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Cain and Abel.—The Cainites.—The ungodly Worldliness of the First Civilization.
Gen_4:1-26
Adah and Zillah hear my voice,
Ye wives of Lamech hearken unto my speech;
For I have slain a man to my wounding;
And a young man, to my hurt.
24If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,
Truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold [Bunsen: seven times seventy].
25And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth [fixed, compensation, settled], for God (Elohim), said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew. 26And to Seth also was there born a son, and he called his name Enos [man, weak man, son of man]. Then began men to call upon [call out, proclaim] the name of the Lord [the name Jehovah, in distinction from Elohim, though not according to the full conception of the name. See Exodus 6.].
2. Gen_4:1-2. “Men are yet in Eden, but no longer in the garden of Eden.” Delitzsch. Procreation a knowing. The moral character of sexual intercourse. Love a personal knowing. The love of marriage, in its consummation, a spiritual corporeal knowing. The expression is euphemistic. In the Pentateuch only, in the supplementary corrections of the original writing. The like in other ancient languages. The name Cain is explained directly from ÷ָðִéúִé , the gotten. The word ÷ðä may mean, to create, to bring out, also to gain, to attain, which we prefer.—I have gotten a man from the Lord.—The interpretation of Luther and others, including Philippi, namely, “the man, the Lord,” not only anticipates the unfolding of the Messianic idea, but goes beyond it; for the Messiah is not Jehovah absolutely. And yet the explanation: with the help of Jehovah (with his helpful presence, Knobel), is too weak. So too the Vulgate is incorrect: per Deum, or the interpretation of Clericus: îֵàֵú , from Jehovah, that is, in association, in connection with Jehovah, I have gotten a man. In this it remains remarkable, that in the name itself, the more particular denotation is wanting. We may be allowed, therefore, to read: a man with Jehovah, that is, one who stands in connection with Jehovah; yet it may be that the mode of gaining: gotten with Jehovah, characterizes the name itself. The choice of the name Jehovah denotes here the God of the covenant. In the blessed confidence of female hope, she would seem, with evident eagerness, to greet, in the new-born, the promised woman’s seed (Gen_3:15), according to her understanding of the word. Lamech, too, although on better grounds, expected something immensely great from his son Noah. We must observe here that the mother is indicated as the name-giver. In the case of the second name, Abel (Habel), which denotes a swiftly-disappearing breath of life, or vanity, or nothingness, nothing of the kind is said. Yet in place of the great and hasty joy of hope, there seems to have come a fearful motherly presentiment (Delitzsch, p. 199). That they were twins, as Kimchi holds, is a sense the text does not favor. Abel as shepherd, especially of the smaller cattle ( öàï ), is the type of the Israelitish patriarchs. Cain, as the first-born, takes the agricultural occupation to which his father was first appointed. The oldest ground-forms, therefore, of the human calling, which Adam united in himself, are divided between his two sons in a normal way (Cain was, in a certain sense, the heir by birth, and the ground-proprietor). It must be remarked, too, that agriculture, as the older form, does not appear as the younger in its relation to cattle-breeding. “Both modes of living belong to the earliest times of humanity, and, according to Varro and Dicæarchus in Porphyry, follow directly after the times when men lived upon the self-growing fruits of the earth.” Knobel. “In the choice of different callings by the two brothers, we seek in vain for any indication of a difference in moral disposition.” So Keil maintains, against Hofmann, that agriculture was a consequence of the cursing of the ground. Delitzsch, however, together with Hofmann, is inclined to the opinion that in the brothers’ choice of different callings there was already expressed the different directions of their minds,—that Abel’s calling was directed to the covering of the sinful nakedness by the skins of beasts (Hofmann), and therefore Abel was a shepherd (!). Delitzsch, too, would have it that Abel took the small domestic cattle, only for the sake of their skins, and, to some extent, for their milk, though this was a kind of food which had not been used in Paradise. It would follow, then, that if Abel slew the beasts for the sake of their skins, and, moreover, offered to God in sacrifice only the fat parts of the firstlings, it must have been that he suffered the flesh in general of the slaughtered animals to become offensive and go to corruption. It would follow, too, that the human sacerdotal partaking of the sacrificial offering, which later became the custom in most cases, had not yet taken place; not to say that the supposition of the enjoyment of animal food having been first granted, Gen_9:3, is wholly incorrect.
