Cain’s Wife—The Super Obvious Answer!
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, May 5, 2025 (Donate)
In the world-famous Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, the
non-Christian lawyer (Clarence Darrow) posed the question “where did Cain get
his wife?” to a Christian lawyer who had taken the stand (William Jennings
Bryan) to defend Christianity.
Bryan, was stumped by the question and had no answer.[1]
With the world tuning into this famous trial, it sent shockwaves throughout America
and the world. For years now, this same question is posed to Christians
constantly and many Christians still falter trying to give an answer.
Is it a hard question to answer? Not really—when you stand
on the authority of God’s Word.
Cain’s wife was one of his sisters or possibly a close
female relative, such as a niece—still a descendant of Adam and Eve. Regardless,
brothers and sisters originally had to marry. All humans descend from the
original couple, Adam and Eve—not some mythological alleged first wife (e.g.,
the Lilith
myth) or some arbitrary alleged space alien or a uniquely different human
race.
Early human history involved close-relative marriages, which
were necessary and not morally wrong at that time—and is the obvious and
logical answer.
1. Biblical Foundation
According to Genesis 4, after Cain killed Abel, he was
marked and sent away. God says in verse 17, “Cain knew his wife, and she
conceived.” However, the Bible does not mention where she came from. Genesis
5:4 clarifies that Adam “had other sons and daughters.” According to Josephus
about 2,000 years, the Jewish legend was that Adam and Eve had 33 sons and 23
daughters.[2]
Furthermore, when Cain sinned and murdered his brother, he was fearful of those
who might take retaliation against him (Genesis 4:14). This is why a mark was
put on him in the first place.
But this further shows that Adam and Eve had other children
and there were plenty of descendants already accumulating. So, Cain had many
siblings—both brothers and sisters—though most are unnamed in Scripture. He
likely had many nieces and nephews by this time as well.
2. Be Fruitful And Multiply
Adam and Eve lived for centuries (Adam lived 930 years), and
they had many children over that time. With such long lifespans and many
offspring, the population could have grown quickly—though we can’t be certain.
Nevertheless, there were plenty of descendants around for Cain to have married.
Cain goes to the land of Nod and builds a
city. Some thought that there were other people in the land of Nod and Cain
took a wife from those people—but this is a mistake. Nod means “land of
wandering”. Thus, it was an unpopulated area. And a close analysis of the text
shows no hints that Cain found a wife there but that she was already
with him.
Then Cain went out from the
presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain
knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and
called the name of the city after the name of his son — Enoch.
(Genesis 4:16-17, NKJV)
3. Minimal Genetic Problems
Bear in mind that marrying close relatives was not a problem
early in history because the human gene pool was still relatively pure. Genetic
mutations that cause problems in close-relative marriages today had not
accumulated yet. Thus, it was both biologically safe and necessary at that
point for siblings to marry to fulfill God’s command to “be fruitful and
multiply.” God had not forbidden it yet—that did not occur until the time of
Moses.
Prior to Moses, Abraham married his half-sister Sarah
(Genesis 20:12). Moses’ father married his aunt Jochebed (Exodus 6:20; Numbers
26:59).
4. Moral And Legal
The ban on marrying close relatives came with (Leviticus 18)
as passed down through Moses. God gave this law in part because it became
necessary due to the buildup of harmful mutations. Before that time, it was not
considered immoral because there was no divine command against it. Our modern
understanding of genetics helps us understand a subtlety of this law.
This is why modern legal systems all over the world rarely
allow close intermarriage. They are influenced by biblical law.
5. Challenging Skepticism
One should reject claims that Cain’s wife was from another alleged
race of people or a separate “human” group. We should also affirm that all
people are descended from Adam and Eve, based on Genesis and New Testament
passages like Acts 17:26 ("From one man he made all nations").
Adam is the first man (1 Corinthians 15:45-47) and Eve is
the mother of all the living (Genesis 3:20). The faulty myth of Lilith
being Adam’s first wife is simply that—a myth. There were no space alien races
that had daughters that married Cain and Cain did not marry any human-animal
hybrid or any human-angel hybrid (again another myth).
6. The Hebrew
The Hebrew word for wife use for Cain’s “wife” is also very
revealing. It is the Hebrew word for woman, that we translate as “wife”.
And Cain knew his wife (אִשָּׁה ‘ishshah),
and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of
the city after the name of his son — Enoch. (Genesis 4:17, NKJV)
It is in biblical Hebrew, “ishshah”. This name for
woman was given when Adam first met his woman who was directly created from his
bone and flesh (a task all too easy for God!). Adam said:
And Adam said: “This is now bone of
my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman (ishshah),
Because she was taken out of Man (ish/iysh).” (Genesis 2:23, NKJV)
Woman literally means that she was taken out of “man”
or comes from “man”, who is Adam! This shows that a Hebrew speaker
should automatically have recognized that Cain’s “wife” or “woman/ishshah” is a
descendant of Adam/man by the very name she is called.
7. Island Isolates
Close marriages are often seen in isolates. This is when
remote tribes had inhabited an area void of others or get trapped on an
isolated island. The descendants are all related and close intermarriage
occurred with these initial seed populations. Thus, from an anthropological
perspective, close marriage is the obvious answer in small isolated groups
mimicking the initial couple and their early descendants after Creation.
Sometimes, of course, it does cause genetic detriments. Starting
with a pure line—as in the case of Adam and Eve—it takes longer to accumulate, unlike
more modern isolate examples which can take precious few generations of
inbreeding.
By the time of Moses, which is well after the population
bottlenecks at the Flood and Babel, close intermarriage may have been a strong
and growing genetic issue. After all, the ages of those in Moses’ day, was far
less than the patriarchs just before him and those preceding the Flood. So,
clearly there were genetic defects that were beginning to reign—which is
expected in a sin-cursed and broken world since Genesis 3.
Conclusion
Marrying close relatives was not a problem originally and
this was entirely encouraged. It was necessary for human multiplication—which
was God’s command. It was not genetically dangerous at the time, and not
considered morally wrong until God’s later commands. Thus, incest became a sin
because God deemed it so for the times since Moses with the giving of the Law.
In short, the simple and obvious answer is that Cain married
a sister—it’s possible it was a niece, but either way he a married a descendant
of Adam and Eve and the human race is still purely the human race—which means we
are all sinners sin need of a Savior.
[1]
The World’s Most Famous Court Trial, Word-for-word report form 1925, Second
Reprint Edition, 1990, Bryan College, Dayton, Tennessee, p. 302.
[2]
Flavius Josephus, The Antiquity of the Jews, “Concerning the Posterity of Adam,
and the Ten Generations From Him to the Deluge”, Translated by William Wiston,
A.M. Auburn and Buffalo, John E. Beardsley, 1895.
