The Scape-Bull
Introductory Notes and Discussion Points
As with the Adam & Chavah story, this tale of Kayin (Cain) and Havel (Abel) was probably both a story to be told around the campfire or in the tent, and a play that was acted out as part of the liturgy on certain ceremonial occasions. It belongs to the very earliest period of human history, from the horoscopal epoch of Taurus, the Bull, which ended around the time of Av-Raham (probably 2200 BCE, so slightly before him), being replaced by the epoch of Aries, the Ram, whose principal figure in Beney Yisra-El mythology is Ya'akov (Jacob), famously the first man to practice genetic engineering on sheep (we today may think of astrology as a pile of hooey, but we cannot ignore cosmology and cosmological mythology, which the ancients based their entire lives on, and which is not quite the same as astrology anyway). The language of the Tanach, as well as its tales, continuously reflects that change, with sheep-farming taking over from cattle-hunting as the principal source of food, clothing and livelihood, but also in the predominant mythologies; the most obvious example, as we shall see later, being the supplanting of Bull-Esav by Ram-Ya'akov, and more significantly the supplanting of Cow-Le'ah by Ewe-Rachel.
This fragment may be interpreted at several different levels, all superimposed for didactic reasons by the Redactor; however, the original was almost certainly the bull-cult followers' equivalent of Yom Kippur.
Interpretation one: The original progenitors created not two men, but two kinds of people: the settled pastoral farmers and the nomadic animal-breeders. The myth reflects intergroup hostilities at this level, with the settlers killing the nomads, but then as a punishment being forced into nomadism themselves (wandering in the land of Nod).
Interpretation two: The story reflects the ancient conflict between primo- and ultimo-geniture; the first-born son is supplanted by the second; as always with its links to the sacrifice. The first-born son was given to the god, the second sat at his own father's right hand (Bin Yamin) and inherited. Shet (Seth), the third child, is Egyptian Set, and has nothing to do with this reading of the story at all.
We can take it that "historically" Kayin and Havel were not the actual sons of Adam and Chavah, but only "mythologically", and in the sense that all human beings are eventually the children of Adam and Chavah. The need to make a uniied and chronological history was the reason for the Toldot, the "family tree", which attempts to connect all the disparate myths that were gathered to make the Tanach.
Mythologically speaking, however, Kayin and Havel were indeed the sons of Adam and Chavah. Havel may be rooted in the Assyrian Ablu, which means "son". Kayin is held to be the father of the Kenites, which may have been an Edomite clan, or his name may have been a dialect variation of Kena'an (Canaan) itself. The story however is not about clans nor tribes, and certainly not about murder. Offerings are brought, the second-born son is ritually sacrificed, the first-born has sinned by not being the victim, and to make the moral lesson about sin he becomes the scape-bull, cast out into the wilderness to carry the sins of all the people: the original Azaz-El, the original Jesus.
The mark branded on his forehead in verse 15 makes clear who he is, so that no one will accidentally sacrifice him (the mark used to denote bulls intended for sacrifice was – according to Ezekiel 9:4-6 - the last letter of the alphabet, the letter Tav; but the ancient form of Tav was a Cross! X not ת - click here). The festival is thus a primordial Yom Kippur. Later, as we pass from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries, the scape-bull will become the scape-goat Azaz-El; and when Aries passes into Pisces, the Fish, the scape-beast will move to the Sea of Galilee and become a "fisher of men" before being sacrificed on the Tav.
Kayin means (inter alia - see below) "having large testicles", which suggests that only the most virile bull would be chosen, to placate the fertility goddess at whose shrine the sacrificial ceremony took place. As with the Garden of Eden story, we must envisage the whole scene as a ritual play, acted by men in costume and mask, the words either sung or recited, probably some of both. In Leviticus and elsewhere we can discern the exact nature of the sacrifice (cf the red heifer in Numbers 19:1-10). The birth of Shet is a late addition designed to give the whole story a narrative continuum, but also to find a way to retain Shet, who was Egyptian Set, the uncle and murderer of Osher (Osiris), an important myth for the north-western tribes, especially Asher, and also for the Egyptian colonists in Giv-On (Gibeon), Giv-Yah (Gibeah) etc.
Thus we can say that the story comes from a Kenite or Edomite aetiological fable, created to explain several aspects of the eponymous origins. The link to Adam and Chavah is artificial, added by the Redactor, as is the link to Shet in vv 25/6, which properly belongs in Genesis 25.
The redacted version of the story that we have here is also the first of several attempts by the editor to derogate the Edomites, very much a major enemy of Yisra-El in the post-exilic period. Frequently Edomite myths are taken over. The process is always the same. The patriarch is given two sons, the former of whom is cast out, and goes off to Edom; the latter inherits and becomes an important Yisra-Eli: Kayin and Havel, Yishma-El and Yitschak, Esav and Ya'akov, Parets and Zerach, Menasheh and Ephrayim, Aharon and Mosheh, Yehoshu'a and Kalev; the woman in each case is the princess of a matrilineal/matrilocal tribe, which reflects a significant socio-cultural difference between the Av-Rahamic tribes and those amongst whom they came to live, and lives on to this day in the stigma of "marrying out". In the original version of the story, we can presume an Edomite Tanist rite: the first-born was indeed killed, as a sacrifice, the second son thus becoming sacred king in his place. We can also presume ultimogeniture.
This allows us to assume the existence of an alternate, Egyptian reading, in wuich there was probably only one son in the original, namely Havel, and that he was the son of the Hor/Eshet equivalents. Gored by a bull in a field (which would also explain why the connection to Shet is made here), he died (Attis - who interestingly was also castrated - and Adonis, were likewise gored to death by a boar, but it is almost certainly the Osher (Osiris) story that is being specifically recalled in this version. Actors represent them in this Day of Atonement rite. The bull gores the sacred-king (a metaphorical javelin in the side), who dies amid great mourning. The sin of Death, and all other human sins, is then branded on a live bull, and the actor-bull sings the song of verses 13 and 14. The actor-priest, probably a shaman in this case, recites verse 15. The bull is taken to the land of Nod – i.e. dispatched to wander in the wilderness. But being branded no one can kill him, hence the curse of Lamech in the next chapter. The same exactly happened to the scape-goat Azaz-El later (Leviticus 16).
The home of the bull cult was the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia, the land of the goddess Anat, the heartland of the Chitite peoples who built the world's first known empire, extending from the Indus Valley in the east, across Arabia, as far as the Greek islands and Egypt's Mediterranean coastline to the west - the probable originators of what is now called "the common source". A male cult certainly. Connected to the male horned moon who is reflected in the white god Lavan (Laban - לבן) later on.
Kayin has several meanings, for fuller details of which click here to see the entry in the Dictionary of Names. Key to this passage are:
a) "to forge iron"; whence a spear (2 Samuel 21:16), or indeed a Roman javelin.
b) The text suggests a link to LIKNOT (לקנות) = "to acquire" ("for I have gotten a son from YHVH" in verse 1), but both Numbers 24:21-22 and Judges 4:11 and 4:17 connect it to the Keynim or Kenites (קֵּינִי). Genesis 5:9 and 1 Chronicles 1:2 make the Kenites the aboriginal (antediluvian) natives of Kena'an (Canaan); though there is no etymological link between KEYNIM (with a Kuph - ק) and KENA'AN (with a KAPH - כ); the link to LIKNOT, on the other hand, may simply be because they were the "possessors of the land".
c) Joshua 15:22 and 15:57 has Kinah (קִינָה) as a town of the tribe of Yehudah (Judah).
a) "to forge iron"; whence a spear (2 Samuel 21:16), or indeed a Roman javelin.
b) The text suggests a link to LIKNOT (לקנות) = "to acquire" ("for I have gotten a son from YHVH" in verse 1), but both Numbers 24:21-22 and Judges 4:11 and 4:17 connect it to the Keynim or Kenites (קֵּינִי). Genesis 5:9 and 1 Chronicles 1:2 make the Kenites the aboriginal (antediluvian) natives of Kena'an (Canaan); though there is no etymological link between KEYNIM (with a Kuph - ק) and KENA'AN (with a KAPH - כ); the link to LIKNOT, on the other hand, may simply be because they were the "possessors of the land".
c) Joshua 15:22 and 15:57 has Kinah (קִינָה) as a town of the tribe of Yehudah (Judah).
d) In later Yehudit, probably from the Aramaic, KINAH came to mean "a mournful song" or "lamentation", from which the English word "keening"; this is used in Jeremiah 7:29, 2 Samuel 1:17 and 3:33; Ezekiel 27:32. In Arabic it gives the term for "a female minstrel" as well as "a female slave", and thence LIKNOT acquired its secondary meaning of "playing an instrument".
e) A KINAH is also "a hen roost" or "bird's nest"; in its masculine form, KEN is found in Isaiah 10:14, Deuteronomy 32:11, et al.
f) KANAH is a stream in the tribal territories of Ephrayim and Menasheh, and a town in the tribe of Asher.
