Editorial July 24, 1995 Issue

The brothers of Genesis

Mary Metzner Trammell

They could be treacherous, those brothers of ancient time—those brothers in the Biblical book of Genesis. There was the legendary Cain, who murdered his brother Abel in a jealous fit. There was Jacob, who defrauded his own father to steal his brother's birthright. And there was the gang of Jacob's sons, who were so envious of their brother Joseph that they threw him into a pit and left him for dead.

But there's more than just treachery in these great "brother" stories. Read on, and you're apt to find repentance and reformation. You're apt to find the hand of God gentling and refashioning the hearts of these brothers. And sometimes, you'll find a brother story that starts in treachery, and ends—years and years later—in glorious reconciliation.

Even the murderer Cain, who "went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod," eventually—with God's help—struggles to make a productive life for himself (see Gen. 4:13–22). God protects him, and he builds a "city." And his descendants go on to be useful citizens: herdsmen and musicians and metalworkers.

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