone and God’s commandment it was necessary that there would be  inter-family marriage (notice I did not say incest?).   (Genesis 1:28) Since we believe creation to mean only Adam and Eve then we can be sure that their sons intermarried with their daughters, and the second generation had to marry their cousins and with each generation they would be removed from closeness of that family member exponentially.

Because the bible teaches that in the beginning God created only Adam and Eve, though there are those that teach God created others the Bible never speaks of such a second creation and such teaching is purely in error. Instead we find this answer in Genesis 5:4 “ And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:” it is these sons and daughter that make up the first generation of all the people in the world.

Now let us remember God's command to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and in the 130 years of before Seth was born, Adam and Eve may have continued to have children after Cain and Able. Cain therefor taking a wife from his his sisters, or nieces, or some other relative. If we further consider that the death of Abel and the birth of Seth is 30 years difference than its even possible that neither Cain nor Abel where the first two children of Adam and Eve. In fact the Bible only teaches that they were the children of Adam and Eve. It  never specifies a chronological placing in the many children of Adam and Eve. Consider that Nor does is give any information on the 60 to 100 years of children that could have been born, during the time prior to the killing of Abel.

Now the Issue of Incest:
However, it is important to distinguish between inter-family relationships prior to God commanding against them (Leviticus 18:6-18), and incest that occurred after God’s commands had been revealed. Until God commanded against these types of marriages it was not incest. It was just marrying a close relative.

The reason we are against incest today is because our genetic chain is so impure that the child born of an inter-family marriage may have birth defects.  However at the time of Adam and Eve it (the genetic chain or DNA) was pure. And no genetic defects were present.  In Adam and Eve was the DNA of every type of person there is today.    We see this truth foreshadowed in the story of Cain and Able where God says to Cain “The Voice of Your Brother's Blood Cries to Me From the Ground.” (Genesis 4:10) and more specifically When the Bible speaks of the decedents as being in the loins of their ancestors (Hebrews 7:9-10) “Levi pays tithe to Melchizedek while still in the loins of his father Abraham.”

Genesis 10 tells us that Noah, his wife and his 3 sons and their wives were the only survivors of the flood. Therefore we can say that the entire world is the descendants of the three sons of Noah. Consider how the Bible tells us this;

1. The first son Shem was the Father of the northern people, Europe and north those whose skin was pale in color, finally, the Bible identifies these people as Shemitic Eurasia.
2. We know Ham to be the father of the darker people, south Egypt and all of Africa and South America, the Bible identifies these people as Hamitic;
3. And the third son Japheth  was the Father of the middle people, Arabic, Middle East and Asia, the Bible identifies these people as Japhetic

Now even though these people are three different races that came from one family of Noah.  And in order for mankind to survive they would have had to intermarry among their cousins as well. This is why until God had commanded man not to intermarry, intermarrying was (needed to fulfill the first command of God to mankind  (Genesis 1:28)

By the time of Moses, the human genetic code had become so polluted that close family intermarriage was no longer safe. So, God commanded against sexual relations with siblings, half-siblings, parents, and aunts/uncles. It was not until many centuries later that humanity discovered the genetic reason that incest is unsafe and unwise. However, on some occasions even before God commanded against it inter-family copulation was sinful if one party was not in agreement. (Rape)  Take the case of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:31-39) though it happened before the law  because one of the parties involved was an unwilling participant in the copulation  it was called rape. Because  with the personage of mankind is the moral knowledge of rape being wrong (no one has to explain why rape is wrong you just know it) rape has always been a sin against God.

When we think of incest today it can bring up feelings of anger, or disgust which is perfectly good, but unlike the world which does not see why God makes things so, we who are in the faith see the will and love of God works itself in the action of men even today.  In the days of early creation,  man was made with the fullness of perfect DNA.  And therefore  inter-family marriage was not an  issue for humanity; in fact had there been no  inter-family marriages there would have been no you or me. What occurred between Adam and Eve’s children, Abraham and Sarah, and Amram and Jochebed, (Exodus 6:20) should not be viewed as incest, but the love and knowledge of God which worked in the very loins of man, in the beginning that we could multiply, and now that same love and knowledge of God working in us which restrict inter-family marriage that we may remain strong.

Soli Deo Gloria 
Your Brother in Christ