HAVEL likewise has multiple meanings, for fuller details of which click here to see the entry in the Dictionary of Names. Key to this passage is HAVEL as a "cord" or "the act of binding by tightening a cord". Given that the sacrifice of Yitschak (Isaac) is called the Akeda (from Genesis 22:9, "וַיַּעֲקֹד אֶת יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ"), also meaning "a binding", this is not without interest! The hint is thus to an early version of the Akeda, with Havel playing the Yitschak role, and Kayin serving as the ram (or as the bull in fact, in this earlier version).
One final question: why was Kayin even there to make this sacrifice? The ancient Biblical world, which practiced ultimogeniture - inheritance by the last-born - also practiced child-sacrifice, the first-born being the victim, either at 8-days (replaced in the later Jewish world by circumcision at this date) or at 13 years (replaced in the later Arab world by circumcision at this date). Kayin is still alive however, and presumably aware that Havel will inherit - a fact that condemns him anyway to making his own way in life, wandering, at least symbolically, in the land of Nod. So with Esav and Ya'akov later on - and Ya'akov, upon returning from his years away, will certainly be scared that this is Esav's intention (Genesis 32, especially verse 8). Are we then surprised that Kayin would be sufficiently upset to consider murdering his brother; if he could claim a wild animal had gored him, as Yoseph's brothers would suggest doing in his case (Genesis 37:20), he could get away with it, and then, as only son, inherit. I am not aware of any scholars who have considered this as a possible interpretation of the story.
*
THE TEXT
4:1 VE HA ADAM YADA ET CHAVAH ISHTO VA TAHAR VA TELED ET KAYIN VA TOMER KANIYTI ISH ET YHVH
וְהָאָדָם יָדַע אֶת חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד אֶת קַיִן וַתֹּאמֶר קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת יְהוָה
KJ (King James translation): And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
BN (BibleNet translation): And the man knew Chavah his wife; and she conceived and bore Kayin, and said: "I have gotten a man with the help of YHVH."
VE HA ADAM YADA ET CHAVAH ISHTO (והאדם ידע את אשתו): The marriage of the two cults, by way of the marriage of their respective priest and priestess: or the marriage of the Earth-god and the river/mountain goddess.
VA TAHAR (ותהר): HARAR (הרר) = "to swell, to become pregnant"; connected to HAR (הר) = "a swelling in the Earth", i.e. a mountain; the link being the mountain shrine as the locus of the fertility cult connected to the goddess.
ET KAYIN (את-קין): See notes above and in the Dictionary of Names.
VA TOMER KANIYTI ISH ET YHVH (קניתי איש את יהוה): A rather feeble attempt at explanation when so many far cleverer puns are used throughout the text! (see notes to KAYIN (קין), KANAH (קנא), KANAH (קנה) KEN (קן) et cetera. Is it false etymology or an intentional pun? Was he called Kayin because he was the father of the Kenites (Keynim), or did he become the father of the Keynim (Kenites) because he was called Kayin? Or simply the prurient need for a euphemism, given the real meaning of Kayin (see above)!
VA TAHAR (ותהר): HARAR (הרר) = "to swell, to become pregnant"; connected to HAR (הר) = "a swelling in the Earth", i.e. a mountain; the link being the mountain shrine as the locus of the fertility cult connected to the goddess.
ET KAYIN (את-קין): See notes above and in the Dictionary of Names.
YHVH: The first time that YHVH has been named alone in the text.
4:2 VA TOSEPH LALEDET ET ACHIV ET HAVEL VA YEHI HEVEL RO'EH TSON VE KAYIN HAYAH OVED ADAMAH
4:2 VA TOSEPH LALEDET ET ACHIV ET HAVEL VA YEHI HEVEL RO'EH TSON VE KAYIN HAYAH OVED ADAMAH
וַתֹּסֶף לָלֶדֶת אֶת אָחִיו אֶת הָבֶל וַיְהִי הֶבֶל רֹעֵה צֹאן וְקַיִן הָיָה עֹבֵד אֲדָמָה
KJ: And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
BN: And she gave birth again, this time to his brother Havel. And Havel grew up to be a shepherd, but Kayin became a farmer.
ET ACHIV (את אחיו): The production of brothers, and particularly of twins, is a favourite leitmotif of the Bible - probably not unconencted to the fact that the dominant horoscopal constellation between 8640 and 6480 BCE was Gemini, the twins, and this will have been reflected in the mythological tales; we will see how the change from Gemini to Taurus impacted on the tales, and then again with Aries around 2200, and even more the start of the Christian era when Pisces became dominant - click here for more background on this.
In almost every case the younger twin somehow supersedes the elder, reflecting the late development of the ritual regicide in which the eldest son substitutes for the tribal chieftain, who himself earlier substituted for the sacrificed god. In this story, however, the supersession of the elder brother requires the death of the younger, for which reason we are told (Genesis 4:25) that Shet was given to Adam and Chavah as a replacement - and Egyptian Set was likewise the killer of his brother - so was this a way of hiding Set behind Kayin, or perhaps an attempt at redemption? There is also a law of ultimogeniture in place here, which results from the practice of first-born sacrifice.
A "ה" ending, however, has more than one possible explanation. It may simply be the last letter of the word, as in Adamah (אדמה). With a vowel - qamas/אָ - under the preceding letter (as here), it usually indicates a feminine form. With a vowel - patach/אַ - under the preceding letter it usually suggests the dative, as in SHAM (שם) = "there" but SHAMAH (שַמָה) = "thither". It is feasible then that OVED ADAMAH (עבד אדמה) may have the meaning "a slave of ADAM" or even "a worshipper of Adam", and not "a worker of the soil". I am working on the premise that no possibility should be disregarded, even if many can be rejected. In this case I reject the theory; however, later on, when we come to discuss the Habiru in Egypt, and in Deutero-Isaiah's concept of the "Suffering Servant", this confusion over the meaning of the word LA'AVOD (לעבד) will become immensely significant, and the idea may not seem so implausible after all.
4:3 VA YEHI MI KETS YAMIM VA YAV'E KAYIN MI PERI HA ADAMAH MINCHAH LA YHVH
ET HAVEL (את הבל): HAVEL here, at the start of verse 2, becomes HEVEL immediately afterwards, and continues as such, though this is not detectable from the traditional Yehudit, where no vowels are used; we will see this pattern repeatedly in the Tanach, with SHALACH and SHELACH for example, or ZARACH and ZERACH; similarly a Yud-Vav alternation, as in PENU-EL AND PENI-EL et cetera. In all likelihood it was a matter of dialect variation, in the way that southern English speakers say "you" but Midlanders say "yow", or Paris becomes "Paree", or the Norman Guilliam can be Gwillem or William (or even Bill or Guy).
In Assyrian ABLU means "son"; whereas the Yehudit is usually understood to mean "breath". Note that Havel is the shepherd, like all the patriarchs; Kayin tills the soil, i.e. the earth, which connects him to Adam, and to Adam's punishment in the Eden story, and thence to Esav and Yishma-El and the other Edomites.
RO'EH TSON (ריה צון): the shepherd usually comes out on top in these stories! This is a reflection of the ending of the age of Taurus and its supplanting by the age of Aries. It may also, as we shall see later with the Ya'akov and Yoseph stories, be a reflection of the domination of the Hyksos, a late Chitite group which dominated the western Middle East for several centuries, and known in history as the "Shepherd Kings".
VE KAYIN HAYAH OVED ADAMAH (וקין היה עבד אדמה): As was his father - indeed, this was precisely the punishment for eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:17-19). Thus Kayin is connected to Adam as the dispossessed farmer, and Havel to Chavah the priestess of YHVH ELOHIM; by killing Havel the cult is aborted, which is why first Shet, and later the Ya'akov and Esav myth, is required for its re-establishment. The myth of the expelled hero - always the older brother, always a red-head - runs throughout the Tanach, almost a lineage of descent in itself, beginning with Adam, and progressing by way of Kayin and Yishma-El to Av-Shalom (Absalom) and finally the entire people. Since the book was written partly in Bavel (Babylon) and mostly during the Ezraic period, this is hardly a surprising central theme. The link with the Akeda and the death of the first-born of Pharaoh in Exodus is through the rite of sacrifice of the king: see Joseph Campbell.
