“If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Envy is perhaps the deepest root of all evils. Envy is the desire to have what someone else has, to be like someone else, to be given what someone else has received, to obtain what one perceives one deserves. Envy is the opposite of satisfaction in and surrender to God.

And it’s at the core of human nature. It’s stimulated by the eye, and desires of the gaze.

The gaze here is not the feminist concept of the “male gaze” which stares hungrily at the female figure, although there is an appetite of envy recognizable in that.

But the gaze here in the story of Cain and Abel comes from desiring God’s gaze of favor. In fact, the true Hebrew translation of God’s pleasure in Abel’s offering i…