When it comes to genealogies in the Bible, the scriptures do not necessarily state all the children. As an example, you would not have known in the book of Genesis, chapter eleven, that Terah had any daughter.
We only find out that Terah, Abraham’s Father had a daughter in Genesis chapter twenty.
“ This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot. 28 And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 Then Abram and Nahor took wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai,[e] and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah. 30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child (Genesis 11: 27-30)”.
When Abraham was confronted when he gave his wife away, this is what Abraham said:
“And Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife. 12 But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife (Genesis 20: 11-12).
So from this verse we can see that Terah also had at least one daughter called Sarai. In those days, they married within the family. In this case, Abraham married his sister.
Further along, we can see the trend that they married within the family in those days;
When Abraham was old, he asked his servant to get a wife for his son Isaac. The servant did according to Abrahams desire. The servant stood by the well where he knew that the young ladies would be found fetching water.
“ Then he said, “O Lord God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 Behold, here I stand by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. 14 Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please let down your pitcher that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. And by this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”
15 And it happened, before he had finished speaking, that behold, Rebekah,[c] who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her pitcher on her shoulder (Genesis 24: 12-15).
Isaac married his cousin (Genesis 24 67).
So going back to our question, Where did Cain get his wife from”, it is safe to say that Cain married his sister.
We can see patterns that not all the children are necessarily mentioned and that in those days they married within the family.
We also need to remember that they lived much longer that we live today, which also indicates that they could have had many other children not necessarily mentioned in scripture.
“ And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died (Genesis 5: 3-5)”.
From the scripture above we can see that Adam had Seth at one hundred and thirty years old, which means that Adam had Abel and Cain at least before that age.
We also see that Adam had other sons and daughters (Genesis 5:4). We don’t know how many he had. Scripture has not revealed that.
The same can also be said of Noah’s children after the flood. We know that only Noah, his wife, sons, and wife of his three sons were in the ark. Scripture is clear that only eight souls were saved in the flood (1 Peter 3: 20; Genesis 7:7).
Scripture also in some cases only mentions the sons born.
“Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood.
“2 The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, [a]Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and [b]Dodanim. 5 From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.
6 The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, [c]Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan” (Genesis 10: 1- 7)”.
Bearing in mind that the flood wiped out all mankind, where did Noah’s grandchildren get their wives from? Gomer, Javan and Cush?
They must have married within the family.
From the pattern, we can safely say that Cain married his sister.
Bisi Oladipupo © Copyright 8th December 2025
Bisi Writes/ Inspiredwords 
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