In Assyrian ABLU means "son"; whereas the Yehudit is usually understood to mean "breath". Note that Havel is the shepherd, like all the patriarchs; Kayin tills the soil, i.e. the earth, which connects him to Adam, and to Adam's punishment in the Eden story, and thence to Esav and Yishma-El and the other Edomites.
RO'EH TSON (ריה צון): the shepherd usually comes out on top in these stories! This is a reflection of the ending of the age of Taurus and its supplanting by the age of Aries. It may also, as we shall see later with the Ya'akov and Yoseph stories, be a reflection of the domination of the Hyksos, a late Chitite group which dominated the western Middle East for several centuries, and known in history as the "Shepherd Kings".
VE KAYIN HAYAH OVED ADAMAH (וקין היה עבד אדמה): As was his father - indeed, this was precisely the punishment for eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:17-19). Thus Kayin is connected to Adam as the dispossessed farmer, and Havel to Chavah the priestess of YHVH ELOHIM; by killing Havel the cult is aborted, which is why first Shet, and later the Ya'akov and Esav myth, is required for its re-establishment. The myth of the expelled hero - always the older brother, always a red-head - runs throughout the Tanach, almost a lineage of descent in itself, beginning with Adam, and progressing by way of Kayin and Yishma-El to Av-Shalom (Absalom) and finally the entire people. Since the book was written partly in Bavel (Babylon) and mostly during the Ezraic period, this is hardly a surprising central theme. The link with the Akeda and the death of the first-born of Pharaoh in Exodus is through the rite of sacrifice of the king: see Joseph Campbell.
4:3 VA YEHI MI KETS YAMIM VA YAV'E KAYIN MI PERI HA ADAMAH MINCHAH LA YHVH
וַיְהִי מִקֵּץ יָמִים וַיָּבֵא קַיִן מִפְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה מִנְחָה לַיהוָה
KJ: And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
BN: So it happened that, at the appointed time, Kayin brought the first-fruits of his harvest as a thanksgiving sacrifice to YHVH.
VA YEHI MI KETS YAMIM (ויהי מקץ ימים): Usually rendered as "in process of time", but this is an error. KOTS (קוץ) = "a thorn" and reminds us again of the punishment of Adam: KOTS VE DARDAR TATSMIYACH (Genesis 3:18): "thorns and thistles will grow there for you". The phrase - which might be translated as "the thorn of time" - is probably an indication of the very precise time of the festival connected to Adam/Kayin; the next verse will clarify which precise time.
MINCHAH (מנחה): MANACH (מנח) = "to give, distribute, divide out"; also = "tribute, sacrifice", usually without blood. But MINCHAH (מנחה) became the name of the afternoon service, because in Temple times offerings would have been presented at that time; the name has been retained in synagogue Judaism for the mid-day prayers. This is the first overt Biblical reference to worship and sacrifice.
4:4 VE HEVEL HEVIY GAM HU MI BECHOROT TSONO U ME CHELV'EHEN VA YISHA YHVH EL HEVEL VE EL MINCHATO
MINCHAH (מנחה): MANACH (מנח) = "to give, distribute, divide out"; also = "tribute, sacrifice", usually without blood. But MINCHAH (מנחה) became the name of the afternoon service, because in Temple times offerings would have been presented at that time; the name has been retained in synagogue Judaism for the mid-day prayers. This is the first overt Biblical reference to worship and sacrifice.
4:4 VE HEVEL HEVIY GAM HU MI BECHOROT TSONO U ME CHELV'EHEN VA YISHA YHVH EL HEVEL VE EL MINCHATO
וְהֶבֶל הֵבִיא גַם הוּא מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן וַיִּשַׁע יְהוָה אֶל הֶבֶל וְאֶל מִנְחָתו
KJ: And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
BN: And Havel too, he brought the firstlings of his flock, and also some of their mothers' milk. And YHVH had respect for Havel and his offering.
BN: And Havel too, he brought the firstlings of his flock, and also some of their mothers' milk. And YHVH had respect for Havel and his offering.
MI BECHOROT (מבכרות): BECHUR (בכור) = "first-born, eldest son"; from BACHAR (בכר) = "to choose". CHAG HA BIKURIM (חג הבכורים) = "festival of first fruits" and is another name for Shavu'ot, originally the summer harvest festival, though later it would also become commemoration day for the giving of the Torah. This does not however infer that the KOTS was Shavu'ot on this occasion, as the bringing of the firstlings for sacrifice was not time-bound in Mosaic law.
BIKURAH (בכרה) = "a young fig", and is identical in letter and pronunciation to the word for a "young woman" (though that is pronounced BACHURAH), which may be the source of that oft-used poetical simile. Both Kayin and Havel are giving of their firstlings; as in a sense Adam is about to do through the dispossession of Kayin; though in fact it is the second-born who is sacrificed. Obviously we are dealing here with a change from one kind of ritual to another, possibly even one kind of cult to another. The sacrifice of the first born is finalised for the Beney Yisra-El in the story of Yitschak (Isaac) known as the Akeda, for Christians in that of Jesus.
U ME CHELV'EHEN (ומחלוהן): CHALAV (חלב) = "to be fat"; and usually assumed to mean the fattest or best of the first born. However, as anyone who has farmed will tell you, new-born lambs have very little fat; it takes three or four months, generally of over-feeding, before all that fat starts to form, and the sacrifice should be on the eighth day. On the other hand, take the lamb away from the mother so that it can be sacrificed, and you have a milk-ewe waiting for the shepherd to relieve her, and then to make cheese from the product. My sense of the tale here is that Havel has brought the milk as well as the lamb to the priests - the god only wants the smell of the gravy while it's cooking; the priests get to eat the rest, with the sacrificer - and that it was this piece of additional consideration that gained him favour over his brother. And actually he is right, though this has never become part of Jewish practice. "Nature" creates milk in the mother for the feeding of the offspring, not for her own benefit, so really the milk is part of the first-born, and should go with the beast.
In support of this theory, note that it is feminine CHELV'EHEN and not masculine CHELV'EHEM.
YHVH, we are told, prefers Havel's offering to Kayin's; what is not clear from any traditional reading is: why? The assumption is that there was something wrong with Kayin's offering, but it is not stated what that might have been? The only thing obvious is that YHVH prefers meat to fruit and vegetables, which would be surprising in the light of the vegetarianism of the Creation myth, and contrary to the detailed instructions for beast-sacrifice in the later books of Torah. However, see the notes following this one, because it is by no means certain that YHVH did "prefer" and "reject".
The key to this is VA YISHA (וישע): from the root SHA'AH (שעה), which really means "to look", though it is very rarely used, and was not among the words revived by Ben Yehudah for modern Ivrit (Hebrew). 2 Samuel 22:42 uses it for "to look around", but it is only frequent in Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah), which may be a clue to the dating of this text (it was also Yesha-Yahu's word-games with BIKURAH and BIKURIM and BACHURAH that introduced the image of the fig into Yehudit poetry, so this makes it even more likely). However, the verb SHA'AH never has the meaning "respect", which is how it is translated here. YHVH "looked at" Havel's offering, where in the following verse LO YISHA tells us that YHVH did not look at Kayin's. And of course, "looking" does not guarantee "approval" any more than "not looking" infers "rejection". We will have to wait and see as we unravel the text, but is it possible that Kayin's complaint is not that his sacrifice is rejected, but simply that YHVH did not even bother to notice it? And if so, does this explain why he murdered Havel?
The firstling, precisely because of the emotional quotient of its being the first-born, is always the choicest sacrifice; this is what lies behind most of the patriarchal stories; at some earlier date these sacrificed first-born sons would have been glorified as kings who volunteered for ritual martyrdom; only later, when child sacrifice became abhorred, did the moral tale become superimposed.
4:5 VE EL KAYIN VE EL MINCHATO LO SHA'AH VA YICHAR LE KAYIN ME'OD VA YIPLU PANAV
In support of this theory, note that it is feminine CHELV'EHEN and not masculine CHELV'EHEM.
YHVH, we are told, prefers Havel's offering to Kayin's; what is not clear from any traditional reading is: why? The assumption is that there was something wrong with Kayin's offering, but it is not stated what that might have been? The only thing obvious is that YHVH prefers meat to fruit and vegetables, which would be surprising in the light of the vegetarianism of the Creation myth, and contrary to the detailed instructions for beast-sacrifice in the later books of Torah. However, see the notes following this one, because it is by no means certain that YHVH did "prefer" and "reject".
