Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have acquired a man from the Lord.’ Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.  (Genesis 4:1-2a)

The first humans to ever be born were given names with meaning.  Eve explains why her first-born, Cain, is so named.  From the Hebrew verb קָנָה qanah means ‘to get or acquire’, Eve would draw attention and remind Cain that he was an act of God, from which she benefitted and by which he was ‘gotten’.  

There is no correspondent explanation for the naming of his brother, Abel, however.  And that may because his future was hidden from Eve.  Abel is הֶבֶל hebel and it means ‘vapour’.  It represents the mist of the breath that disappears in an instant.  Abel then is what Eve produces from her body, who is with her and then gone.  The same word, hebel, is used by Kohelet, the ‘preacher’ of the wisdom book, Ecclesiastes:

‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher;
‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’

What profit has a man from all his labour
In which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.  (Ecclesiastes 1:1-4)

‘Vanity’ translates hebel, and the translators here chose to express its figurative sense, the absurdity of mortal life, which is explored extensively by Kohelet.  For at the centre of his musings is the transient nature of mortal life.

It is estimated (by ‘Our World in Data’) that 109 billion people have been born and have died in the generations of humankind (half of those never made adulthood); each of those was a unique witness to God’s creation and felt themselves to be immortal:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.  (Ibid 3:11)

Adam and Eve knew nothing of death until they rebelled against God, for mortality was the consequence of that mutiny; but Abel, though the second human to be born of woman, is the first to die at the hand of man.

It is unique and dreadful distinction, not least because he was the son of Eve who was pleasing God through sacrificing the produce of his flocks.  Yet, in offering the life of animals to God in worship, he himself was slain by his covetous brother. Was his life worth anything more than the lambs he sacrificed? Did his life any meaning? Was death his end? Again Kohelet wrestles with these eternal, existential questions:

Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?  (Ibid 3:19a-21)

The ‘breath’ that Kohelet suggests all living creature share, is רוּחַ ruach, which though another word for the ‘breath of the mouth’; it contrasts with hebel, in that ruach represents the immortal spirit not the ephemera of vapour.

Ruach is the Spirit of God (Genesis 1:2) breathed into the dust to form Adam (but not animals):

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.  (Genesis 2:7)

Adam breathes the ‘breath of life’ and this breath is נְשָׁמָה neshamah, Genesis portrays how this would now mingle with the primordial vapour (אֵד ed) of creation, which is fertile but in need of the humankind to complete its fecundity.

For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. (Ibid 2:6)

Cain cultivates the earth as God wished, yet did not wish to honour his creator.  In direct contrast, Abel did not garden but tamed and herded animals, yet he did have God’s approval.  Even so, God did not protect Abel from his brother’s murderous rage.

Such notions no doubt contributes Kohelet’s reflection and conclusion that because mortal life is insubstantial and fragile, and a persons grip tenuous and fleeting, there is but one purpose, the acknowledgment of the Creator for all that is given, even one’s very life-breath, as Eve; thereafter, to seek and please God, as Abel.  

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

What Kohelet could not know was the redemption of the Gospel of Christ, by which every person from Abel onwards might gain something of worth beyond death. Immortality, once lost by Adam, is nonetheless, the default existence of every person, each of the hundred or so billion and counting – yet how it is spent is determined by one’s decisions.  All have a choice to be as Cain or Abel in respect of God. Another Hebrew commentator takes up the baton from Kohelet in writing, with the added benefit of revelation by the indwelling ruach, the Holy Spirit:

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  (Hebrews 11:6)

Cain had no faith in God and saw no reason to thank Him.  The Bible is silent as to Cain’s longevity, but as he was protected by God from its foreshortening by murder, his ‘natural life’ was likely long indeed; after all his father, Adam, lived over nine hundred years.  Yet, as far as Scripture declares, Abel has the better prospect of eternal life.  His mortal life was transitory, but he used those few precious years well – unlike his brother, of whom God asked, rhetorically: ‘If you do well, will you not be accepted?’ (Genesis 4:7a)