3. Gen_4:3-8. The first offerings. The difference between the offering pleasing to God, and that to which he has not respect. The envy of a brother, the divine warning, and the brother’s murder. The fratricide in its connection with the offering, a type of all religious wars. The expression î÷õ éîéí denotes the passing of a definite and considerable time (Knobel: after the beginning of their respective occupations), and indicates also a harvest-season; yet to take it for the end of the year, as is done by De Wette, Van Bohlen, and others, is giving it too definite a sense.—It came to pass that Cain brought of the fruits of the ground, îִðְçָä (from îðç ; Arabic: to make a present, “the most general name of the offering, as also ÷ָøְáָּï .” Delitzsch). Fruits belonged to the oldest offerings. Though no altar is mentioned, as also in Gen_8:20, it is nevertheless to be supposed. In the offering of Abel it is prominently stated that he brought of the firstborn of his herds ( áְּëåֹøåֹú ), but it is not said of Cain that his offerings were first fruits— áִּëּåּøִéí . There is added, moreover, in respect to Abel, the word: åּîֵçֶìְáֵּäֶï (and of the fat thereof). Knobel explains this as meaning, from their fat; Keil, on the contrary, understands it of the fat pieces, that is, of the fattest of the firstlings. The ground taken by some, that it was because no sacrificial feasts had been instituted, or because men had not yet eaten of flesh, is pure hypothesis. It shows rather that we must not think here of the animal offerings of Leviticus. Here arise two questions: 1. By what was it made known that God looked to the offering of Abel,—that is, with gracious complacency? Many commentators say that Jehovah set on fire the offering of Abel by fire from heaven, according to Lev_9:24; Jdg_6:21 (Theodotion, Hieronymus, &c.). Delitzsch: the look of Jehovah was a fire-glance that set on fire the offering. Keil, however, reminds us how it is said, that to Abel himself, as well as to his offering, the look of Jehovah was directed. Knobel assumes, with Schumann, that it suits better to think of a personal appearance of Jehovah at the time of the offering, with which, too, corresponds better the dealing with Cain that follows. The safest way is to stand by the fact simply, that God graciously accepted the offering of Abel; but as in later times the acceptance was outwardly actualized by the miraculous sacrificial flame, so here, it suits best to think on some such mode of acceptance, though not on the “fiery glance” alone. 2. Wherein lay the ground of this distinction? Knobel: “The gift of Abel was of more value than the small offering of Cain. In all sacrificial laws the offerings of animals have the chief place.” So also the Emperor Julian, according to Cyril of Alexandria (Delitzsch, p. 200). According to Hofmann (“Scripture Proof,” i. p. 584), Cain, when he brought his offering of the fruits of his agriculture, thanked God only “for the prolongation of this present life, for the support of which he had been so laboriously striving: whereas Abel in offering the best animals of his herd, thanked God for the forgiveness of his sins, of which the continued sign was the clothing that had been given of God.” For this too advanced symbolic of the clothing skins, there is no Scripture ground, and rightly says Delitzsch: the thought of expiation connects itself not with the skins, but with the blood (see also Keil’s Polemic,—against Hofmann, p. 66). Yet Delitzsch contradicts himself when he says, with Gregory the Great: omne quod datur Deo ex dantis mente pensatur, and then adds: “the unbloody offering of Cain, as such, was only the expression of a grateful present, or, taken in its deepest significance, a consecrated offering of self; but man needs, before all things, the expiation of his death-deserving sins, and for this the blood