The key to this is VA YISHA (וישע): from the root SHA'AH (שעה), which really means "to look", though it is very rarely used, and was not among the words revived by Ben Yehudah for modern Ivrit (Hebrew). 2 Samuel 22:42 uses it for "to look around", but it is only frequent in Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah), which may be a clue to the dating of this text (it was also Yesha-Yahu's word-games with BIKURAH and BIKURIM and BACHURAH that introduced the image of the fig into Yehudit poetry, so this makes it even more likely). However, the verb SHA'AH never has the meaning "respect", which is how it is translated here. YHVH "looked at" Havel's offering, where in the following verse LO YISHA tells us that YHVH did not look at Kayin's. And of course, "looking" does not guarantee "approval" any more than "not looking" infers "rejection". We will have to wait and see as we unravel the text, but is it possible that Kayin's complaint is not that his sacrifice is rejected, but simply that YHVH did not even bother to notice it? And if so, does this explain why he murdered Havel?
The firstling, precisely because of the emotional quotient of its being the first-born, is always the choicest sacrifice; this is what lies behind most of the patriarchal stories; at some earlier date these sacrificed first-born sons would have been glorified as kings who volunteered for ritual martyrdom; only later, when child sacrifice became abhorred, did the moral tale become superimposed.
4:5 VE EL KAYIN VE EL MINCHATO LO SHA'AH VA YICHAR LE KAYIN ME'OD VA YIPLU PANAV
וְאֶל קַיִן וְאֶל מִנְחָתוֹ לֹא שָׁעָה וַיִּחַר לְקַיִן מְאֹד וַיִּפְּלוּ פָּנָיו
KJ: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
BN: But at Kayin and his offering he did not even look. And Kayin was very angry, and his countenance fell.
LO SHA'AH: Why did he not even look? There are no laws in the Mosaic code relating to the rejection of fruit and vegetable offerings, in the way that animals with physical blemishes will be turned away by the priests (Leviticus 22:22, Deuteronomy 15:21). The KOTS could theoretically provide an explanation - bring your grandma flowers on Shobbas evening, and when she opens the wrapping paper, what falls out are mostly nettles and weeds, with a wilted rose and a couple of dying dahlia, and you might not get the best piece of chicken you were hoping for at dinner. But "grandma" doesn't unwrap the gift; she puts it on the table and goes off gushing about the home-made chicken soup your younger brother has just presented.
VA YICHAR (ויחר): NACHAR (נחר) = "to snort, breathe hard through the nose"; used of horses, and of course, relevantly here, of cattle - the inflated nostril of the angry bull. It is interesting to note that the same image, of the nostrils being inflated, is used of YHVH and/or Elohim's anger repeatedly in the Tanach, but with no sheep or goat equivalent to replace it when the change from Taurus to Aries comes. The use of incense in the Temple, and the natural incense from the roasting of the burned offering, the REYACH NICHO'ACH (see for example Genesis 8:21), were believed to soothe YHVH and/or Elohim's nostrils, and thereby deflate his anger. The root is connected to CHARAH (חרה) = "to burn, be kindled, be angry", and in modern Ivrit has become the slang word for "excrement".
4:6 VA YOMER YHVH EL KAYIN LAMAH CHARAH LACH VE LAMAH NAPHLU PANEYCHA
4:6 VA YOMER YHVH EL KAYIN LAMAH CHARAH LACH VE LAMAH NAPHLU PANEYCHA
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל קָיִן לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ
KJ: And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
BN: And YHVH said to Kayin, "Why are you angry? And why has your head dropped?"
The somewhat dumb nature of the question suggests a human telling of the story rather than an attempt to quote divine statement.
4:7 HA LO IM TEYTIV SE'ET VE IM LO TEYTIV LA PETACH CHATA'T ROVETS VE ELEYCHA TESHUKATO VE ATAH TIMSHAL BO
הֲלוֹא אִם תֵּיטִיב שְׂאֵת וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ וְאַתָּה תִּמְשָׁל בּוֹ
KJ: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
BN: "If you do well, will your head not be lifted up? And if you do not do well, it can only be because sin couches at the door. You are drawn towards committing it, but you have the capacity to rule it, rather than it you."
A somewhat extended translation, but one that allows us to witness the dual concepts of YETSER HA TOV and YETSER HA RA, which are intrinsic here; one of the key distinctions between Judaism and Christianity: the former sees good and evil as the consequences of the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and thus having the ability to make the distinction oneself, and act accordingly; the latter sees Good and Evil as external forces, the deity and the Devil working from outside the human being, using them as pawns in a larger cosmic battle, and therefore not within human capacity to determine. Good and Evil as adjectives in the Jewish, as nouns in the Christian. The inference here is that Kayin has been making bad choices in his life, and so it is he who is "blemished", and his sacrifice therefore not acceptable.
KI TA'AVOD... LECHA (כי תעבד את האדמה לא תסף תת כחה לך נע): the earth as strength-giver! Interesting! It means his river will dry up.
Note that the earth is feminine, and yet לא תסף becomes "it shall not..." - the English neutrality of language strips the word bare, but the grammatical conflict is unmissable in the Yehudit.
Once again the text invites us to wonder if this is an extension of Adam's punishment, or a new punishment, or a different version of the same aetiological necessity. For Adam, the punishment was having to grow his own food, and be aware that there will be thorns and thistles; but now, for Kayin, there may not even be permanently settled land, and there will definitely be even more thorns and thistles; and even then, only... exactly what we are about to witness in the endless wanderings of Av-Ram/Av-Raham and Yitschak and Ya'akov, and we might as well include the wanderings of Mosheh through the wilderness as well: the entire Torah - the entire tale of the Jewish people - as a history of nomadism! But also, significantly unstated, nomads do not plant fields, or only for a season, and then move on to the next oasis, the next caravanserai (the next ghetto); nomads are dependent on livelihoods they can carry with them, such as sheep and goats and cattle, and these were Havel's occupation. So a part of Kayin's punishment is an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth; he redeems his brother, by becoming him.
TET: Intriguing: grammatically, as this is an infinitive, it should be LATET, but presenting it like this is to present two physical Marks of Cain side-by-side - making the picture of the punishment fit the words of the punishment. In the earliest written texts this would have been XX (see note to verse 15 below, and also to TAV at the top of the page). Deliberate, surely?
NA VA NAD (נע ונד): NA (נע) = "to move to and fro, to vacillate", and was used of trees shaken by the wind. NUD (נוד) = "to flee, wander, be a fugitive", also "to be moved, agitated", and was used of reeds shaken by the wind; the modern slang term, a NUDNIK, meaning both "an irritating person" and, more specifically, a nebbish who can't figure out what to do with his life, comes from this root.
The punishment is to become a Bedou, like Havel, and to give up the sedentary life of the settled farmer. This too is most interesting. Is it a morally didactic tale the ancients used to justify their nomadic existence and to put down grass-is-greener ideas among the dis-satisfied who looked to the settled life of the city as an alternative? Remember that Av-Raham, Yitschak and Ya'akov were all nomadic Bedou, and that no Beney Yisra-El became a settled town-dweller until after the conquest of Kena'an by Yehoshu'a; every story in Genesis is a tale about people who inhabit the land of Nod, the land of constant wandering from place to place. As with the curse on Adam, sweating over the soil – i.e. agriculture replacing hunting - is your punishment. Nomadic Bedou did not go in for it at all. So the verse is sociologically relevant.
Note that I have translated TIHEYEH VA ARETS (תהיה וארץ) as "on the Earth", rather than the traditional "in the earth", which frankly makes no sense.
4:13 VA YOMER KAYIN EL YHVH GADOL AVONI MI NESO
SE'ET (שאת): from the root NASA (נשא) = "to raise up, lift up".
VE IM LO... ROVETS (ואם לא תיטיב לפתח חטאת רבץ): curious grammar here; why ROVETS (רבץ), which is present singular, and not TIRVATS (תרבץ)?
TESHUKATO... BO (תשוקתו ואתה תמשל בו): Who is being referred to here: Havel, lust, sin? The wording is unclear. As in the previous chapter, the root intended is probably not SHUK (שוק) = "desire" (see Gesenius for "leg", "street" and other linked words) but SHAKAH (שקה)= "to irrigate".
