Critical Analysis.—Chapter 4 consists of three easily separable sections: (a) the story of Cain and Abel (1–16), (b) a Cainite genealogy (17–24),¹ and (c) a fragment of a Sethite genealogy (25. 26). As they lie before us, these are woven into a consecutive history of antediluvian mankind, with a semblance of unity sufficient to satisfy the older generation of critics.² Closer examination seems to show that the chapter is composite, and that the superficial continuity conceals a series of critical problems of great intricacy.
1. We have first to determine the character and extent of the Cainite genealogy. It is probable that the first link occurs in verse 1 ff., and has to be disentangled from the Cain legend (so Wellhausen, Budde); whether it can have included the whole of that legend is a point to be considered later (page 100). We have thus a list of Adam’s descendants through Cain, continued in a single line for seven generations, after which it branches into three, and then ceases. It has no explicit sequel in Genesis; the sacred number 7 marks it as complete in itself; and the attempts of some scholars to remodel it in accordance with its supposed original place in the history are to be distrusted. Its main purpose is to record the origin of various arts and industries of civilised life; and apart from the history of Cain there is nothing whatever to indicate that it deals with a race of sinners, as distinct from the godly line of Seth. That this genealogy belongs to Yahwist has hardly been questioned except by Dillmann, who argues with some hesitation for assigning it to Elohist, chiefly on the ground of its discordance with verses 25. 26. Budde (page 220 ff.) has shown that the stylistic criteria point decidedly (if not quite unequivocally) to Yahwist;¹ and in the absence of any certain trace of Elohist in chapters 1–11, the strong presumption is that the genealogy represents a stratum of the former document. The question then arises whether it be the original continuation of chapter 3. An essential connexion cannot, from the nature of the case, be affirmed. The primitive genealogies are composed of desiccated legends, in which each member is originally independent of the rest; and we are not entitled to assume that an account of the Fall necessarily attached itself to the person of the first man. If it were certain that 3²⁰ is an integral part of one recension of the Paradise story, it might reasonably be concluded that that recension was continued in 4¹, and then in 417–24. In the absence of complete certainty on that point the larger question must be left in suspense; there is, however, no difficulty in supposing that in the earliest written collection of Hebrew traditions the genealogy was preceded by a history of the Fall in a version partly preserved in chapter 3. The presumption that this was the case would, of course, be immensely strengthened if we could suppose it to be the intention of the original writer to describe not merely the progress of culture, but also the rapid development of sin (so Wellhausen).
2. The fragmentary genealogy of verses 25. 26 corresponds, so far as it goes, with the Sethite genealogy of Priestly-Code in chapter 5. It will be shown later (page 138 f.) that the lists of 417–24 and 5 go back to a common original; and if the discrepancy had been merely between Yahwist and Priestly-Code, the obvious conclusion would be that these two documents had followed different traditional variants of the ancient genealogy. But how are we to account for the fact that the first three names of Priestly-Code’s list occur also in the connexion of Yahwist? There are four possible solutions. (1) It is conceivable that Yahwist, not perceiving the ultimate identity of the two genealogies, incorporated both in his document (compare Ewald Jahrbücher der biblischen Wissenschaft, vi. page 4); and that the final redactor (RedactorPriestly-Code) then curtailed the second list in view of chapter 5. This hypothesis is on various grounds improbable. It assumes (see 25b) the murder of Abel by Cain as an original constituent of Yahwist’s narrative; now that story takes for granted that the worship of Yahwe was practised from the beginning, whereas 26b explicitly states that it was only introduced in the third generation. (2) It has not unnaturally been conjectured that verse 25 f. are entirely redactional (Ewald, Schrader, al.); i.e., that they were inserted by an editor (RedactorPriestly-Code) to establish a connexion between the genealogy of Yahwist and that of Priestly-Code. In favour of this view the use of אדם (as a proper name) and of אלהים has been cited; but again the statement of 26b presents an insurmountable difficulty. Priestly-Code has his own definite theory of the introduction of the name יהוה (see Exodus 62 ff.), and it is incredible that any editor influenced by him should have invented the gratuitous statement that the name was in use from the time of Enosh. (3) A third view is that verses 25. 26 stood originally before verse ¹ (or before verse ¹⁷), so that the father of Cain and Abel (or of Cain alone) was not Adam but Enosh; and that the redactor who made the transposition is responsible also for some changes on verse ²⁵ to adapt it to its new setting (so Stade) (see on the verse). That is, no doubt, a plausible solution (admitted as possible by Dillmann), although it involves operations on the structure of the genealogy too drastic and precarious to be readily assented to. It is difficult also to imagine any sufficient motive for the supposed transposition. That it was made to find a connexion for the (secondary) story of Cain and Abel is a forced suggestion. The tendency of a redactor must have been to keep that story as far from the beginning as possible, and that the traditional data should have been deliberately altered so as to make it the opening scene of human history is hardly intelligible. (4) There remains the hypothesis that the two genealogies belong to separate strata within the Yahwistic tradition, which had been amalgamated by a redactor of that school (RedactorJahwist) prior to the incorporation of Priestly-Code; and that the second list was curtailed by RedactorPriestly-Code because of its substantial identity with that of the Priestly Code in chapter 5. The harmonistic glossing of verse ²⁵ is an inevitable assumption of any theory except (1) and (2); it must have taken place after the insertion of the Cain and Abel episode; and on the view we are now considering it must be attributed to RedactorJahwist. In other respects the solution is free from difficulty. The recognition of the complex character of the source called Yahwist is forced on us by many lines of proof; and it will probably be found that this view of the genealogies yields a valuable clue to the structure of the non-Priestly sections of chapters 2–11 (see pages 3, 134). One important consequence may here be noted. Eve’s use of the name אלהים, and the subsequent notice of the introduction of the name יהוה, suggest that this writer had previously avoided the latter title of God (as Elohist and Priestly-Code previously to Exodus 314 ff. and Exodus 62 ff.). Hence, if it be the case that one recension of the Paradise story was characterised by the exclusive use of אלהים (see page 53), 425. 26 will naturally be regarded as the sequel to that recension.
