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| Ghent altarpiece 1, Hubert & Jan van Eyck |
Genesis 4:1 ff, the story of the murder of Havel (Abel) by Kayin (Cain) and of his expulsion into the land of Nod (= "wandering").
The killing, or more often the supplanting-without-killing, of the first-born by the second reflects the "law of the first fruits", in which the first fruits are sacrificed, even if they happen to be a child; it may also reflect the cult of the lunar year, known as Tanism, with the elder twin as the waxing and the younger as the waning year, each ruling as king for a period, then sacrificed ritually and succeeded by the younger brother. This, however, only seems to have been the caseamong sun-worshipping cults, or those where the moon is a male deity. In the cults of the female moon, her three phases are represented as the three stages of womanhood - maidenhood, motherhood, post-menopausal - and the last-born (the second-born when there are only two) is the "beloved", the Bin-Yamin who sits on her and her sun-husband's right hand, the Yedid-Yah which abbreviates as David. The probability is that the original Kayin-Havel legend belonged to a sun-cult.
The law of ultimogeniture, as last-born inheritance is officially called, appears also to have applied in matriarchal but not in patriarchal tribes, allowing us to suggest that there is a connection between the sun cults and patriarchalism, on the one hand, and the moon cults and matriarchalism, on the other. Entirely logical, too.
At yet another level, but connected to the previous, it reflects the rivalry between Yisra-El and Edom as political entities and the assimilation of a cult or a god into the cult of the Beney Yisra-El. All the supplanted first-borns in the Tanach end up "wandering" into the land of Edom and making their new homes there - Kayin, Yishma-El and Esav the three most obvious.
The genealogical descent of the Beney Yisra-El is far from clear. Kayin's tribal list in Genesis 4:17-26 ends at Lamech; but that of Shet in chapter 5 continues from Lamech to No'ach, sometimes confirming, sometimes disagreeing with the Kayin list:
KAYIN SHET
begat
CHANOCH ENOSH
begat
IRAD KEYNAN
begat
MEHUYA-EL MAHALEL-EL
begat
METUSHA-EL YARED
begat
LAMECH CHANOCH
begat
YAVAL - YUVAL - TUBAL-CAIN – NA’AMAH METU-SHELACH
begat
LAMECH
begat
NO'ACH
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| The Gent Altarpiece 2 |
The source of the name is normally understood to be the root Kanah (קנה), which means "to purchase", "acquire" or otherwise "obtain". This is the explanation given in the text: "because I have acquired a son from the Lord" (Genesis 4:1). However, it was obviously a very late addition, intended to explain away the real meaning of Kayin, which has nothing to do with this root at all, though it is helped by the fact that, in Chaldean, Kenah (albeit with an Aleph ending - קנא) also means "to buy"; it appears in this form in Ezra 7:17, where, perhaps by pure coincidence, it is rams, lambs and bulls that are being purchased. The "coincidence" will become plain as we continue this exegesis.
Kanah (קנה) as "to acquire" etc is given a variant meaning in Isaiah 11:11 and Nehemiah 5:8, for "to redeem someone from slavery", both of these synonyms for the Go'el.
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| Cain killing Abel, by Tintoretto |
Keynan (קינן) is referred to in Genesis 5:9 and 1 Chronicles 1:2 as an antediluvian patriarch, whose name may possibly be an early or erroneous form of Kena'an (Canaan - כנען). In this sense, that it comes from the root Liknot (לקנות) = "to obtain" etc makes sense, as the Beney Kena'an were the original "possessors" of the land.
But there are other roots, which render other possible meanings.
Kiyn (קין), for example, which means "to forge iron" (from Kun - קון - an unused root); whence 2 Samuel 21:16 gives Kayin (קין) as "a spear".
That root has other shoots though. Genesis 4:1 suggested a direct link to Liknot (לקנות) = to acquire ("for I have gotten a son from YHVH - קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת יְהוָה"), but both Numbers 24:22 and Judges 4:11 and 17 connect it to the Keyni (קיני) or Kenite tribe, which may explain why the Kenites were thought of as blacksmiths; on the other hand, vice versa might well apply, especially given the true nature of the Mark of Kayin, as explained below. The Kenites are also referred to in Genesis 15:19, 1 Chronicles 2:55, 1 Samuel 15:6 and Numbers 24:21 as being a people of Kena'an living among the Amelekites - and the leap form Kayin to Keynim to Kena'an is not difficult to make . They were descended from Hobab - properly Chovav - (חֹבָב), Mosheh's father-in-law (or brother-in-law - there are variant versions), according to Judges 1:16 and 4:11.