Until very modern times, and still today in many parts of the world, religious belief made a direct connection between ill-health, poverty, unemployment, failed marriage, poor parent-child relations, hurricane and earthquake, poor government, and virtually everything else that went wrong in life... all of it the consequence of sin. Thus it is never the god's fault, but always, in some way, even if you don't know it, yours (and this despite the deity-Devil cosmic battle). When this became particularly difficult, the religion of the Beney Yisra-El introduced cross-generational sin, so that the sins of the father could be inherited by the children, even unto the fourth generation (Numbers 14:18). So you have a cold because your great-grandfather lusted after a shiksah, or his brother in law didn't pay his bills on time, or your father once blasphemed in shul. The key is the absolute vindication of the divinity, and the placing of a full Azaz-El load of guilt on humanity.
None of which tells us what sin Kayin committed, but it is entirely possible that it was Adam's sin, or even Chavah's, being cross-generationally inherited - he got the farm after all, as what might be called his "birthright". And maybe, maybe that KOTS in verse 3, was a subtle hint that Kayin's first fruits might have been better received if he had pruned the thorns and pulled out the weeds from among the roots. Tares on a threshing-floor! Tut-tut!
4:8 VA YOMER KAYIN EL HEVEL ACHIV VE YEHI BI HEYOTAM BA SADEH VA YAKAM KAYIN EL HEVEL ACHIV VA YAHARGEHU
VE IM LO... ROVETS (ואם לא תיטיב לפתח חטאת רבץ): curious grammar here; why ROVETS (רבץ), which is present singular, and not TIRVATS (תרבץ)?
TESHUKATO... BO (תשוקתו ואתה תמשל בו): Who is being referred to here: Havel, lust, sin? The wording is unclear. As in the previous chapter, the root intended is probably not SHUK (שוק) = "desire" (see Gesenius for "leg", "street" and other linked words) but SHAKAH (שקה)= "to irrigate".
Until very modern times, and still today in many parts of the world, religious belief made a direct connection between ill-health, poverty, unemployment, failed marriage, poor parent-child relations, hurricane and earthquake, poor government, and virtually everything else that went wrong in life... all of it the consequence of sin. Thus it is never the god's fault, but always, in some way, even if you don't know it, yours (and this despite the deity-Devil cosmic battle). When this became particularly difficult, the religion of the Beney Yisra-El introduced cross-generational sin, so that the sins of the father could be inherited by the children, even unto the fourth generation (Numbers 14:18). So you have a cold because your great-grandfather lusted after a shiksah, or his brother in law didn't pay his bills on time, or your father once blasphemed in shul. The key is the absolute vindication of the divinity, and the placing of a full Azaz-El load of guilt on humanity.
None of which tells us what sin Kayin committed, but it is entirely possible that it was Adam's sin, or even Chavah's, being cross-generationally inherited - he got the farm after all, as what might be called his "birthright". And maybe, maybe that KOTS in verse 3, was a subtle hint that Kayin's first fruits might have been better received if he had pruned the thorns and pulled out the weeds from among the roots. Tares on a threshing-floor! Tut-tut!
4:8 VA YOMER KAYIN EL HEVEL ACHIV VE YEHI BI HEYOTAM BA SADEH VA YAKAM KAYIN EL HEVEL ACHIV VA YAHARGEHU
וַיֹּאמֶר קַיִן אֶל הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיְהִי בִּהְיוֹתָם בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיָּקָם קַיִן אֶל הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיַּהַרְגֵהוּ
KJ: And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
BN: And Kayin spoke to Havel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Kayin rose up against Havel his brother and slew him.
VA YOMER: Should be translated as "And Kayin said to his brother Havel...", but the sentence is unfinished, because we are not told what he said, though we can probably guess that is wasn't friendly from the aftermath. But if he had simply "talked" with him, a friendly conversation between brothers, why mention it, and why not use the correct verb - either VA YEDABER or VA YISACH?
VA YAHARGEHU (ויהרגהו): In Yisra-Eli legal terminology, based on the Mosaic Laws, family homicides are usually rendered by RATSACH (רצח), which is also the word for "kill" in the 10 commandments (Exodus 20), and understood there to mean, quite specifically "murder". HARAG (הרג) = "to slaughter" or "kill", and is almost invariably used in terms of war. Does this then read as an actual tribal battle, in which the dominance of the tribal cult is very much the prize? Quite possibly, yes. And if so, can we presume that Havel represents the sheep and goat owning Bedou who infiltrated the dwelling places of the sedentary farming tribes? In that case is SADEH (שדה) "field of battle", and Kayin and Havel not individuals but either tribal leaders or the eponymous tribal names, i.e. Kenites and whoever Havel's tribe were? It is highly plausible that the myth grew out of some-such inter-tribal conflict, but it is still only one level of this highly complex tale.
4:9 VA YOMER YHVH EL KAYIN EY HEVEL ACHICHA VA YOMER LO YADA'TI HA SHOMER ACHI ANOCHI
KJ: And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
BN: And YHVH said to Kayin, "Where is Havel your brother?" And he said, "How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?"
Stylistically this copies the way YHVH Elohim spoke to Adam and Chavah in the last chapter, and the notes from there apply here as well. I have rendered Kayin's response somewhat colloquially, to convey the sense of irresponsibility which is what this verse is really seeking to convey.
4:10 VA YOMER MEH ASIYTA KOL DEMEY ACHIYCHA TSO'AKIM ELAI MIN HA ADAMAH
VA YAHARGEHU (ויהרגהו): In Yisra-Eli legal terminology, based on the Mosaic Laws, family homicides are usually rendered by RATSACH (רצח), which is also the word for "kill" in the 10 commandments (Exodus 20), and understood there to mean, quite specifically "murder". HARAG (הרג) = "to slaughter" or "kill", and is almost invariably used in terms of war. Does this then read as an actual tribal battle, in which the dominance of the tribal cult is very much the prize? Quite possibly, yes. And if so, can we presume that Havel represents the sheep and goat owning Bedou who infiltrated the dwelling places of the sedentary farming tribes? In that case is SADEH (שדה) "field of battle", and Kayin and Havel not individuals but either tribal leaders or the eponymous tribal names, i.e. Kenites and whoever Havel's tribe were? It is highly plausible that the myth grew out of some-such inter-tribal conflict, but it is still only one level of this highly complex tale.
4:9 VA YOMER YHVH EL KAYIN EY HEVEL ACHICHA VA YOMER LO YADA'TI HA SHOMER ACHI ANOCHI
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל קַיִן אֵי הֶבֶל אָחִיךָ וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא יָדַעְתִּי הֲשֹׁמֵר אָחִי אָנֹכִי
KJ: And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
BN: And YHVH said to Kayin, "Where is Havel your brother?" And he said, "How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?"
Stylistically this copies the way YHVH Elohim spoke to Adam and Chavah in the last chapter, and the notes from there apply here as well. I have rendered Kayin's response somewhat colloquially, to convey the sense of irresponsibility which is what this verse is really seeking to convey.
4:10 VA YOMER MEH ASIYTA KOL DEMEY ACHIYCHA TSO'AKIM ELAI MIN HA ADAMAH
וַיֹּאמֶר מֶה עָשִׂיתָ קוֹל דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ צֹעֲקִים אֵלַי מִן הָאֲדָמָה
KJ: And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
BN: And he said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground.
KOL DEMEY ACHIYCHA TSO'AKIM (קול דמי אחיך צעקים): Why plural? And why is the blood crying and not the voice? Biblical psychology, a branch of that most ancient theological system, on this occasion a mixture of Behaviouralism (Hoshe'a, Rogers) et al, "Guilt-Psychology" (Yesha-Yahu, Nechem-Yah, Freud) and the "Archetypal-Symbolism" school of Yechezke-El and Jung.
4:11 VA ATAH ARUR ATAH MIN HA ADAMAH ASHER PATSTAH ET PIYHA LAKACHAT ET DEMEY ACHIYCHA MI YADECHA
וְעַתָּה אָרוּר אָתָּה מִןהָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר פָּצְתָה אֶתפִּיהָ לָקַחַת אֶתדְּמֵי אָחִיךָ מִיָּדֶךָ
KJ: And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
BN: "And now cursed are you from the ground, which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
ATAH: Aurally the same word, repeated, and with much dramatic impact; but in fact they are two different words, the first with an Ayin (ע), meaning "now", the second with an Aleph (א), meaning "you". The same word-play will be repeated many times throughout the Tanach.
ARUR: All the tales thus far have ended with the deity cursing the very creatures he has made! His design, his Creation, his image and likeness - their failure!
ARUR ATAH: The same words that he used to the serpent in the previous chapter, continuing the echoes of the two tales.