3. There remains the Cain and Abel narrative of verses 1–16. That it belongs to Yahwist in the wider sense is undisputed,¹ but its precise affinities within the Yahwistic cycle are exceedingly perplexing. If the theory mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is correct, the consistent use of the name יהוה² would show that it was unknown to the author of verses 25. 26 and of that form of the Paradise story presupposed by these verses. Is it, then, a primary element of the genealogy in which it is embedded? It certainly contains notices—such as the introduction of agriculture and (perhaps) the origin of sacrifice—in keeping with the idea of the genealogy; but the length and amplitude of the narration would be without parallel in a genealogy; and (what is more decisive) there is an obvious incongruity between the Cain of the legend, doomed to a fugitive unsettled existence, and the Cain of the genealogy (verse ¹⁷), who as the first city-builder inaugurates the highest type of stable civilised life.³ Still more complicated are the relations of the passage to the history of the Fall in chapter 3. On the one hand, a series of material incongruities seem to show that the two narratives are unconnected: the assumption of an already existing population on the earth could hardly have been made by the author of chapter 3; the free choice of occupation by the two brothers, and Yahwe’s preference for the shepherd’s sacrifice, ignore the representation (3¹⁹) that husbandry is the destined lot of the race; and the curse on Cain is recorded in terms which betray no consciousness of a primal curse resting on the ground. It is true, on the other hand, that the literary form of 41–16 contains striking reminiscences of that of chapter 3. The most surprising of these (47b ∥ 316b) may be set down to textual corruption (see the note on the verse); but there are several other turns of expression which recall the language of the earlier narrative: compare 49. 10. 11 with 39. 13. 17. In both we have the same sequence of sin, investigation and punishment (in the form of a curse), the same dramatic dialogue, and the same power of psychological analysis. But whether these resemblances are such as to prove identity of authorship is a question that cannot be confidently answered. There is an indistinctness of conception in 41–16 which contrasts unfavourably with the convincing lucidity of chapter 3, as if the writer’s touch were less delicate, or his gift of imaginative delineation more restricted. Such impressions are too subjective to be greatly trusted; but, taken along with the material differences already enumerated, they confirm the opinion that the literary connexion between chapter 3 and 41 ff. is due to conscious or unconscious imitation of one writer by another.—On the whole, the evidence points to the following conclusion: The story of Cain and Abel existed as a popular legend entirely independent of the traditions regarding the infancy of the race, and having no vital relation to any part of its present literary environment. It was incorporated in the Yahwistic document by a writer familiar with the narrative of the Fall, who identified the Cain of the legend with the son of the first man, and linked the story to his name in the genealogy. How much of the original genealogy has been preserved it is impossible to say: any notices that belonged to it have certainly been rewritten, and cannot now be isolated; but verse ¹ (birth of Cain) may with reasonable probability be assigned to it (so Budde), possibly also 2bβ (Cain’s occupation), and 3b (Cain’s sacrifice).—Other important questions will be best considered in connexion with the original significance of the legend (page 111 ff.).
Eve bears to her husband two sons, Cain and Abel; the first becomes a tiller of the ground, and the second a keeper of sheep (1. 2). Each offers to Yahwe the sacrifice appropriate to his calling; but only the shepherd’s offering is accepted, and Cain is filled with morose jealousy and hatred of Abel (3–5). Though warned by Yahwe (6 f.), he yields to his evil passion and slays his brother (⁸). Yahwe pronounces him accursed from the fertile ground, which will no longer yield its substance to him, and he is condemned to the wandering life of the desert (10–12). As a mitigation of his lot, Yahwe appoints him a sign which protects him from indiscriminate vengeance (14 f.); and he departs into the land of Nod, east of Eden (¹⁶).
1–5. Birth of Cain and Abel: their occupation, and sacrifice.—1. On the naming of the child by the mother, see Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie² 116. It is peculiar to the oldest strata (Yahwist and Elohist) of the Hexateuch, and is not quite consistently observed even there (4²⁶ 5²⁹ 2525 f., Exodus 2²²): it may therefore be a relic of the matriarchate which was giving place to the later custom of naming by the father (Priestly-Code) at the time when these traditions were taking shape.—The difficult sentence קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת־יַהְוֶה connects the name קַיִן with the verb קָנָה. But קנה has two meanings in Hebrew: (a) to (create, or) produce, and (b) to acquire; and it is not easy to determine which is intended here.
The second idea would seem more suitable in the present connexion, but it leads to a forced and doubtful construction of the last two words, (a) To render אֵת ‘with the help of’ (Dillmann and most) is against all analogy. It is admitted that ͏את itself nowhere has this sense (in 49²⁵ the true reading is וְאֵל, and Micah 3⁸ is at least doubtful); and the few cases in which the synonym עִם can be so translated are not really parallel. Both in 1 Samuel 14⁴⁵ and Daniel 11³⁹, the עם denotes association in the same act, and therefore does not go beyond the sense ‘along with.’ The analogy does not hold in this verse if the verb means ‘acquire’; Eve could not say that she had acquired a man along with Yahwe. (b) We may, of course, assume an error in the text and read מֵאֵת = ‘from’ (Budde al. after TargumOnkelos). (c) The idea that את is the sign of accusative (TargumJonathan, al.), and that Eve imagined she had given birth to the divine ‘seed’ promised in 3¹⁵ (Luther, al.) may be disregarded as a piece of antiquated dogmatic exegesis.—If we adopt the other meaning of קנה, the construction is perfectly natural: I have created (or produced) a man with (the co-operation of) Yahwe (compare Rashi: “When he created me and my husband he created us alone, but in this case we are associated with him”). A strikingly similar phrase in the bilingual Babylonian account of Creation (above, page 47) suggests that the language here may be more deeply tinged with mythology than has been generally suspected. We read that “Aruru, together with him [Marduk], created (the) seed of mankind”: Aruru zí-ír a-mí-lu-ti it-ti-šu ib-ta-nu (Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, vi. 1, 40 f.; King, The Seven Tablets of Creation i. 134 f.). Aruru, a form of Ištar, is a mother-goddess of the Babylonians (see Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament³, 430), i.e., a deified ancestress, and therefore so far the counterpart of the Hebrew חַוָּה (see on 3²⁰). The exclamation certainly gains in significance if we suppose it to have survived from a more mythological phase of tradition, in which Ḥawwah was not a mortal wife and mother, but a creative deity taking part with the supreme god in the production of man. See Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, 104, who thinks it “psychologically probable that Eve congratulated herself on having ‘created’ a man.”—That אִישׁ is not elsewhere used of a man-child is not a serious objection to any interpretation (compare גָּבֶר in Job 3³); though the thought readily occurs that the etymology would be more appropriate to the name אֱנוֹשׁ (4²⁶) than to קַיִן.