obtained through the slaying of the victims serves as a symbol.” It is, however, just as much anticipating to identify the blood-offering with the specific expiation offering, as it is to give directly to the living faith in God’s pure promise the identical character of faith in the specific mode of atonement. The Epistle to the Hebrews lays the whole weight of the satisfaction expressed in Abel’s offering upon his faith (Gen_11:4). Abel appears here as the proper mediator of the institution of the faith-offering for the world. As the doctrine of creation is introduced to the world through the faith of the primitive humanity, so in a similar manner did Abel bring into the world the belief in the symbolical propitiatory offering in its universal form; as after him Enoch was the occasion of introducing the belief of the immortal life, and so on. Keil, too, contends against the view that through the slaying of an animal Abel already made known the avowal that his sins deserved death. And yet it is a fact that a difference in the state of heart of the two brothers is indicated in the appearance of their offerings. Keil finds, as a sign of this difference, that Abel’s thanks come from the depths of his heart, whilst Cain’s offering is only to make terms with God in the choice of his gifts. Delitzsch regards it as emphatic that Abel offered the firstlings of his herds, and, moreover, the fattest parts of them, whilst Cain’s offering was no offering of first fruits. This difference appears to be indicated, in fact, as a difference in relation to the earliness, the joyfulness, and freshness of the offerings. After the course of some time, it means, Cain offered something from the fruits of the ground. But immediately afterwards it is said expressly: Abel had offered ( äֵáֵéà , preterite, âַñÎäåּà ); and farther it is made prominent that he brought of the firstlings, the fattest and best. These outward differences in regard to the time of the offerings, and the offerings themselves, have indeed no significance in themselves considered, but only as expressing the difference between a free and joyful faith in the offering, and a legal, reluctant state of heart. It has too the look as though Cain had brought his offering in a self-willed way, and for himself alone,—that is, he brought it to his own altar, separated, in an unbrotherly spirit, from that of Abel.—And Cain was very wroth.—Literally, he was greatly incensed (inflamed). ( àôּå denotes the distended nostril.—T. L.). The wrath was a fire in his soul (Jer_15:14; Jer_17:4).—And his countenance fell.—“Cain hung down his head, and looked upon the earth. This is the posture of one darkly brooding (Jer_3:12; Job_29:24), and prevails to this day in the East as a sign of evil plottings” (Burkhardt, “Arabian Proverbs,” p. 248).—And the Lord said unto Cain.—This presupposes a certain measure of susceptibility for divine revelation; as does also his previous offering, though done in his own way. Jehovah, in a warning manner, calls his attention to the symptom of his wicked thoughts,—his brooding posture.—If thou doest well, &c.—The explanation of Arnheim and Bunsen: Whether thou bringest fair gifts or not, sin lurks at the door, &c., does not take the word ùְׁàֵú in its nearest connection, namely, in contrast with the falling of the countenance, as the lifting it up in freedom and serenity. Should we take ùְׁàֵú for the lifting up (the acceptance) of the offering, still would its better and nearer sense lie in the idea that good behavior is the right offering. And yet on account of the contrast, the lifting up of the countenance would seem to be the meaning most obviously suggested. We need not to be reminded that along with good behavior there is also meant an inward state, yet the expression tells us that that inward state will also actualize itself in the right way.
