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What more proof do we need for original sin passed down to all humankind that would issue from the first couple?
Not so fast, think again, leaving ‘original sin’ behind, keeping it out of the picture totally and rereading carefully the interaction between the Creator and Cain/Qayin. You will discover what the Christian doctrine fails to consider.
As God did when the first man and woman failed the test of obedience, first God seeks them out; then asks questions that would allow them to admit their failure to obey and only after failing to admit personal responsibility and repent over their disobedience do they undergo judgment. The previous chapter well explains the consequences for each of the three ‘characters’ in the story of the fall.
God does exactly the same with Qayin: He seeks him out, warns him about potential sin crouching at the door. Does that sound like the firstborn is damned with inherited original sin? Or does it sound like he, like his parents, was forewarned and given a choice? Free will is a great gift IF handled responsibly, listening to specific directions from God, heeding warnings, making the right choice, aligning our will with His.
Please reread previous posts on this:
- An Inconvenient Truth for Adam and Eve – 1
- An Inconvenient Truth for Cain – 2
- Am I my brother’s keeper?
The commentary featured here is from P&H/Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; translation is Everett Fox, EF/The Five Books of Moses. Additional commentary is provided here from RA/Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses and straight reading of Alter’s translation in prose narrative is added at the end.—Admin1.]
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Genesis/Bereshith 4
1-16. CAIN AND ABEL
The narrative describes the spread of sin, issuing in violence and death.
Now the human knew Havva his wife, she became pregnant and bore Kayin. She said: Kaniti/I-have-gotten a man, as has YHWH![P&H] gotten. The derivation is based on the resemblance of sound between Cain and the Heb. root kanah—to acquire.
with the help of the LORD. The four Heb. words spoken by Eve are very obscure. The traditional interpretation makes ‘a man’ refer to Cain; and the words, an expression of thanksgiving for her child. Others refer ‘man’ to husband (XXIX,3). The sequel to the act of disobedience in the Garden would have caused estrangement between husband and wife; and Eve rejoices in the birth of a child, because through Cain she wins back her husband.
[EF] knew: Intimately; a term for sexual intercourse.
Kayin: Trad. English “Cain.” The name means “smith”.
[RA] knew. The Hebrew verb suggests intimate knowledge and hence sexual possession. Amos Funkenstein notes that it is the one term for sexual intercourse associated with legitimate possession—and in a few antithetical instances, with perverse violation of legitimate possession. Given the clumsiness of modern English equivalents like “had experience of,” “cohabited with,” “was intimate with,” and, given the familiarity of the King James Version’s literal rendering, “to know” remains the least objectionable English solution.
I have got me a man with the LORD. Eve’s naming speech puns on the verb qanah, “to get,” “to acquire,” or perhaps, “to make,” and qayin, “Cain.” His name actually means “smith,” an etymology that will be reflected in his linear descendant Tubal-cain, the legendary first metalworker. (“Tubal” also means “smith” in Sumerian and Akkadian.) Eve, upon bringing forth the third human being, imagines herself as a kind of partner of God in man-making.
2 She continued bearing—his brother, Hevel. Now Hevel became a shepherd of flocks, and Kayin became a worker of the soil.[P&H] Abel. In Assyrian, abiu means ‘son’. The Heb. word signifies ‘a breath’, like his life, so tragically brief. As the younger brother, Abel is given the lighter task of caring for the flocks; while Cain assists his father in the cultivation of the soil.
[EF] Hevel: The name suggests “something transitory.”
[RA] Abel. No etymology is given, but it has been proposed that the Hebrew hevel, “vapor” or “puff of air,” may be associated with his fleeting life span.
3 Now it was, after the passing of days that Kayin brought, from the fruit of the soil, a gift to YHWH,
[P&H] an offering. This is the first mention of worship in Scripture. The religious instinct is part of man’s nature, and sacrifice is the earliest outward expression of that worship. Its purpose was to express acknowledgment of His bounty to the Giver of all.
[EF] gift: Heb. minha, usually referring to sacrifices of grain.
4 and as for Hevel, he too brought—from the firstborn of his flock, from their fat-parts. YHWH had regard for Hevel and his gift,
[P&H] firstlings. The most highly-prized among the flocks
the fat. The richest part of the animal.
had respect unto. i.e. accepted.
[EF] fat-parts: i.e., the choicest.
[RA] 4-5. The widespread culture-founding story of rivalry between herdsman and farmer is recast in a pattern that will dominate Genesis—the displacement of the firstborn by the younger son. If there is any other reason intimated as to why God would favor Abel’s offering and not Cain’s, it would be in the narrator’s stipulation that Abel brings the very best of his flock to God.