But there are other roots, which render other possible meanings.
Kiyn (קין), for example, which means "to forge iron" (from Kun - קון - an unused root); whence 2 Samuel 21:16 gives Kayin (קין) as "a spear".
That root has other shoots though. Genesis 4:1 suggested a direct link to Liknot (לקנות) = to acquire ("for I have gotten a son from YHVH - קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת יְהוָה"), but both Numbers 24:22 and Judges 4:11 and 17 connect it to the Keyni (קיני) or Kenite tribe, which may explain why the Kenites were thought of as blacksmiths; on the other hand, vice versa might well apply, especially given the true nature of the Mark of Kayin, as explained below. The Kenites are also referred to in Genesis 15:19, 1 Chronicles 2:55, 1 Samuel 15:6 and Numbers 24:21 as being a people of Kena'an living among the Amelekites - and the leap form Kayin to Keynim to Kena'an is not difficult to make . They were descended from Hobab - properly Chovav - (חֹבָב), Mosheh's father-in-law (or brother-in-law - there are variant versions), according to Judges 1:16 and 4:11.
Genesis 5:9 and 1 Chronicles 1:2 make the Kenites aboriginal (antediluvian) natives of Kena'an; the link to Liknot may be that they were "possessors of the land".
Joshua 15:22 has a town of the tribe of Yehudah named Kinah (קינה), which may be connected to Kayin through the Keynim (Kenites); Joshua 15:57 has another, named rather more directly: Kayin.
Kanah (קנה) is also the name of a stream that runs through Ephrayim and Menasheh, and a town in the tribe of Asher.
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| Cain slaying his brother Abel, Rubens |
A Kinah (קנה) is a "hen roost" or "bird's nest". It is not obvious how the word came to be derived from this same root, unless it was metaphorical of birdsong.
In later Yehudit, probably from the Aramaic Kinah (קינה), the root Kun (קון) developed, meaning "an elegy" or "lamentation" or "mournful song"; this is used frequently in Yirme-Yahu, but nowhere else (Jeremiah 7:29, 9:9 and 9:19); as in the English word "keening", which quite probably derives from this source. Kun (קון) or Kin (קין), in this sense of "to sing", is related to the Arabic term for a female minstrel or female slave; whence Liknot (לקנות) = "to strike" or "pluck" an instrument; whence also Kinnor (קינור) = "a harp" or "lyre", such as King David played (and whence Kinneret - קנרת - an alternative name for the Sea of Galilee; so-called because its shape is reminiscent of a harp) and Konen (קונן), "to sing a mourning song", as in 2 Samuel 1:17, 3:33 and Ezekiel 27:32.
How interesting that a wailing-song of mourning, of lamentation, should be connected to the man so severely punished for his brothers' death!
How interesting that a wailing-song of mourning, of lamentation, should be connected to the man so severely punished for his brothers' death!
Kanah (again with an aleph - קנא) in Yehudit usually means "jealous" (Exodus 20:5, 34:14, Deuteronomy 4:24, 5:9, 6:15), another word whose source in Kayin's murder of his brother is not difficult to trace. Kinah (קנה) in Proverbs 6:34 and 27:4 suggests the jealousy of lovers; Isaiah 11:13 that of tribes or nations. See also Numbers 5:15, Job 5:2, Ecclesiastes 4:4, 2 Kings 10:16, Isaiah 9:6 (Christian texts have Handel's most famous line there, and this at 9:7) and 26:11, Songs 8:6, Deuteronomy 29:19 and Psalm 79:5. Kano (קנו) is also used for "jealous" (specifically between the gods) - and Kayin was indeed jealous of Havel!!!
Kanah (קנה) in still another form connects to Lakum (לקום) = "to set up", "erect" and is used in Genesis 14:22 for YHVH as another synonym for the Creator, and in Deuteronomy 32:6, Psalm 139:13 and Proverbs 8:22 to mean the setting up of the heavens and the Earth; that last text usually translated as "possessed", which is helpful in making what is otherwise a very obscure and difficult connection between the several meanings of this single root.
