Genesis 4:8

‘And Cain said to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.'

The passage appears abrupt and ungrammatical. AV possibly has it correctly when it translates ‘talked with Abel his brother' although the actual phrase is as abrupt in Hebrew as we have translated it (compare similarly in Exodus 19:25). Alternately we may add ‘it' (i.e. ‘told it to Abel'), signifying that Cain discussed his thoughts with his brother. We may then even see Cain deliberately taking his brother out to his ‘field' where he grew the ‘herbs of the field', so as to expatiate further, then, as he does so, being seized with murderous fury, possibly at something Abel says, and carrying out his dreadful act. There is no one more annoying to a sinner than someone who is in the right. Either way Cain takes his brother to the site of his grievance, and the dreadful deed was done.

Did he see this as a suitable place to show how he felt because it was its lack of growth that had infuriated him? Did he in his blind fury even see Abel's blood as replacing the rain that had not come, or as a viciously conceived alternative ‘sacrifice' basically saying to God ‘if you want blood, here it is'? Whatever his reason, for the first time of which we have a record a man's blood is shed by his fellow kinsman. The eating of the fruit in Eden has indeed produced bitter fruit.