1. והאדם ידע] A pluperfect sense (Rashi) being unsuitable, the peculiar order of words is difficult to explain; see on 3¹, and compare 21¹. Stade (Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen 239) regards it as a proof of editorial manipulation.—The euphemistic use of ידע is peculiar to Yahwist in the Hexateuch (7 times): Numbers 3117. 18. 35 (Priestly-Code: compare Judges 2111. 12) are somewhat different. Elsewhere Judges 11³⁹ 1922. 25, 1 Samuel 1¹⁹, 1 Kings 1⁴,—all in the older historiography, and some perhaps from the literary school of Yahwist.—קַיִן] √ קין (Arabic ḳāna). In Arabic ḳain means ‘smith’; = Syrian (‡ Syriac word), ‘worker in metal’ (see 4²² 5⁹). Nöldeke’s remark, that in Arabic ḳain several words are combined, is perhaps equally true of Hebrew קַיִן (Encyclopædia Biblica, 130). Many critics (Wellhausen, Budde, Stade, Holzinger, al.) take the name as eponym of the Ḳenites (קַיִן, קַינִי): see page 113 below.—קָנִיתִי] All versions express the idea of ‘acquiring’ (ἐκτησάμην, possedi, etc.). The sense ‘create’ or ‘originate,’ though apparently confined to Hebrew and subordinate even there, is established by Deuteronomy 32⁶, Proverbs 8²², Psalms 139¹³, Genesis 1419. 22.—את] Of the versions TargumOnkelos alone can be thought to have read מֵאֵת (מן קדם); one anonymous Greek translation (see Field) took the word as notional accusative (ἄνθρωπον κύριον); the rest vary greatly in rendering (as was to be expected from the difficulty of the phrase), but there is no reason to suppose they had a different text: LXX διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, Symmachus σὺν κ., ὁ Ἑβρ. καὶ Σύρ.: ἐν θ., Vulgate per Deum, Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word). Conjectures: Marti (Lit. Centralbl., 1897, xx. 641) and Zeydner (Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, xviii. 120): אִישׁ אֹת יַהְוֶה = ‘the man of the Jahwe sign’ (verse ¹⁵); Gunkel אִישׁ אָתְאַוֶּה = ‘man whom I desire.’
2. And again she bare, etc.] The omission of the verb הָרָה is not to be pressed as implying that the brothers were twins, although that may very well be the meaning. The Old Testament contains no certain trace of the widespread superstitions regarding twin-births.—The sons betake themselves to the two fundamental pursuits of settled life: the elder to agriculture, the younger to the rearing of small cattle (sheep and goats). The previous story of the Fall, in which Adam, as representing the race, is condemned to husbandry, seems to be ignored (Gunkel).
The absence of an etymology of הֶבֶל is remarkable (but compare verse ¹⁷), and hardly to be accounted for by the supposition that the name was only coined afterwards in token of his brief, fleeting existence (Dillmann). The word (= ‘breath’) might suggest that to a Hebrew reader, but the original sense is unknown. Gunkel regards it as the proper name of an extinct tribe or people; Ewald, Wellhausen, al. take it to be a variant of יָבָל, the father of nomadic shepherds (4²⁰); and Cheyne has ingeniously combined both names with a group of Semitic words denoting domestic animals and those who take charge of them (e.g. Syrian (‡ Syriac word) = ‘herd’; Arabic ’abbāl = ‘camel-herd,’ etc.): the meaning would then be ‘herdsman’ (Encyclopædia Biblica, i. 6). The conjecture is retracted in Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, in the interests of Yeraḥme’el.