5 for Kayin and his gift he had not regard. Kayin became exceedingly upset and his face fell.[P&H] but unto Cain. Unlike Abel’s, his sacrifice is rejected because of the difference of spirit in which it was offered. The Lord looks to the heart.
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his countenance fell. In disappointment and dejection.
6 YHWH said to Kayin: Why are you so upset? Why has your face fallen?
[RA] 6-7. This is the first of two enigmatic and probably quite archaic poems in the chapter. God’s initial words pick up the two locutions for dejection of the immediately preceding narrative report and turn them into the parallel utterances of formal verse. The first clause of verse 7 is particularly elliptic in the Hebrew, and thus any construction is no more than an educated guess. The narrative context of sacrifices may suggest that the cryptic s’eit (elsewhere, “preeminence”) might be related to mas’eit, a gift of cultic offering.
7 Is it not thus: If you intend good, bear-it-aloft, but if you do not intend good, at the entrance is sin, a crouching-demon, toward you his lust— but you can rule over him.[P&H [shall it not be lifted up? Alluding to the ‘countenance’ that had fallen. God mercifully intervenes to arrest the progress of evil thoughts. Another interpretation is, ‘Shall there not be acceptance?’
sin croucheth. Sin is compared to a ravenous beast lying in wait for its prey. It crouches at the entrance of the house, to spring upon its victim as soon as the door is opened. By harbouring feelings of vexation, Cain opened the door of his heart to the evil passions of envy, anger, violence, which eventually ended in murder.
and unto thee. Passion and evil imagination are ever assaulting the heart of man; yet he can conquer them, if only he resist them with determination.
[EF] Is it not thus . . . .: Hebrew obscure. bear-it-aloft: Others use “there is forgiveness,” “there is uplift.: toward you his lust—/but you can rule over him: Recalling God’s words to Havva in 3:16.
8 Kayin said to Hevel his brother . . . But then it was, when they were out in the field, that Kayin rose up against Hevel his brother and he killed him.[P&H] and Cain spoke unto Abel. What is said is not mentioned. The ancient Versions supply some such words as, ‘let us go into the field.’ This is unnecessary, as Scripture often omits words (see II Chron. I,2) which are obvious, and can be gathered from the context (Ehrlich).
in the field. Far away from their parents’ home, where Cain had his brother at his mercy; Deut. XXII,25.
[EF] Kayin said . . .: The verse appears incomplete. Ancient versions add: “Come, let us go out into the field.”
[RA] Let us go out to the field. This sentence is missing in the Masoretic text but supplied in the Greek, Syriac, and Aramaic versions.
his brother. In keeping with the biblical practice of using thematically fraught relational epithets, the victim of the first murder is twice called “his brother” here, and God will repeatedly refer to Abel in accusing Cain as “your brother.”
9 YHWH said to Kayin: Where is Hevel your brother? He said: I do not know. Am I the watcher of my brothr?[P&H] where is . . . brother? As in III,9, the object of the question is not information, but to elicit a confession of guilt (Rashi).
am I my brother’s keeper? Cain’s answer is both false and insolent. Only a murderer altogether renounces the obligations of brotherhood.
10 He said: What have you done! A sound—your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil![P&H] what hast thou done? The note of interrogation should be replaced by a note of exclamation. The meaning is: What a deed of horror hast thou wrought! This is further indicated by the fact that the word ‘brother’ is used no less than six times in verses 8-11.
blood. The Heb. word is in the plural. In slaying Abel, Cain slew also Abel’s unborn descendants. ‘He who destroys a single human life is as if he destroyed a whole world’ (Talmud).
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crieth unto Me. For vengeance. See Job XVI, 18 ‘Oh, earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no resting-place.’
[EF] A sound: Or, ‘Hark!”
11 And now, damned be you from the soil, which opened up its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.[P&H] from the ground. Or, ‘more than the ground,’ upon which a curse had been pronounced (III,17).
[RA] that gaped with its mouth to take your brother’s blood from your hand. The image is strongly physical: a gaping mouth taking in blood from the murderer’s hand.
12 When you wish to work the soil it will not henceforth give its strength to you: wavering and wandering must you be on earth![P&H] when thou tillest. Wherever he lives, the curse will follow him and the soil will be barren for him. The remainder of his existence will consequently be an unceasing vagabondage.
[RA] 9-12. There are several verbal echoes of Adam’s interrogation by God and Adam’s curse, setting up a general biblical pattern in which history is seen as a cycle of approximate and significant recurrences. Adam’s being driven from the garden to till a landscape of thorn and thistle is replayed here in God’s insistence that Cain is cursed by—the preposition also could men “of” or “from”—the soil (‘adamah) that had hitherto yielded its bounty to him. The biblical imagination is equally preoccupied with the theme of exile (this is already the second expulsion) and with the arduousness or precariousness of agriculture, a blessing that easily turns into blight.
