Why art thou wroth?

One of the words that is repeated several times in the scriptural account of Cain is wroth.  When the Lord did not have respect for Cain’s offering, we read that “Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.”  The Lord asked him why he was wroth and suggested that there was no need to be angry because he had full control of his destiny: “If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted.”  Cain didn’t like to be called to repentance, though, and after the Lord spoke to him, again “Cain was wroth, and listened not any more to the voice of the Lord.”  He subsequently slew Abel, and tried to turn his own behavior on the Lord as his excuse: “I was wroth also; for his offering thou didst accept and not mine” (Moses 5:21-23, 26, 38).  Cain was wroth because the Lord required something of him that he didn’t want to do; Cain wanted the sacrifices to be done in his own way, instead of the Lord’s, and so he just got mad instead of correcting his behavior.  He let this anger well up inside him until he completely stopped listening to the Lord and cut himself off forever.  The question of the Lord to Cain is I think pertinent to us in many situations when we find ourselves getting angry: “Why art thou wroth?... If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted.”  Our own anger and wrath that we feel, like for Cain, often stems at the root from our own shortcomings.  We should in those moments picture the Lord looking at us saying, “Why are you wroth? Just do well.” 

                Laman and Lemuel were two others who were often described as being wroth in the scriptures.  After the angel came and chastised them, “They were yet wroth, and did still continue to murmur” (1 Nephi 4:4).  Like Cain, their anger was based in their own failures to be obedient to the Lord’s commands.  When Nephi chastised them again for murmuring and wanting to go back to Jerusalem, “they were exceedingly wroth” and nearly killed Nephi because of it.  Once again it was their own unwillingness to hear and obey the words of the Lord that caused their anger.  Zeniff later described Laman and Lemuel in these words, “And his brethren were wroth with him because they understood not the dealings of the Lord; they were also wroth with him upon the waters because they hardened their hearts against the Lord.  And again, they were wroth with him when they had arrived in the promised land….  And again, they were wroth with him because he departed into the wilderness as the Lord had commanded him” (Mosiah 10:14-16).  Again and again, Laman and Lemuel were wroth because of their own rejection of the Lord.  Like Cain they heard the voice of the Lord but refused to “do well,” and remained wroth all of their days.   

                The encounter between the Lord and Cain seems to me to be similar to that of Jonah and the Lord in the final chapter of his book.  Jonah was angry because of the way the Lord was willing to be merciful to even the Assyrians.  We read, “It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.”  Like Cain, he was wroth because of the way the Lord was treating someone, but this time it was because the Lord showed, in this eyes, too much mercy as opposed to too little.  The Lord questioned Jonah: “Doest thou well to be angry?” When Jonah was angry about his gourd shading him dying, the Lord asked again, “Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” (Jonah 4:1, 4, 9)  The questions from the Lord, “Why art thou wroth?” and “Doest thou well to be angry?” come down to us from thousands of years ago and yet are still perfectly relevant to us today.  We can choose to follow the Lord and “do well”, or we can choose, like Cain and Jonah and Laman and Lemuel, to be wroth with the Lord because His ways are not our ways.