3. An offering] מִנְחָה, literally a present or tribute (3214 ff. 33¹⁰ 4311 ff., 1 Samuel 10²⁷ etc.): see below. The use of this word shows that the ‘gift-theory’ of sacrifice (Lectures on the Religion of the Semites², 392 ff.) was fully established in the age when the narrative originated.—of the fruit of the ground] “Fruit in its natural state was offered at Carthage, and was probably admitted by the Hebrews in ancient times.” “The Carthaginian fruit-offering consisted of a branch bearing fruit, ... it seems to be clear that the fruit was offered at the altar, ... and this, no doubt, is the original sense of the Hebrew rite also” (Lectures on the Religion of the Semites², 221 and note 3). Cain’s offering is thus analogous to the first-fruits (בִּכּוּרִים: Exodus 2316. 19 3422. 26, Numbers 13²⁰ etc.) of Hebrew ritual; and it is arbitrary to suppose that his fault lay in not selecting the best of what he had for God.—4. Abel’s offering consisted of the firstlings of his flock, namely (see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 154 a, N. 1 (b)) of their fat-pieces] compare Numbers 18¹⁷. Certain fat portions of the victim were in ancient ritual reserved for the deity, and might not be eaten (1 Samuel 2¹⁶ etc.: for Levitical details, see Driver-White, Leviticus, Polychrome Bible, pages 4, 65).—4b, 5a. How did Yahwe signify His acceptance of the one offering and rejection of the other? It is commonly answered (in accordance with Leviticus 9²⁴, 1 Kings 18³⁸ etc.), that fire descended from heaven and consumed Abel’s offering (Theodotion, Rashi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Delitzsch, al.). Others (Dillmann, Gunkel) think more vaguely of some technical sign, e.g. the manner in which the smoke ascended (Ewald, Strack); while Calvin supposes that Cain inferred the truth from the subsequent course of God’s providence. But these conjectures overlook the strong anthropomorphism of the description: one might as well ask how Adam knew that he was expelled from the garden (3²⁴). Perhaps the likeliest analogy is the acceptance of Gideon’s sacrifice by the Angel of Yahwe (Judges 6²¹).—Why was the one sacrifice accepted and not the other? The distinction must lie either (a) in the disposition of the brothers (so nearly all commmentaries), or (b) in the material of the sacrifice (Tuch). In favour of (a) it is pointed out that in each case the personality of the worshipper is mentioned before the gift. But since the reason is not stated, it must be presumed to be one which the first hearers would understand for themselves; and they could hardly understand that Cain, apart from his occupation and sacrifice, was less acceptable to God than Abel. On the other hand, they would readily perceive that the material of Cain’s offering was not in accordance with primitive Semitic ideas of sacrifice (see Lectures on the Religion of the Semites², Lecture VIII.).
From the fact that the altar is not expressly mentioned, it has been inferred that sacrifice is here regarded as belonging to the established order of things (Stade al.). But the whole manner of the narration suggests rather that the incident is conceived as the initiation of sacrifice,—the first spontaneous expression of religious feeling in cultus.¹ If that impression be sound, it follows also that the narrative proceeds on a theory of sacrifice: the idea, viz., that animal sacrifice alone is acceptable to Yahwe. It is true that we cannot go back to a stage of Hebrew ritual when vegetable offerings were excluded; but such sacrifices must have been introduced after the adoption of agricultural life; and it is quite conceivable that in the early days of the settlement in Canaan the view was maintained among the Israelites that the animal offerings of their nomadic religion were superior to the vegetable offerings made to the Canaanite Baals. Behind this may lie (as Gunkel thinks) the idea that pastoral life as a whole is more pleasing to Yahwe than husbandry.
3. מקץ ימים] After some time, which may be longer (1 Samuel 29³) or shorter (24⁵⁵). To take ימים in the definite sense of ‘year’ (1 Samuel 1²¹ 2¹⁹ 20⁶ etc.) is unnecessary, though not altogether unnatural (Abraham Ibn Ezra al.).—הֵבִיא] the ritual use is well established: Leviticus 22. 8, Isaiah 1¹³, Jeremiah 17²⁶ etc.—מִנְחָה: Arabic minḥat = ‘gift,’ ‘loan’: √ manaḥa.¹ On the uses of the word, see Driver A Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 587b. In sacrificial terminology there are perhaps three senses to be distinguished: (1) Sacrifice in general, conceived as a tribute or propitiatory present to the deity, Numbers 16¹⁵, Judges 6¹⁸, 1 Samuel 217. 29 26¹⁹, Isaiah 1¹³, Zephaniah 3¹⁰, Psalms 96⁸ etc. (2) The conjunction of מנחה and זֶבַח 1 Samuel 2²⁹ 3¹⁴, Isaiah 19²¹, Amos 5²⁵ etc.) may show that it denotes vegetable as distinct from animal oblations (see Lectures on the Religion of the Semites², 217, 236). (3) In Priestly-Code and late writings generally it is restricted to cereal offerings: Exodus 30⁹, Numbers 18⁹ etc. Whether the wider or the more restricted meaning be the older it is difficult to say.—4. וּמֵֽחֶלְבֵֿהֶן] On Metheg, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 16 d. We might point as singular of the noun (חֶלְבְּהֶן, Leviticus 816. 25; Gesenius-Kautzsch § 91 c); but The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch has scriptio plena of the plural ומחלביהן.—וישע] LXX καὶ ἔπιδεν (in verse ⁵ προσέσχεν); Aquila ἐπεκλίθη; Symmachus ἐτέρφθη; Theodotion ἐνεπύρισεν (see above); ὁ Σύρ. εὐδόκησεν; Vulgate respexit; Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word); TargumOnkelos והות רעוא קדם יי. There is no exact parallel to the meaning here; the nearest is Exodus 5⁹ (‘look away [from their tasks] to’ idle words).—5. חרה] in Hebrew always of mental heat (anger); LXX wrongly ἐλύπησεν; so Peshiṭtå. On impersonal construct, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 144 b; compare 1830. 32 31³⁶ 34⁷, Numbers 16¹⁵ etc. The word is not used by Priestly-Code.—For נפל, Peshiṭtå has (‡ Syriac word) (literally ‘became black’).
5b. Cain’s feeling is a mixture of anger (it became very hot to him) and dejection (his face fell: compare Job 29²⁴, Jeremiah 3¹²). This does not imply that his previous state of mind had been bad (Dillmann al.). In tracing Cain’s sin to a disturbance of his religious relation to God, the narrator shows his profound knowledge of the human heart.