Gen_4:8. And Cain talked with Abel.—Knobel represents these words as a crux interpretum. Rosenmüller and others interpret it: he talked with Abel, that is, he had a paroxysm or fit of goodness and spoke again peaceably with his brother. It is against this that the use of àָîַø for ãִּáֵּø cannot be authenticated by sure examples. Therefore Hieronymus, Aben Ezra, and others, interpret it: he told it (namely, what Jehovah had said to him) to his brother. On the contrary, Knobel remarks: it does not seem exactly consistent that the still envious Cain should thus relate his own admonition. Here, however, the question arises whether we are required to take åéàîø in that manner. The sense of this may be that Cain simply preached to his brother in a mocking manner the added apothegm, sin lieth at the door. In a similar manner, to say the least, did Ahab preach to Elias, Caiaphas to our Lord Christ, Cajetan to Luther, &c. The Samaritan text has the addition: ðֵìְëָä çַùָּׂãֶä (let us go into the field). It has been acknowledged by the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and certain individual critics. But even ancient testimonies show it to have been an interpolation. Knobel, together with Böttcher, has recourse to a conjecture that the reading should be ùׁîø (he watched), instead of àîø . Delitzsch, again, supposes that the narration hastens beyond the oratio directa, or the direct address, and gives immediately its carrying out in place of the thing said, that is, he regards the invitation, “let us go into the field,” as implied or understood in the act. In a similar way, Keil. We turn back to the above interpretation with the remark that the narrator had no need to state precisely that Cain preserved the penal words of God as solely for himself, if he meant to tell us that out of this warning admonition Cain had made a hypocritical address to his brother.—Cain rose up against Abel his brother.—The words “his brother,” how many times repeated! The sin of the fall has advanced quickly to that of fratricide. The divinely charged envy in the sin of Eve, wherein there is reflected an analogue of the envy of man against God, is here again advanced from envy of a brother to hatred, then from hatred to a vile obduracy against the warning words of God, and so on, even to fratricide. Therein, too, it is evident that the tempter of man is a murderer of man. Yet still this is not in the sense as though Joh_8:44 had reference only to this fact. In the sense of this latter passage, Satan was the murderer of Cain,—a thing, however, which manifests itself in the murder of Abel. The fact here narrated will form a connected unity with that of Genesis 3. The working of Satan in Genesis 3 comes fully out in the fact narrated in Genesis 4 “Cain is the first man who lets sin rule over him; he is ἐê ôïῦ ðïíçñïῦ (of the evil one), 1Jn_3:12.” Delitzsch.
4. Gen_4:9-16 The Judgment of Cain. Where is Abel thy brother?—The divine arraignment analogous to the arraignment of Adam and Eve. But Cain evades every acknowledgment. He lies, and denies in an impudent manner; then comes boldly out with the scornful expression: Am I my brother’s keeper? “What a fearful advance from the resort and exculpation of our first parents after the fall, so full of shame and anguish, to this shameless lying; this brutality, so void of love and feeling!” Delitzsch. Irreligiousness, together with an inhuman want of feeling, stand out in continually increasing, reciprocal action. Upon this impudent denial follows the accusation and the judgment. The streams of his brother’s blood are represented as his accusers, and the earth itself must bear witness against him.—What hast thou done?—So we read, since we take the sense of that which follows to be: A voice hast thou made, etc. “The deed belongs to those crimes that cry to Heaven (Gen_18:20; Gen_19:13; Exo_3:9). Therefore does Abel’s blood cry up to Heaven that God, the lord and judge, may punish the murderer. All blood shed unrighteously must be avenged (Gen_9:5); according to the ancient view it cries to God continually, until vengeance takes place. Hence the prayer, that the earth may not drink in the blood shed upon it, in order that it may not thereby be made invisible and inaudible (Isa_26:21; Eze_24:7; Job_16:18).” Knobel. Compare Psa_116:15; Heb_11:4; Rev_6:9 Calvin: Ostendit Deus, se de factis hominum cognoscere utcunque nullus queratur vel accuset; deinde sibi magis caram esse hominum vitam, quam ut sanguinem innoxium impune effundi sinat; tertio, curam sibi piorum esse non solum quamdiu vivunt, sed etiam post mortem. The blood as the living flow of the life, and the phenomenal basis of the soul (primarily as basis of the nerve-life) has a voice which is as the living echo of the blood-clad soul itself. It is the symbol of the soul crying for its right (to live), and in this way affects immediately the human feeling.—And now art thou cursed, etc.—The words following ( îï äàãîä ) are explained in different ways: 1. My curse shall smite thee from this land; that is, here shall be its execution (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and others; Knobel, Keil, more or less definitely). 