[P&H] my punishment. The Heb. word means both consequences of a sin, i.e. punishment, and the sin itself. The Targum renders ‘mine iniquity is too great to be pardoned’. The Heb. word translated ‘than I can bear’ can also be rendered ‘to be forgiven’. Rashi understands the phrase as a question, ‘Is my iniquity too great to be forgiven?’
14 Here, you drive me away today from the face of the soil, and from your face must I conceal myself, I must be wavering and wandering on earth— now it will be that whoever comes upon me will kill me![P&H] land. He complains that he is banished into the desert, to share the fate of an outlaw.
and from Thy face. To be ‘hidden from the face of God’ (Deut. XXXI,18) is to forfeit Divine protection. ‘This anguished cry of Cain reveals him as a man not wholly bad, one to whom banishment from the Divine presence is a distinct ingredient in his cup of misery’ (Skinner).
whosoever findeth me. Cain feared death at the hands of some future ‘avenger of blood’; Num. XXXV,10.
[RA] whoever finds me. This, and the subsequent report of Cain with a wife in the land of Nod, are a famous inconsistency. Either the writer was assuming knowledge of some other account of human origins involving more than a single founding family, or, because the schematic simplicity of the single nuclear-family plot impeded narrative development after Cain’s banishment, he decided not to bother with consistency.
15 YHWH said to him: No, therefore, whoever kills Kayin, sevenfold will it be avenged! So YHWH set a sign for Kayin, so that whoever came upon him would not strike him down.[P&H] sevenfold. The number ‘seven’ is occasionally used in the Bible to express an indefinite large number; Lev. XXVI,27; Prov. XXIV,16. Cain’s murderer shall be visited with a punishment far greater than that exacted of Abel’s, as God had now made manifest His abhorrence of bloodshed to all.
set a sign for Cain. According to the Rabbis, Cain was a repentant sinner. God, therefore, reassured him that he would not be regarded as a common, intentional murderer. God’s mercy to the guilty who repents of his sin is infinitely greater than that of man. The popular expression, the brand of Cain, in the sense of the sign of the murderer, arises from a complete misunderstanding of the passage.
[EF] a sign: The exact appearance of the sign is not specified. It is a warning and a protection, not the punishment itself (which is specific).
[RA] a mark. It is of course a mark of protection, not a stigma as the English idiom “mark of Cain” suggests.
16 Kayin went out from the face of YHWH and settled in the land of Nod/Wandering, east of Eden.
[P&H] from the presence of the LORD. Having forfeited God’s favour, Cain withdraws from the neighbourhood of Eden, which was the special abode of the Divine Presence.
[RA] the land of Nod. Nod in Hebrew is cognate with “wanderer” in verse 12.
17-24. DESCENDANTS OF CAIN
17 Kayin knew his wife: she became pregnant and bore Hanokh Now he became the builder of a city and called the city’s name according to his son’s name, Hanokh.
[P&H] his wife. The marriage of brother and sister was quite common in primitive times, but the Hebrew people looked upon it with such abhorrence (Lev. XVIII,9) that Scripture makes no reference to the identity of the wife in this passage.
he builded a city. lit. ‘he was building a city’; did not necessarily complete it. Cain said in his heart, ‘If it is decreed upon me to be a wanderer on the earth, the decree shall not apply to my offspring’ (Nachmanides).
[EF] Now he: “he” refers to Kayin.
[RA] the builder of a city. The first recorded founder of a city is also the first murderer, a possible reflection of the antiurban bias in Genesis.
18 To Hanokh was born Irad, Irad begot Mehuyael, Mehuyael begot Metushael, Metushael begot Lemekh.[EF] Mehuyael begot: Heb. Mehiyael.
19 Lemekh took himself two wives, the name of the (first) one was Ada, the name of the second was Tzilla.[P&H] two wives. This is especially mentioned, as it was a departure from the ideal expounded in II,24.
[EF] Ad . . . Tzilla: The names suggest “dawn” and “dusk” (Gaster).
20 Ada bore Yaval, he was the father of those who sit amidst tent and herd.[P&H] father. i.e. the first, the originator of pastoral life. Abel had been the keeper of sheep (v. 2) but Jabal widened the class of animals which could be domesticated.
[EF] father: Ancestor or founder.
[RA] he was the first. The Hebrew says literally “father of,” in keeping with the predisposition of the language and culture to imagine historically concatenation genealogically.