6–12. Warning, murder, and sentence.—7. The point of the remonstrance obviously is that the cause of Cain’s dissatisfaction lies in himself, but whether in his general temper or in his defective sacrifice can no longer be made out. Every attempt to extract a meaning from the verse is more or less of a tour de force, and it is nearly certain that the obscurity is due to deep-seated textual corruption (v.i.).—8. And Cain said] אָמַר never being quite synonymous with דִּבֵּר, the sentence is incomplete: the missing words, Let us go to the field, must be supplied from versions; see below (so Ewald, Dillmann, Driver, al.). That Cain, as a first step towards reconciliation, communicated to Abel the warning he had just received (Tuch al.), is perhaps possible grammatically, but psychologically is altogether improbable.—the field] the open country (see on 2⁵), where they were safe from observation (1 Kings 11²⁹).—9. Yahwe opens the inquisition, as in 3⁹, with a question, which Cain, unlike Adam, answers with a defiant repudiation of responsibility. It is impossible to doubt that here the writer has the earlier scene before his mind, and consciously depicts a terrible advance in the power of sin.—10. Hark! Thy brother’s blood is crying to me, etc.] צָעַק denotes strictly the cry for help, and specially for redress or vengeance (Exodus 2222. 26, Judges 4³, Psalms 1076. 28 etc.). The idea that blood exposed on the ground thus clamours for vengeance is persistently vivid in the Old Testament (Job 16¹⁸, Isaiah 26²¹, Ezekiel 247. 8, 2 Kings 9²⁶): see Lectures on the Religion of the Semites², 417⁵. In this passage we have more than a mere metaphor, for it is the blood which is represented as drawing Yahwe’s attention to the crime of Cain.—11. And now cursed art thou from (off) the ground] i.e., not the earth’s surface, but the cultivated ground (compare verse ¹⁴, and see on 2⁵). To restrict it to the soil of Palestine (Wellhausen, Stade, Holzinger) goes beyond the necessities of the case.—which has opened her mouth, etc.] a personification of the ground similar to that of Sheol in Isaiah 5¹⁴ (compare Numbers 16³²). The idea cannot be that the earth is a monster greedy of blood; it seems rather akin to the primitive superstition of a physical infection or poisoning of the soil, and through it of the murderer, by the shed blood (see Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the study of Greek Religion, 219 ff.). The ordinary Old Testament conception is that the blood remains uncovered (compare Euripides Electra, 318 f.). The relation of the two notions is obscure.—12. The curse ‘from off the ground’ has two sides: (1) The ground will no longer yield its strength (Job 31³⁹) to the murderer, so that even if he wished he will be unable to resume his husbandry; and (2) he is to be a vagrant and wanderer in the earth. The second is the negative consequence of the first, and need not be regarded as a separate curse, or a symbol of the inward unrest which springs from a guilty conscience.
7. The difficulties of the present text are “the curt and ambiguous expression שְׂאֵת; further, the use of חַטָּאת as masculine, then the whole tenor of the sentence, If thou doest not well...; finally, the exact and yet incongruous parallelism of the second half-verse with 3¹⁶” (Olshausen Monatsberichte der Königlich-Preussischen Akadamie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin., 1870, 380).—As regards 7a, the main lines of interpretation are these: (1) The infinitive שְׂאֵת may be complementary to תֵּיטיב as a relative verb (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 120, 1), in which case שׂ׳ must have the sense of ‘offer’ sacrifice (compare 43³⁴, Ezekiel 20³¹). So (a) LXX οὐκ ἐὰν ὀρθῶς προσενέγκῃς, ὀρθῶς δὲ μὴ διέλῃς, ἥμαρτες; ἡσύχασον (reading לְנַתַּח for לַפֶּתַח, and pointing the next two words חָטָאתָ רְבַץ) = ‘Is it not so—if thou offerest rightly, but dost not cut in pieces rightly, thou hast sinned? Be still!’ Ball strangely follows this fantastic rendering, seemingly oblivious of the fact that נַתַּח (compare Exodus 29¹⁷, Leviticus 16. 12, 1 Kings 1823. 33 etc.)—for which he needlessly substitutes בַּֽתֵּר (15¹⁰)—has no sense as applied to a fruit-offering.—(b) Somewhat similar is a view approved by Budde as “völlig befriedigend” (Die biblische Urgeschichte 204 f.): ‘Whether thou make thine offering costly or not, at the door,’ etc. [‘Whether thou offerest correctly or not,’ would be the safer rendering].—(2) The infinitive may be taken as compressed apodosis, and תּ׳ as an independent verb = ‘do well’ (as often). שׂ׳ might then express the idea of (a) elevation of countenance (= שׂ׳ פנים: compare Job 11¹⁵ 22²⁶): ‘If thou doest well, shall there not be lifting up?’ etc. (so Tuch, Ewald, Delitzsch, Dillmann, Driver, al.); or (b) acceptance (שׂ׳ פ׳ as Genesis 19²¹, 2 Kings 3¹⁴, Malachi 18. 9): so Aquila (ἀρέσεις), Theodotion (δεκτόν), Peshiṭtå ((‡ Syriac word)), Vulgate (recipies); or (c) forgiveness (as Genesis 50¹⁷, Exodus 32³²): so Symmachus (ἀφήσω), TargumOnkelos, Jerome, and recently Holzinger. Of these renderings 2 (a) or 1 (b) are perhaps the most satisfying, though both are cumbered with the unnatural metaphor of sin as a wild beast couching at the door (of what?), and the harsh discord of gender. The latter is not fairly to be got rid of by taking רֹבֵץ as a noun (‘sin is at the door, a lurker’: Ewald al.), though no doubt it might be removed by a change of text. Of the image itself the best explanation would be that of Holzinger, who regards רָבַץ as a technical expression for unforgiven sin (compare Deuteronomy 29¹⁹). Jewish interpreters explain it of the evil impulse in man (יֵצֶר הָרַע), and most Christians similarly of the overmastering or seductive power of sin; 7b being regarded as a summons to Cain to subdue his evil passions.—7b reads smoothly enough by itself, but connects badly with what precedes. The antecedent to the pronoun suffix is usually taken to be Sin personified as a wild beast, or less commonly (Calvin al.) Abel, the object of Cain’s envy. The word תְּשׁוּקָה is equally unsuitable, whether it be understood of the wild beast’s eagerness for its prey or the deference due from a younger brother to an older; and the alternative תְּשׁוּבָה of LXX and Peshiṭtå (see on 3¹⁶) is no better. The verbal resemblance to 316b is itself suspicious; a facetious parody of the language of a predecessor is not to be attributed to any early writer. It is more likely that the erroneous words were afterwards adjusted to their present context: in Peshiṭtå the suffix are actually reversed ((‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word)).—The paraphrase of TargumOnkelos affords no help, and the textual confusion is probably irremediable; tentative emendations like those of Gunkel (page 38) are of no avail. Cheyne Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, 105, would remove verse ⁷ as a gloss, and make 8a (reading אחי) Cain’s answer to verse ⁶.