See the commentary on ARUR at various points in Genesis 2. Here, as noted above, it makes for a continuation through Kayin and Havel of the consequences of eating the fruit in Eden. Having disposed of the serpent and Adam, Kayin (i.e. the various bull cults from Apis to Moloch) is the next to be expelled. This can be seen as an early version of the Azaz-El, the scape-goat driven into the desert with all the community's sins on its back; itself an early version of the Paschal Lamb that became Jesus on the Cross. This passage was likely acted out as a ritual play, with actors wearing masks à la Grec. Was Kayin in fact a sacrificial bull represented by a human actor? Or, indeed, was the bullfight in its most ancient form a part of this very spectacle?
MIN HA ADAMAH: Which, symbolically, makes him cursed by both his parents, because HA ADAMAH is his dad's name, but the Earth that he tills is the womb of the mother-goddess.
See the commentary on ARUR at various points in Genesis 2. Here, as noted above, it makes for a continuation through Kayin and Havel of the consequences of eating the fruit in Eden. Having disposed of the serpent and Adam, Kayin (i.e. the various bull cults from Apis to Moloch) is the next to be expelled. This can be seen as an early version of the Azaz-El, the scape-goat driven into the desert with all the community's sins on its back; itself an early version of the Paschal Lamb that became Jesus on the Cross. This passage was likely acted out as a ritual play, with actors wearing masks à la Grec. Was Kayin in fact a sacrificial bull represented by a human actor? Or, indeed, was the bullfight in its most ancient form a part of this very spectacle?
MIN HA ADAMAH: Which, symbolically, makes him cursed by both his parents, because HA ADAMAH is his dad's name, but the Earth that he tills is the womb of the mother-goddess.
ASHER PATSTA ET PIYHA (אשר פצתה את פיה): PATSA (פצה) = "to open, deliver, snatch away"; also "tear in pieces". But PUTS (פוץ) from NAPHATS (נפץ) = "to break, tear in pieces, disperse, overflow" (of fountains, rivers); again suggesting that, at the mythological level, Kayin may be a river, or at least a river god.
The verse links Kayin with Death and the Underworld. He is responsible for bringing death into the world. The god created everything except death during the first six days, but it too is an integral, indeed a necessary element of Creation.
4:12 KI TA'AVOD ET HA ADAMAH LO TOSEPH TET KOCHAH LACH NA VA NAD TIHEYEH VA ARETS
The verse links Kayin with Death and the Underworld. He is responsible for bringing death into the world. The god created everything except death during the first six days, but it too is an integral, indeed a necessary element of Creation.
4:12 KI TA'AVOD ET HA ADAMAH LO TOSEPH TET KOCHAH LACH NA VA NAD TIHEYEH VA ARETS
כִּי תַעֲבֹד אֶת הָאֲדָמָה לֹא תֹסֵף תֵּת כֹּחָהּ לָךְ נָע וָנָד תִּהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ
KJ: When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
BN: "From now on, when you farm the soil, it will not yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the Earth."
Which in a sense is a reversal of history. Here, Paradise is a settled place where everything is provided; Adam's expulsion leads to farming, Kayin's to nomadism. Historically, though we haven't reached stage 3 yet, it happened the other way around.
KI TA'AVOD... LECHA (כי תעבד את האדמה לא תסף תת כחה לך נע): the earth as strength-giver! Interesting! It means his river will dry up.
Note that the earth is feminine, and yet לא תסף becomes "it shall not..." - the English neutrality of language strips the word bare, but the grammatical conflict is unmissable in the Yehudit.
Once again the text invites us to wonder if this is an extension of Adam's punishment, or a new punishment, or a different version of the same aetiological necessity. For Adam, the punishment was having to grow his own food, and be aware that there will be thorns and thistles; but now, for Kayin, there may not even be permanently settled land, and there will definitely be even more thorns and thistles; and even then, only... exactly what we are about to witness in the endless wanderings of Av-Ram/Av-Raham and Yitschak and Ya'akov, and we might as well include the wanderings of Mosheh through the wilderness as well: the entire Torah - the entire tale of the Jewish people - as a history of nomadism! But also, significantly unstated, nomads do not plant fields, or only for a season, and then move on to the next oasis, the next caravanserai (the next ghetto); nomads are dependent on livelihoods they can carry with them, such as sheep and goats and cattle, and these were Havel's occupation. So a part of Kayin's punishment is an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth; he redeems his brother, by becoming him.
TET: Intriguing: grammatically, as this is an infinitive, it should be LATET, but presenting it like this is to present two physical Marks of Cain side-by-side - making the picture of the punishment fit the words of the punishment. In the earliest written texts this would have been XX (see note to verse 15 below, and also to TAV at the top of the page). Deliberate, surely?NA VA NAD (נע ונד): NA (נע) = "to move to and fro, to vacillate", and was used of trees shaken by the wind. NUD (נוד) = "to flee, wander, be a fugitive", also "to be moved, agitated", and was used of reeds shaken by the wind; the modern slang term, a NUDNIK, meaning both "an irritating person" and, more specifically, a nebbish who can't figure out what to do with his life, comes from this root.
The punishment is to become a Bedou, like Havel, and to give up the sedentary life of the settled farmer. This too is most interesting. Is it a morally didactic tale the ancients used to justify their nomadic existence and to put down grass-is-greener ideas among the dis-satisfied who looked to the settled life of the city as an alternative? Remember that Av-Raham, Yitschak and Ya'akov were all nomadic Bedou, and that no Beney Yisra-El became a settled town-dweller until after the conquest of Kena'an by Yehoshu'a; every story in Genesis is a tale about people who inhabit the land of Nod, the land of constant wandering from place to place. As with the curse on Adam, sweating over the soil – i.e. agriculture replacing hunting - is your punishment. Nomadic Bedou did not go in for it at all. So the verse is sociologically relevant.
Note that I have translated TIHEYEH VA ARETS (תהיה וארץ) as "on the Earth", rather than the traditional "in the earth", which frankly makes no sense.
4:13 VA YOMER KAYIN EL YHVH GADOL AVONI MI NESO
וַיֹּאמֶר קַיִן אֶל יְהוָה גָּדוֹל עֲוֹנִי מִנְּשֹׂא
KJ: And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
BN: And Kayin said to YHVH, "My punishment is greater than my crime merits."
GADOL... MI NESO (גדול עוני מנשוא): NASA (נשא) = "to err, to go astray", but it also has the meaning of verse 7. It should read "My punishment is greater than my crime merits", and not, as usually given, "My punishment is greater than I can bear". And indeed he can bear it, and does. But surely his punishment is a great deal less than his crime merited, if his crime was murder; in Biblical times he would have expected to be stoned to death for it by the community, or revenged by Go'el by another family member. Or is he not being punished for the death of Havel at all, but for the reason of the "sin" behind the "rejected" sacrifice, which we still do not know?
4:14 HEN GERASHTA OTI HA YOM ME AL PENEY HA ADAMAH U MI PANEYCHA ESATER VE HAY'IYTI NA VA NAD BA ARETS VE HAYAH CHOL MOTS'I YAHARGENI
הֵן גֵּרַשְׁתָּ אֹתִי הַיּוֹם מֵעַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה וּמִפָּנֶיךָ אֶסָּתֵר וְהָיִיתִי נָע וָנָד בָּאָרֶץ וְהָיָה כָל מֹצְאִי יַהַרְגֵנִי
KJ: Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
BN: "By this act, on this day, you have expelled me from the face of the soil; and from your face too I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive, a wanderer, a trespasser on the Earth; and it will transpire that whoever finds me will kill me."
Or maybe it is worse than being stoned or go'elled - forced to wander the Earth, bearing the reputation of his sin, constantly in fear that the go'el will creep up on him when he is momentarily unwatchful, or that some community in which he tries to settle, seeking a wife there, rejects him, even stones him... the song of the scape-bull that will become the song of the Azaz-El later on, and as such crucial (the pun is deliberate) to the crucifixion role of Jesus as the one who, for Christians at least, will take all the sins of the world on his shoulders, and thereby save them having to bear any responsibility for their own actions.