21 His brother’s name was Yuval, he was the father of all those who play the lyre and the pipe.[P&H] harp and pipe. Music, according to Hebrew tradition, is thus the most ancient art, dating from the beginnings of the human race.
22 And Tzilla bore as well—Tuval-Kayin, burnisher of every blade of bronze and iron. Tuval-Kayin’s sister was Naama.[P&H] brass. The Heb. is more accurately translated ‘copper’, since it was a metal dug from the earth (Deut. VIII,9). Brass is an alloy. The discovery of the use of metals forms an important step in the progress of civilization
Naamah. The word means, ‘pleasant, gracious.’ Jewish legend states she became the wife of Noah.
[EF] burnisher . . .: Or, “craftsman of every cutting edge of copper and iron.”
[RA] Naamah. One might expect an identification that would align Naamah with her siblings as a founder of some basic activity of human culture, but if such an identification was part of the original epic roll call, it has been either lost or deleted. The Midrash recognized that the root of her name can refer to song: perhaps Naamah is meant to be associated with her half brother Jubal, the founder of instrumental music—he as accompanist, she as singer.
23-24. A triumphal song in the invention of the weapons mentioned in the preceding verse. Lamech possibly committed an act of involuntary homicide on some young person. He turns to his wives and says boastfully, ‘See! I have taken a man’s life, though he only inflicted a bruise on me. Should the necessity arise, I feel able to lay low any assailant that crosses my path. If Cain, though unarmed, was promised a sevenfold vengeance on a foe, I, equipped with the weapons invented by Tubal-Cain, will be able to exact a vengeance very much greater!’ This heathen song marks the growth of the spirit of Cain.
[RA] 23-24. The narrative context of this poem is long lost, but it looks like a warrior’s triumphal song, cast as a boast to his wives. Unlike the looser form of the earlier poetic insets, this poem follows the parallelistic pattern of biblical verse with exemplary rigor. Every term in each initial verset has its semantic counterpart in the second verset. In the Hebrew, the first pair of versets has four accented syllables in each; every subsequent verset has three accented syllables. The last pair of versets, with its numbers, provides a paradigm case for poetic parallelism in the Bible: when a number occurs in the first half of the line, it must be increased—by one, by a decimal, or by a decimal added to the original number, as here, in the second half of the line. In the same ay, there is a pronounced tendency in the poetry to intensify semantic material as it is repeated in approximate synonymity. Perhaps, then, what Lamech is saying (quite barbarically) is that not only has he killed a man for wounding him, he has not hesitated to kill a mere boy for hurting him.
23 Lemekh said to his wives: Ada and Tzilla, hearken to my voice, wives of Lemekh, give ear to my saying: Aye—a man I kill for wounding me, a lad for only bruising me! 24 Aye—if sevenfold vengeance be for Kayin, then for Lemekh, seventy-sevenfold! 25 Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son. She called his name: Shet/Granted-One! meaning: God has granted me anotheer seed in place of Hevel, for Kayin killed him.[RA] Seth . . . granted me. The naming pun plays on the similarity of sound between “Seth,” shet, and “granted,” shat.
26 To Shet as well a son was born, he called his name: Enosh/Mortal. At that time they first called out the name of YHWH.[P&H] Enosh. In Hebrew p[oetry, enosh means ‘man’. (Ibn Ezra); or once more call upon God under the name Adonay, Lord, which seems to have been forgotten among the descendants of Cain (Hoffmann).
[EF] called out the name of YHWH: i.e. worshipped God.
[RA] Enosh. The name is also a common noun in Hebrew meaning “man,” and that conceivably might explain why, from the universalist perspective of the writer, the name YHWH began to be invoked in this generation. In any case, the narrative unit that begins with one general term for human being, ‘adam, in verse 1, here concludes with another, ‘enosh, and those two worlds elsewhere are bracketed together in poetic parallelism.
the name of the LORD was first invoked. That is, the distinctive Israelite designation for the deity, YHWH, represented in this translation, according to precedent in the King James Version, as the LORD. The existence of primordial monotheism is an odd biblical notion that seeks to reinforce the universalism of the monotheistic idea. The enigmatic claim, made here with an atypical and vague passive form of the verb, is contradicted by the report in Exodus that only with Moses was the name YHWH revealed to man. [underscore by S6K].
Chaps. II-IV record the sin of Adam and Eve, their expulsion from Eden, the murder of Abel, Cain’s descendants reaching in Lamech the climax of boastful and unrestrained violence. Piety, however, does not perish with Abel, and it reaches a new development in the days of Enosh (W.H. Green).
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[Straight Text/No Commentary]
ROBERT ALTER’S THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES
GENESIS