8. אָמַר, in the sense of ‘speak,’ ‘converse’ (2 Chronicles 32²⁴), is excessively rare and late: the only instance in early Hebrew is apparently Exodus 19²⁵, where the context has been broken by a change of document. It might mean ‘mention’ (as 43²⁷ etc.), but in that case the object must be indicated. Usually it is followed, like English ‘say,’ by the actual words spoken. Hence נֵלְכָה הַשָּׂדֶה is to be supplied with The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch, LXX, Peshiṭtå, Vulgate, but not Aquila (Tuch, Delitzsch: see the scholia in Field): a Pisqa in some Hebrew MSS, though not recognised by the Massoretic, supports this view of the text. To emend וַיִּשְׁמֹר (Olshausen al.) or וַיָּמֶר, וַיֵּמַר (Gesenius-Kautzsch) is less satisfactory.—9. אֵי] The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch אַיֵּה.—10. On the interjectional use of קוֹל, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 146 b; Nöldeke Mandäische Grammatik page 482.—צֹעֲקִים] The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch צעק, agreeing with קוֹל (?).—11. אָרוּר ... מִן] pregnant construct, Gesenius-Kautzsch § 119 x, y, ff. This sense of מִן is more accurately expressed by מֵעַל in verse ¹⁴, but is quite common (compare especially 27³⁹). Other renderings, as from (indicating the direction from which the curse comes) or by, are less appropriate; and the comparison more than is impossible.—12. תֹסֵף] jussive form with לֹא (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 109 d, h; Davidson §§ 63, R. 3, 66, R. 6); followed by infinitive without ל (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 114 m).—נָע וָנָד] an alliteration, as in 1². Best rendered in anonymous Greek versions (Field): σαλευόμενος καὶ ἀκαταστατῶν; Vulgate vagus et profugus; LXX (incorrectly) στένων καὶ τρέμων.
13–16. Mitigation of Cain’s punishment.—13. My punishment is too great to be borne] So the plea of Cain is understood by all modern authorities. The older rendering: my guilt is too great to be forgiven (which is in some ways preferable), is abandoned because the sequel shows that Cain’s reflexions run on the thought of suffering and not of sin; see below.—14. from Thy face I shall be hidden] This anguished cry of Cain has received scant sympathy at the hands of commentaries (except Gunkel). Like that of Esau in 27³⁴, it reveals him as one who had blindly striven for a spiritual good,—as a man not wholly bad who had sought the favour of God with the passionate determination of an ill-regulated nature and missed it: one to whom banishment from the divine presence is a distinct ingredient in his cup of misery.—every one that findeth me, etc.] The object of Cain’s dread is hardly the vengeance of the slain man’s kinsmen (so nearly all commentaries); but rather the lawless state of things in the desert, where any one’s life may be taken with impunity (Gunkel). That the words imply a diffusion of the human race is an incongruity on either view, and is one of many indications that the Cain of the original story was not the son of the first man.
This expostulation of Cain, with its rapid grasp of the situation, lights up some aspects of the historic background of the legend. (1) It is assumed that Yahwe’s presence is confined to the cultivated land; in other words, that He is the God of settled life, agricultural and pastoral. To conclude, however, that He is the God of Canaan in particular (compare 1 Samuel 26¹⁹), is perhaps an over-hasty inference. (2) The reign of right is coextensive with Yahwe’s sphere of influence: the outer desert is the abode of lawlessness; justice does not exist, and human life is cheap. That Cain, the convicted murderer, should use this plea will not appear strange if we remember the conditions under which such narratives arose.
13. On עָוֹן (√ ġawaʸ = ‘go astray’: Driver Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel 134 f.) in the sense of punishment of sin, see the passages cited in Brown-Driver-Briggs, s.v. 3. נשא ע׳, in the sense of ‘bear guilt,’ seems peculiar to Priestly-Code and Ezekiel; elsewhere it means to ‘pardon iniquity’ (Exodus 34⁷, Numbers 14¹⁸, Hosea 14³, Micah 7¹⁸, Psalms 32⁵). This consideration is not decisive; but there is something to be said for the consensus of ancient versions (LXX ἀφεθῆναι; Vulgate veniam merear, etc.) in favour of the second interpretation, which might be retained without detriment to the sense if the sentence could be read as a question.—14. אֹתִי] instead of suffix is unlike Yahwist. In the next verse אֹתוֹ after infinitive was necessary to avoid confusion between subject and object.
15. What follows must be understood as a divinely appointed amelioration of Cain’s lot: although he is not restored to the amenities of civilised life, Yahwe grants him a special protection, suited to his vagrant existence, against indiscriminate homicide.—Whoso kills Ḳayin (or ‘whenever any one kills Ḳ’), it (the murder) shall be avenged sevenfold] by the slaughter of seven members of the murderer’s clan. See below.—appointed a sign for Ḳayin] or set a mark on Ḳ. The former is the more obvious rendering of the words; but the latter has analogies, and is demanded by the context.
The idea that the sign is a pledge given once for all of the truth of Yahwe’s promise, after the analogy of the prophetic אוֹת, is certainly consistent with the phrase שֵׁים ... לְ: compare e.g. Exodus 15²⁵, Joshua 24²⁵ with Exodus 10² etc. So some authorities in Bereshith Rabba, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Tuch, al. But Exodus 411a proves that it may also be something attached to the person of Cain (Calvin, Bereshith Rabba, Delitzsch, and most); and that אוֹת may denote a mark appears from Exodus 139. 16 etc. Since the sign is to serve as a warning to all and sundry who might attempt the life of Cain, it is obvious that the second view alone meets the requirements of the case: we must think of something about Cain, visible to all the world, marking him out as one whose death would be avenged sevenfold. Its purpose is protective and not penal: that it brands him as a murderer is a natural but mistaken idea.—It is to be observed that in this part of the narrative Ḳayin is no longer a personal but a collective name. The clause כָל־הֹרֵג ק׳ (not מִי יַֽהֲרֹג, or אֲשֶׁר י׳) has frequentative force (examples below), implying that the act might be repeated many times on members of the tribe Ḳayin: similarly the sevenfold vengeance assumes a kin-circle to which the murderer belongs. See, further, page 112.
