If thou doest well, or, for the future shalt do well, i.e. repent of thy sin, amend thy life, offer thy offerings with a willing and cheerful mind and honest heart, in faith and love, as Abel did, shalt thou not be accepted? Or, pardoned, received into favour? Or, exalted, and either preserved in or restored unto those rights of the first-born, which thou art conscious to thyself that thou hast forfeited? Or, elevated in thy looks, i.e. would not, or should not, thy countenance have been upright and pleasant, which now is sad and dejected? Sin is here taken, either,
1. Properly; so the sense is: Sin will be growing upon thee; one sin will bring in another, and that malice and purpose of revenge against thy brother, which now lies hid in the secret chamber of thy mind and heart, lies at the door ready to break forth into the view of the world in open murder. Or,
2. For the punishment of sin, as it is taken Genesis 19:15 Leviticus 5:1, Leviticus 20:20 Numbers 18:1 2 Kings 7:9 Malachi 14:19: so the sense is, If thou wilt go on in sin, and execute thy wicked purpose, which I perceive lies working in thy heart, be sure thy sin will find thee out, as it is said Numbers 32:23. Thou shalt not long enjoy the fruits of thy wickedness, but a dreadful judgment shall tread upon the heels of thy sin, and lie like a furious mastiff dog at the very door of thy house, to seize upon thee at thy first coming in or going out. For that person or thing which is very near to us, or at hand, is said to be at the doors, Matthew 24:33 James 5:9. Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Those two clauses may relate either,
1. To sin, which may he here spoken of as a person, as it is Romans 7:8-11, &c. So the place may be rendered and expounded thus, The desire of sin is to thee, i.e. to assault, seduce, conquer, and destroy thee; as it is said, Luke 22:31, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you, & c. Or thus, its desire, objectively, not subjectively taken, i.e. thy desire, intention, or resolution of sinning, that evil motion of thy heart against thy brother, shall be against (as the Hebrew particle el oft signifies) thee, i.e. howsoever at present it pleaseth thee, yet it is really not only against him, but against thyself, and will certainly turn to thy own ruin; but (for so the particle and is commonly taken) if thou be wise, give no place to it, but resist it, do thou rule (for the future tense is oft put imperatively, as in the ten commandments, and it frequently signifies not what a man can or shall do, but his duty or what he ought to do, as is evident from Genesis 20:9 Zechariah 1:6 Luke 3:14) over it, i.e. conquer and subdue it, which is thy duty; or, thou shalt rule over it, i.e. by my grace assisting thy endeavours, thou shalt be enabled to subdue thy evil concupiscences and passions, and so overrule, prevent, or remove those punishments which otherwise sin will infallibly bring upon thee. Or,
2. To Abel, and so the sense is, and (as for thy brother Abel, to whose faith and piety I have given this public and honourable testimony, which thy naughty heart makes an occasion of envy and malice, and intention of murder, that thou mayst not by a mistake be led to the perpetration of so horrid a crime, know that this favour of mine concerns only his spiritual privilege, and the happiness of the life to come, which thou despisest; but it makes no change in civil rights, nor doth it transfer the dominion from thee, whose it is by birth, unto him; nor doth he so understand it; for notwithstanding this) unto thee shall be his desire, subject, i.e. he shall and will nevertheless yield to thee as his superior, and thou, according to thy own heart's desire, shalt rule over him. If it be said the name of Abel is not here mentioned, it may be answered, that this is sufficiently included in the pronouns his and him, and it is not unusual to put those relative pronouns alone, the antecedent being not expressed, but to be gathered either from the foregoing or following words; of which See Poole on "Genesis 3:1".