Kaneh (קנה): and here it becomes really interesting, taken with the notes on HAVEL (הבל) = Abel; for Kaneh (קנה) = a "cane" or "reed", specifically the calamus, a rush found in rivers and marshes and connected with the crocodile; it was used as a measuring line (normal height 6 cubits), and to make the branch for a candlestick.
Kinyan (קנין): a generic term for "creature" used in Psalm 104:24, though this definition is disputed; many regard the word as a euphemism for "wealth" or "riches", the "creatures" being precisely that to the Creator divinity.
Kayin the farmer is connected to Adam the dispossessed farmer by more than just being his son. He is called Oved Adamah - עבד אדמה- in Genesis 4:2, which could mean "a worshipper of Adam" as well as "a worker of the ground". The myth of the expelled hero - always the dispossessed elder son - runs throughout the Book of Genesis, almost a lineage of descent in itself, beginning with Adam, and progressing by way of Kayin and Yishma-El to reach Av-Shalom (Absalom) by the time of the Book of Kings 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, but in fact all the dispossessed sons end up as Edomites.
Kayin, in one last derivation from this variegated etymology means, quite literally, "having large testicles", and was a term usually applied to bulls. The bull was sacred to Moloch the sun-god, and was one of the forms in which El, likewise a sun god, manifested himself. The idea of the cattle-breeding cult conquering the pastoral farmers' cult and then itself being driven out is an idea that is explored in part 3 of the essay "The Ancestry of The Patriarch".
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| Cain and Abel, woodcut, Christoph Froschauer, 1564 |
What exactly the mark of Kayin was is not stated. Nor is it anywhere said that the mark would be on his forehead, as the legend today has it. We may therefore be talking about the branding of the sacred bull as part of that cult. However, Ve Nad (ונד) in Genesis 4:14 links to the land of Nod in 4:16 - Kayin as a branded murderer sent off to wander, is remarkably reminiscent of the Azaz-El ritual of Yom Kippur, which is identical to the Sacrificial Lamb idea behind the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Normally the Azaz-El was a goat, likewise branded "lest any finding him should kill him" (Genesis 4:15). But the zodiacal calendar switched from Bull to Ram at about this time (see Drummond, "Oedipus Judaicus"), and in Biblical times the ram and the billy goat were treated as the same animal. Graves has a reference in Greek Myths (under Cadmus) which allows him to deduce the Mark as being C/reverseC as in the branding of cattle - a kind of X, but with its lines a little rounded. Much more plausibly, the Mark was the letter Tav (ת), precisely because a Tav (תו) was the name used for such a mark when branded on animals (cf Ezekiel 9:4 where it is indeed the forehead that is branded). What makes this doubly probable is that the letter we now use for Tav (ת) is not that of the earlier alphabet. Indeed, in the original Phoenician-Ugaritic alphabet, and as late as coins from the Hasmonean dynasty, Tav was represented by an X.
Branding is not the same as tatooing, and the Mark should not be misunderstood as a form of the latter. Leviticus 19:28 is quite explicit in outlawing the practice; see my notes there, as well as the text below.
One last thought, based on two words that are used in Leviticus 19:28, one of them here but nowhere else:
19:28 VE SERET LA NEPHESH LO TITNU BIV'SARCHEM U CHETOVET KA'AKA LO TITNU BACHEM ANI YHVH
וְשֶׂרֶט לָנֶפֶשׁ לֹא תִתְּנוּ בִּבְשַׂרְכֶם וּכְתֹבֶת קַעֲקַע לֹא תִתְּנוּ בָּכֶם אֲנִי יְהוָה
You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor imprint any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
Nor this, indeed, for the second word of note in that passage is TITNU (תִתְּנוּ֙), a very common word that is usually used to mean "to get", but here is effectively "to tatoo" or "to brand"; and, as I point out in my commentary on Genesis 4:12, where agricultural nomadism, the life of a Bedou, is Kayin's punishment, it is used there in a most unusually ungrammatical way, as TET, meaning "give" or "yield", but thereby placing two Marks of Kayin side by side!
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