15. לָכֵן] οὐχ οὕτως (LXX, Symmachus, Theodotion) implies לֹא כֵן: so Peshiṭtå, Vulgate; but this would require to be followed by כִּי.—כָּל־הֹרֵג ק׳] see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 116 w; compare Exodus 12¹⁵, Numbers 35³⁰, 1 Samuel 2¹³ 3¹¹ etc.—יֻקַּם] The subject might be קַיִן (as verse ²⁴) or (more probably) impersonal (Exodus 21²¹), certainly not the murderer of Cain.—שִׁבְעָתַיִם] = ‘7 times’: Gesenius-Kautzsch § 134 r. Versions: LXX ἑπτὰ ἐκδικούμενα παραλύσει; Aquila ἑπταπλασίως ἐκδικηθήσεται; Symmachus ἑβδόμως ἐκδίκησιν δώσει; Theodotion δι’ ἑβδομάδος ἐκδικήσει; Vulgate septuplum punietur; Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word) (‡ Syriac word); TargumOnkelos לשבעא דרין יתפרע מיניה (hence the idea that Cain was killed by Lamech the 7th from Adam [see on verse ²⁴]).
16. and dwelt in the land of Nôd] The verb יָשֶׂב is not necessarily inconsistent with nomadic life, as Stade alleges (see Genesis 13¹², 1 Chronicles 5¹⁰ etc.). It is uncertain whether the name נוֹד is traditional (Wellhausen, Gunkel), or was coined from the participle נָד = ‘land of wandering’ (so most); at all events it cannot be geographically identified. If the last words קדמת עדן belong to the original narrative, it would be natural to regard Ḳayin as representative of the nomads of Central Asia (Knobel al.); but the phrase may have been added by a redactor to bring the episode into connexion with the account of the Fall.
16. נוד] The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch נד, LXX Ναϊδ (ניד ?) with variants (see Nestle, Marginalien und Materialien, page 9).—Symmachus, Theodotion, Vulgate (habitavit profugus in terra) [Targum?] take the word as a participle; but the order of words forbids this.—קדמת] see on 2¹⁴. ‘In front of Eden’ and ‘East of Eden’ would here be the same thing (3²⁴).
The exposition of 41–16 would be incomplete without some account of recent speculations regarding the historical or ethnological situation out of which the legend arose. The tendency of opinion has been to affirm with increasing distinctness the view that the narrative “embodies the old Hebrew conception of the lawless nomad life, where only the blood-feud prevents the wanderer in the desert from falling a victim to the first man who meets him.”¹ A subordinate point, on which undue stress is commonly laid, is the identity of Cain with the nomadic tribe of the Ḳenites. These ideas, first propounded by Ewald,² adopted by Wellhausen,³ and (in part) by William Robertson Smith,⁴ have been worked up by Stade, in his instructive essay on ‘The sign of Cain,’⁵ into a complete theory, in which what may be called the nomadic motive is treated as the clue to the significance of every characteristic feature of the popular legend lying at the basis of the narrative. Although the questions involved are too numerous to be fully dealt with here, it is necessary to consider those points in the argument which bear more directly on the original meaning of verses 1–16.
1. That the figure of Cain represents some phase of nomadic life may be regarded as certain. We have seen (page 110) that in verse 13 ff. the name Cain has a collective sense; and every descriptive touch in these closing verses is characteristic of desert life. His expulsion from the אדמה and the phrase נע ונד, express (though not by any means necessarily,—see below) the fundamental fact that his descendants are doomed to wander in the uncultivated regions beyond the pale of civilisation. The vengeance which protects him is the self-acting law of blood-revenge,—that ‘salutary institution’ which, in the opinion of Burckhardt, has done more than anything else to preserve the Bedouin tribes from mutual extermination.¹ The sign which Yahwe puts on him is most naturally explained as the “sharṭ or tribal mark which every man bore in his person, and without which the ancient form of blood-feud, as the affair of a whole stock and not of near relations alone, could hardly have been worked.”² And the fact that this kind of existence is traced to the operation of a hereditary curse embodies the feeling of a settled agricultural or pastoral community with regard to the turbulent and poverty-stricken life of the desert.