ESATER (אסתר): This is a presumption of Kayin's, for YHVH never says as much; however see the tale of Lamech in Genesis 4:18-24. SATAR (סתר) = "to hide, be hidden"; as a dried-up river, YHVH's face will indeed be hidden from him. And this now completes our argument about the "rejection" of his offering. Kayin's complaint was that YHVH LO YISHA, that the god did not even bother to look at his offering ("look at me, daddy, look at me; you always look at whatever Havel's doing, look at me for once"); now, as a punishment, not only will daddy not look at him, but he will not be permitted to look at daddy either. Or the god, obviously. But, and this is essential to an understanding of Jewish epistemology, at its most significantly different from Christian epistemology: in the Christian dualistic world, good and evil are separate, and driven by opposing suprahuman forces: God for good and the Devil for all the bad that happens. In Judaism God is One, so both good and bad must come from the same source. Bad happens, so the Rabbis tell us, when god "turns his face aside", or even, simply, blinks. The verb for "turns his face side" is the same one that is used here, and the terminology is HISTIR PANAV. So what is taking place with Kayin is not simply the entry of Death into the world, but the entry of "evil" too. And then its exit, on the back of the scape-goat, the scape-bull, the Azaz-El, the proto-Jesus.
YAHARGENI (יהרגני): Likewise Kayin's assumption. Nothing in the text endorses this paranoia.
We need to understand why Kayin makes these assumptions; and again the answer lies in the scape-goat - or scape-bull in his case. This is the real object of the story. Kayin is the bull-god, the horned moon, linked to the oak tree and the river as a male cult; but the Beney Yisra-El worshipped the same forces as females, so the male had to be cast out. At the same time the Yom Kippur ritual required a scape-beast. Put the two together and you have Kayin. But they will not in fact kill him; branded as he is, the mark holy, people of those times regardless of their cultic background would have been too superstitious to touch the beast. Though finding a wild bull roaming around might not have been easy to accept! But we can see the consequence of this in the story of Lamech that follows.
To be hidden from the face of god also means to lose divine protection; cf Deuteronomy 31:18. But the Mark branded on his back, the Tav which is an X or Cross, serves to protect him anyway - and of course, as we saw at the beginning of that tale, it is the same mark that is branded on the bull that has been approved for sacrifice.
ESATER (אסתר): This is a presumption of Kayin's, for YHVH never says as much; however see the tale of Lamech in Genesis 4:18-24. SATAR (סתר) = "to hide, be hidden"; as a dried-up river, YHVH's face will indeed be hidden from him. And this now completes our argument about the "rejection" of his offering. Kayin's complaint was that YHVH LO YISHA, that the god did not even bother to look at his offering ("look at me, daddy, look at me; you always look at whatever Havel's doing, look at me for once"); now, as a punishment, not only will daddy not look at him, but he will not be permitted to look at daddy either. Or the god, obviously. But, and this is essential to an understanding of Jewish epistemology, at its most significantly different from Christian epistemology: in the Christian dualistic world, good and evil are separate, and driven by opposing suprahuman forces: God for good and the Devil for all the bad that happens. In Judaism God is One, so both good and bad must come from the same source. Bad happens, so the Rabbis tell us, when god "turns his face aside", or even, simply, blinks. The verb for "turns his face side" is the same one that is used here, and the terminology is HISTIR PANAV. So what is taking place with Kayin is not simply the entry of Death into the world, but the entry of "evil" too. And then its exit, on the back of the scape-goat, the scape-bull, the Azaz-El, the proto-Jesus.
YAHARGENI (יהרגני): Likewise Kayin's assumption. Nothing in the text endorses this paranoia.
To be hidden from the face of god also means to lose divine protection; cf Deuteronomy 31:18. But the Mark branded on his back, the Tav which is an X or Cross, serves to protect him anyway - and of course, as we saw at the beginning of that tale, it is the same mark that is branded on the bull that has been approved for sacrifice.
The fear of those who might find him is partially removed by Numbers 35:10 ff, which established refuge cities for those who committed crimes for which the go'el applied, as might be the case with fratricide. However, I have said "partially", and "might", because the law of the refuge city only applied to those who killed in a crime of passion, or a moment of madness (בִּשְׁגָגָה - BI SHEGAGAH) is the phrase used there, and the text here (VA YOMER in verse 8) seems fairly clear that Kayin premeditated this murder and so is not entitled to seek refuge. The Go'el applies, not the Shegagah.
4:15 VA YOMER LO YHVH LACHEN KOL HOREG KAYIN SHIV'ATAYIM YUKAM VA YASEM YHVH LE KAYIN OT LE VILTI HAKOT OTO KOL MOTS'O
4:15 VA YOMER LO YHVH LACHEN KOL HOREG KAYIN SHIV'ATAYIM YUKAM VA YASEM YHVH LE KAYIN OT LE VILTI HAKOT OTO KOL MOTS'O
וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ יְהוָה לָכֵן כָּל הֹרֵג קַיִן שִׁבְעָתַיִם יֻקָּם וַיָּשֶׂם יְהוָה לְקַיִן אוֹת לְבִלְתִּי הַכּוֹת אֹתוֹ כָּל מֹצְאוֹ
KJ: And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
BN: So YHVH said to him, "Therefore whoever slays Kayin, vengeance shall be taken on him seven times sevenfold." And YHVH branded a mark on Kayin, so that anyone who found him would know not to smite him.
The scape-bull is sacred, the mark on its back denotes its status, and none may slay it. Cf v 24 and Numbers 35:10 ff. If Kayin were simply being punished for the murder of Havel, none of this would make sense, because why would the god punish him with banishment and not death, and having banished him, why protect him and punish anyone who undermined that protection, especially as the refuge rules do not apply, rules which prevented the go'el, the revenge killing by the victim's relatives, in order to ensure a fair trial? It is from these questions that we can be certain of the scape-bull nature of this event.
SHIV'ATAYIM (שבעתים): Usually rendered as "sevenfold", but this is wrong; properly it is twice seven, but here - and when Lamech repeats it later, it seems that the intention is "seven times seven", which is how I have rendered it. When Lemech slays a man (4:24) he says "if Kayin is to be avenged seven times seven times, surely I will be avenged seventy-seven times". In 4:31 we are told that Lemech lived to be 777 years old, he being the end of the dynasty of Kayin before the renewal under his son No'ach (Noah). Something more than the apparent is therefore going on here, with the creation of the world and Humankind bearing the sacred number 7, Kayin bearing 7 X 7, Lamech 77 and 777. The question is: what? (for comparisons see also Leviticus 26:28; Proverbs 24:16).
OT (אות): What exactly the mark was is not stated either, though it has always been understood as being connected to the custom of branding animals. If so, it would have been the letter Tav (ת), which Ezekiel 9:4-6 says would be marked on the brows of the righteous few at Yeru-Shalayim who were to be saved; which also helps us understand why the Mark has traditionally been assumed to have been made on Kayin's forehead, though this is never stated in the text either - it also tells us that Christians wearing the Cross around their necks have got their Scripture slightly wrong, as well as leaving us to wonder if this is also why the Shel Rosh of the Tefillin is placed at that exact spot, and whether it is connected to the red mark on the foreheads of Hindu women (the Bindi in the Hindi language, Bindu in Sanskrit, and Pottu in Tamil). This letter, in its ancient form a cross (x), was adopted by the Greeks as the character Tau, which became the Upper Case T in English, and did indeed inspire the idea of crucifixion, as an irony based directly upon Yechezke-El (Ezekiel). Kayin means, literally, "having large testicles", and is usually applied to bulls; we can assume that, like bulls marked for sacrifice, or today the abattoir, the mark would actually have been on his rump.
Here endeth the cultic battle! Except that it is repeated throughout the Tanach, e.g. Yishma-El/Yitschak and Ya'akov/Esav, in Genesis 38:27-30 and 2 Samuel 14:6, et cetera: and always connected to a red-head and another (or two red-heads with Sha'ul and David), and to a sheep-or-goat and another; and always to Edom versus Yisra-El/Yehudah; as also Shet and Osher (Osiris), though there the relationship was uncle/nephew - though it does add still more weight to the view that the Mosaic cult was originally that of the pre-Hyksos Egyptians, and revived by him for Mitsri (Egyptians) who brought it, in conquest, to Kena'an; we shall return to this many times as the text progresses.
4:16 VA YETS'E KAYIN MI LIPHNEY YHVH VA YESHEV BE ERETS NOD KIDMAT EDEN
4:16 VA YETS'E KAYIN MI LIPHNEY YHVH VA YESHEV BE ERETS NOD KIDMAT EDEN
וַיֵּצֵא קַיִן מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּאֶרֶץ נוֹד קִדְמַת עֵדֶן
KJ: And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
BN: And Kayin went out from the presence of YHVH, and wandered in the nomadic desert called the land of Nod, eastward of Eden.
MI LIPHNEY YHVH: In other words, from a place where YHVH did not bother to look at his offering, to a place where YHVH will no longer look at him at all, ever. It is in this that we can see the rejection of Kayin; this, not in the ignored offering above.