2. While this is true, the narrative cannot be regarded as expressing reprobation of every form of nomadism known to the Hebrews. A disparaging estimate of Bedouin life as a whole is, no doubt, conceivable on the part of the settled Israelites (compare Genesis 16¹²); but Cain is hardly the symbol of that estimate. (1) The ordinary Bedouin could not be described as ‘fugitives and vagabonds in the earth’: their movements are restricted to definite areas of the desert, and are hardly less monotonous than the routine of husbandry.¹ (2) The full Bedouin are breeders of camels, the half-nomads of sheep and goats; and both live mainly on the produce of their flocks and herds (see Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 303 ff.). But to suppose Cain to exemplify the latter mode of life is inconsistent with the narrative, for sheep-rearing is the distinctive profession of Abel; and it is hardly conceivable that Hebrew legend was so ignorant of the proud spirit of the full Bedouin as to describe them as degraded agriculturists. If Cain be the type of any permanent occupation at all, it must be one lower than agriculture and pasturage; i.e. he must stand for some of those rude tribes which subsist by hunting or robbery. (3) It is unlikely that a rule of sevenfold revenge was generally observed amongst Semitic nomads in Old Testament times. Among the modern Arabs the law of the blood-feud is a life for a life: it is only under circumstances of extreme provocation that a twofold revenge is permissible. We are, therefore, led to think of Cain as the impersonation of an inferior race of nomads, maintaining a miserable existence by the chase, and practising a peculiarly ferocious form of blood-feud.—The view thus suggested of the fate of Cain finds a partial illustration in the picture given by Burckhardt and Doughty of a group of low-caste tribes called Solubba or Sleyb. These people live partly by hunting, partly by coarse smith-work and other gipsy labour in the Arab encampments; they are forbidden by their patriarch to be cattle-keepers, and have no property save a few asses; they are excluded from fellowship and intermarriage with the regular Bedouin, though on friendly terms with them; and they are the only tribes that are free of the Arabian deserts to travel where they will, ranging practically over the whole peninsula from Syria to Yemen. It is, perhaps, of less significance that they sometimes speak of themselves as decayed Bedouin, and point out the ruins of the villages where their ancestors dwelt as owners of camels and flocks.² The name קַיִן, signifying ‘smith’ (page 102), would be a suitable eponym for such degraded nomads. The one point in which the analogy absolutely fails is that tribes so circumstanced could not afford to practise the stringent rule of blood-revenge indicated by verse ¹⁵.—It thus appears that the known conditions of Arabian nomadism present no exact parallel to the figure of Cain. To carry back the origin of the legend to pre-historic times would destroy the raison d’être of Stade’s hypothesis, which seeks to deduce everything from definite historical relations: at the same time it may be the only course by which the theory can be freed from certain inconsistencies with which it is encumbered.³
3. The kernel of Stade’s argument is the attractive combination of Cain the fratricide with the eponymous ancestor of the Ḳenites.¹ In historical times the Ḳenites appear to have been pastoral nomads (Exodus 216 ff. 3¹) frequenting the deserts south of Judah (1 Samuel 27¹⁰ 30²⁹), and (in some of their branches) clinging tenaciously to their ancestral manner of life (Judges 411. 17 5²⁴, Jeremiah 35⁷ compared with 1 Chronicles 2⁵⁵). From the fact that they are found associated now with Israel (Judges 1¹⁶ etc.), now with Amaleḳ (Numbers 2421 ff., 1 Samuel 15⁶), and now with Midian (Numbers 10²⁹), Stade infers that they were a numerically weak tribe of the second rank; and from the name, that they were smiths. The latter character, however, would imply that they were pariahs, and of that there is no evidence whatever. Nor is there any indication that the Ḳenites exercised a more rigorous blood-feud than other Semites: indeed, it seems an inconsistency in Stade’s position that he regards the Ḳenites as at once distinguished by reckless bravery in the vindication of the tribal honour, and at the same time too feeble to maintain their independence without the aid of stronger tribes. There is, in short, nothing to show that the Ḳenites were anything but typical Bedouin; and all the objections to associating Cain with the higher levels of nomadism apply with full force to his identification with this particular tribe. When we consider, further, that the Ḳenites are nearly everywhere on friendly terms with Israel, and that they seem to have cherished the most ardent attachment to Yahwism, it becomes almost incredible that they should have been conceived as resting under a special curse.
4. It is very doubtful if any form of the nomadic or Ḳenite theory can account for the rise of the legend as a whole. The evidence on which it rests is drawn almost exclusively from verses 13–16. Stade justifies his extension of the theory to the incident of the murder by the analogy of those temporary alliances between Bedouin and peasants in which the settled society purchases immunity from extortion by the payment of a fixed tribute to the nomads (compare 1 Samuel 252 ff.). This relation is spoken of as a brotherhood, the tributary party figuring as the sister of the Bedouin tribe. The murder of Abel is thus resolved into the massacre of a settled pastoral people by a Bedouin tribe which had been on terms of formal friendship with it. But the analogy is hardly convincing. It would amount to this: that certain nomads were punished for a crime by being transformed into nomads: the fact that Cain was previously a husbandman is left unexplained.—Gunkel, with more consistency, finds in the narrative a vague reminiscence of an actual (prehistoric) event,—the extermination of a pastoral tribe by a neighbouring agricultural tribe, in consequence of which the latter were driven from their settlements and lived as outlaws in the wilderness. Such changes of fortune must have been common in early times on the border-land between civilisation and savagery;¹ and Gunkel’s view has the advantage over Stade’s that it makes a difference of sacrificial ritual an intelligible factor in the quarrel (see page 105 f.). But the process of extracting history from legend is always precarious; and in this case the motive of individual blood-guilt appears too prominent to be regarded as a secondary interest of the narrative.
The truth is that in the present form of the story the figure of Cain represents a fusion of several distinct types, of which it is difficult to single out any one as the central idea of the legend. (1) He is the originator of agriculture (verse ²). (2) He is the founder of sacrifice, and (as the foil to his brother Abel) exhibits the idea that vegetable offerings alone are not acceptable to Yahwe (see on verse ³). (3) He is the individual murderer (or rather shedder of kindred blood) pursued by the curse, like the Orestes, Alcmæon, Bellerophon, etc., of Greek legend (verse 8 ff.). Up to verse ¹² that motive not only is sufficient, but is the only one naturally suggested to the mind: the expression נָע וָנָד being merely the negative aspect of the curse which drives him from the ground.¹ (4) Lastly, in verses 13–16 he is the representative of the nomad tribes of the desert, as viewed from the standpoint of settled and orderly civilisation. Ewald pointed out the significant circumstance, that at the beginning of the ‘second age’ of the world’s history we find the counterparts of Abel and Cain in the shepherd Jabal and the smith Tubal-Cain (verse 20 ff.). It seems probable that some connexion exists between the two pairs of brothers: in other words, that the story of Cain and Abel embodies a variation of the tradition which assigned the origin of cattle-breeding and metal-working to two sons of Lamech. But to resolve the composite legend into its primary elements, and assign each to its original source, is a task obviously beyond the resources of criticism.