Once again we are KIDMAT EDEN (קדמת-עדן) - see Genesis 2:8 and 3:24. The garden itself was supposed to be KIDMAT EDEN; Adam was exiled that way (not west, where Kena'an lies), and the flaming sword and keruvim were supposed to be set up there: the Persian not the Babylonian side. The land of Nod, on the other hand, does not exist geographically, since Nod means "wandering". The poetic meaning is that he became the first Wandering Jew, and started his travels in an easterly direction. If this easterly direction is in fact Edom, as we are later led to believe, then the case for the positioning of Eden at Chevron (Hebron) becomes still stronger; though from Chevron to the northern border of Edom is actually east-south-east. East of Eden would then be the Nefud desert, the hottest place on earth, as T.E. Lawrence famously discovered - one of the least farmable wastelands anywhere on Earth - very little but kotsim and still more kotsim, if truth be told. The alternative, that Eden is on the Persian Gulf, in today's Iraq, the Bavel of yesteryear, or in the Yemen, would have Kayin wandering into Persia or Bahrain.
Once again we are KIDMAT EDEN (קדמת-עדן) - see Genesis 2:8 and 3:24. The garden itself was supposed to be KIDMAT EDEN; Adam was exiled that way (not west, where Kena'an lies), and the flaming sword and keruvim were supposed to be set up there: the Persian not the Babylonian side. The land of Nod, on the other hand, does not exist geographically, since Nod means "wandering". The poetic meaning is that he became the first Wandering Jew, and started his travels in an easterly direction. If this easterly direction is in fact Edom, as we are later led to believe, then the case for the positioning of Eden at Chevron (Hebron) becomes still stronger; though from Chevron to the northern border of Edom is actually east-south-east. East of Eden would then be the Nefud desert, the hottest place on earth, as T.E. Lawrence famously discovered - one of the least farmable wastelands anywhere on Earth - very little but kotsim and still more kotsim, if truth be told. The alternative, that Eden is on the Persian Gulf, in today's Iraq, the Bavel of yesteryear, or in the Yemen, would have Kayin wandering into Persia or Bahrain.
For the "real" story, of two brothers disputing in a field and one killing the other, see 2 Samuel 14 for the widow of Teko'a, an invented story which Yo-Av (Joab) used to bring peace between David and Av-Shalom (Absalom) after the death of Amnon. This is significant to the Kayin story because Bil'am's (Baalam's) list of Yisra-El's enemies in Numbers 24:17-22 names the Beney Ken (Kenites) alongside Mo-Av, Shet, Edom, Se'ir and Amalek. He located the Kenites in mountain strongholds, and Genesis 15:19 and Judges 4:11, which refer to the Kenites as a tribe of southern Yisra-El, confirm that they "dwelled in mountain strongholds". According to Judges 4:11 and 1 Samuel 15:5 ff they were an off-shoot clan of the Beney Chamat (Hamathites) who lived in the Sinai and were ruled by Chovav (Hobab), Mosheh's brother-in-law, or possibly one of his fathers-in-law. Judges 1:16 and 1 Chronicles 2:55 confirm that the Kenite sons of Chamat left Arad to become Beney Rechav (Rechabites or probably Rahabites) in the Galilee. Chever, whose wife Ya-El (Jael) killed Sis-Ra (Sisera), was one of these Kenites; he formed an alliance with Yavin king of Chatsor (Hazor) in Judges 4:17. The Kenites were a permanent enemy of Yisra-El; they joined the Amalekites against Sha'ul (1 Samuel 15:6). Under David they had their own cities in the Negev (1 Samuel 27:10 and 30:29), at Kinah and at Kayin. This gives the Kenites a three-fold identity as city-builders as well as nomads and as enemies/murderers, all of which is reflected in the Kayin story. But if Kayin's tribe was the Kenites, how does he get to be the son of Adam, an Edomite, and Chavah, a Kena'anite? Only by the imposition of an artificial historical chronology upon a set of truthfully unconnected myths. Or because, in their status as gods rather than humans, all humans were their offspring.
As so often, the Redactor had multiple layers of tribal history, cult, moral didacticism, prophetic oracle and more to fit into a single story; which makes it complex to unravel; nevertheless, at at least one of its levels, we can see the sacrifice of the elder twin (Gemini) at the dawn of the age of the bull (Taurus), and the driving out the of the bull equivalent of the Azaz-El scapegoat in the form of Kayin; which will be repeated in the non-sacrifice of the half-brother Yitschak (possibly Yishma-El's twin in the Gemini-epoch version?), and with it the initiation of the rite of the Paschal Ram at the Akeda, to incipit the epoch of Aries, and then the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb (the first-born of the ram) in the form of Jesus at the start of the epoch of Pisces, likewise the Azaz-El taking on the responsibility for human sin which is so central a theme in both the Eden and the Kayin tales.
KAYIN (Genesis 4:1 - 4:26)
This is how we are asked to read the story, in modern language:
As so often, the Redactor had multiple layers of tribal history, cult, moral didacticism, prophetic oracle and more to fit into a single story; which makes it complex to unravel; nevertheless, at at least one of its levels, we can see the sacrifice of the elder twin (Gemini) at the dawn of the age of the bull (Taurus), and the driving out the of the bull equivalent of the Azaz-El scapegoat in the form of Kayin; which will be repeated in the non-sacrifice of the half-brother Yitschak (possibly Yishma-El's twin in the Gemini-epoch version?), and with it the initiation of the rite of the Paschal Ram at the Akeda, to incipit the epoch of Aries, and then the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb (the first-born of the ram) in the form of Jesus at the start of the epoch of Pisces, likewise the Azaz-El taking on the responsibility for human sin which is so central a theme in both the Eden and the Kayin tales.
*
KAYIN (Genesis 4:1 - 4:26)
This is how we are asked to read the story, in modern language:
The man knew Chavah his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Kayin. "I have gotten a man from YHVH," she said. Then she gave birth again, to his brother Havel. Now Havel was a shepherd, and Kayin was a tiller of the soil. In the process of time it happened that Kayin brought an offering of his produce to YHVH, while Havel likewise brought the fattest of his yearlings. YHVH accepted Havel's offerings, but he rejected Kayin's offerings; and Kayin was very angry and his face dropped. Then YHVH said to Kayin, "Why are you so angry? Why has your face dropped? If you do well, you will be rewarded; and if you do not do well, the sin is at your own door; and your desire shall be to it, and it shall rule over you." Then Kayin talked to his brother Havel, and while they were walking together in the field Kayin rose up against his brother Havel and murdered him. YHVH called out to Kayin, "Where is Havel your brother?" Kayin replied, "I didn't know that I was my brother’s keeper?" Then YHVH said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth. Now you are accursed from the earth which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. Now you will work the soil but she will not give anything to you. Go now, you shall be a fugitive and a nomad on the Earth." And Kayin said to YHVH, "My punishment is more than I can bear. Behold you have expelled me today from the face of the soil and from your face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a nomad on the Earth and anyone who finds me will surely kill me." And YHVH said to him, "Therefore anyone who kills Kayin will receive vengeance seven times sevenfold." And YHVH put a mark on Kayin, so that anyone who found him would recognise him and not kill him. Then Kayin went out from before the face of YHVH and settled in the Land of Wandering, eastward of Eden.
The source-text and commentary for the remainder of this chapter can be found on the next page; I have nonetheless placed the completion of the prose rendition of the tale here, because the final phrases of its first paragraph are essential for a full understanding of the chapter to this point.
And Kayin knew his wife, and she gave birth to Chanoch, and he built a city, and he named the city Chanoch after his son. And Chanoch fathered Irad, who fathered Mehuya-El; and Mehuya-El fathered Metusha-El, and Metusha-El fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives, one named Adah and the other named Tsilah. And Adah gave birth to Yaval, the father of the tent-dwellers and the cattle-breeders. And his brother's name was Yuval; he is the father of those who play the harp and the organ. And Tsilah also gave birth, to Tuval Kayin, a teacher of all who work with brass and iron. And Tuval Kayin had a sister named Na'amah. And Lamech said to his wives Adah and Tsilah, "Listen to me, you wives of Lamech, and listen carefully to what I am about to tell you. I have killed a man, and I have wounded another younger man. If Kayin shall be avenged seven times, shall I not be avenged seventy seven?"
And Adam knew his wife again, and she gave birth to a boy, and they called him Shet, "For Elohim has given me another child to replace Hevel whom Kayin murdered". And Shet also fathered a son, and he called the boy Enosh. It was at this time that men began to worship the god YHVH.
Copyright © 2020 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press
No comments:
Post a Comment