2. Cursed away from the district; that is, driven forth by the curse (Rosenmüller, Tuch, Gerlach, Delitzsch). 3. As in the history of the first judgment there appear two cursings, it is proper to look back to them. There is the serpent cursed directly as Cain is here. But the earth, too, is cursed for Adam’s sake. Since now here, in the curse of Cain, the earth is again mentioned, the obvious interpretation becomes: thou thyself shalt be cursed in a much severer degree than the earth. The earth, which through Adam’s natural sin has become to a certain extent partaker of his guilt, shall appear innocent in presence of thine unnatural crime; yea, it becomes thy judge.—Which hath opened her mouth.—This is the moving reason for the form of the preceding penal sentence. So Delitzsch interprets: the ground has drunk innocent blood, and so is made a participant in the sin of murder (Isa_26:21; Num_35:31). Keil disputes this, and on good grounds. “It is because the earth has been compelled to drink the innocent blood which has been shed that, therefore, it opposes itself to the murderer, and refuses to yield its strength ( ëֹּç its fruits or crops, Job_31:40) to his cultivation; so that it returns him no produce, just as the land of Canaan is said to have spit out the Canaanites, on account of the abominable crimes with which they had utterly defiled it (Lev_18:28).” It is clear that in this case there is transferred to the earth a ministration of punishment against Cain. Since Cain has done violence to nature itself, even to the ground, in that it has been compelled to drink his brother’s blood, therefore must it take vengeance on him in refusing to him its strength. The curse proper, however, of Cain must be, that through the power of his guilt-consciousness he must become a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth. ðò åðã , a paronomasia, as in Gen_1:2. The first word (participle from ðåò ) denotes the inward quaking, trembling, and unrest, the second (from ðåã ) the outward fleeing, roving, restlessness. The interpretation, therefore, of Delitzsch is incorrect, “that the earth in denying to Cain the expected fruits of his labor, drives him ever on from one land to another.” The proper middle point of his curse is his inner restlessness. More correctly says Delitzsch: “ban of banning, wandering of exile, is the history of Cain’s curse; how directly opposite to that which is proclaimed by the blood of the other Abel, the Holy and Righteous one (Act_3:14).” Knobel, according to the view above noticed, interprets the words “fugitive and vagabond,” as indicating in the author a knowledge of the roaming races of the East.—My punishment is greater than I can bear [Lange renders it my guilt, òåðé ].—The question arises whether this expression means my sin, or my punishment. The old interpretations (Septuagint, Vulgate) render it my sin, and accordingly give ðùà the sense of forgiveness. My sin is too great to be ever forgiven. This expression of despair into which his earlier confidence sinks down, has been interpreted by some as denoting Cain’s repentance, which, analogous to the repentance of Judas, fails of salvation through self-will and want of faith, or rather, bears him on more fully to destruction. But since òåï may denote also the punishment of sin (Gen_19:15; Isa_5:18), and since Cain further on laments the greatness of his punishment, Delitzsch, Keil, and others, with Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Calvin, etc., take the sense to be: my punishment is too great, that is, greater than I can bear. But now the question arises, whether there is not here in view a double sense, as indicated by the very choice of the expression; and this the more, since, in fact, there lies also in Cain’s repentance a similar double sense. The sin is evidently acknowledged, but only in the reflex view of the punishment, and because of the punishment (attritio in contrast with contritio). The self-accusation, therefore, that the sin is held unpardonable, is, at the same time, an accusation of the judge for having laid upon him an unendurable burden. The reservation of the heart still unbroken in its selfishness and pride, makes the self-accusation, in this kind of repentance, an accusation of the doom itself; it is “the sorrow of the world that worketh death.” It is, however, the lies bound up with the pride that gives the impassioned utterance its curiously varied coloring.—Behold thou hast driven me out.—Out of the sentence of his own conscience, through which God lets him become a fugitive and a vagabond, Cain makes a clear, positive, divine decree of banishment. Thereby does it appear to him a heavier doom that he must go forth from the presence of the adamah in Eden, than his departure from the presence of God (though before he had put the latter first); and, finally, they are both to him the harder punishment, since now “every one that finds shall slay him.” It is the full, unbroken, selfish fear of death, that falls upon him like a giant, rather than the wish that he may be slain by the avenger of blood, whoever he may be. But therein does his outer understanding of it give notice of the sentence: thou shalt be a fugitive and a vagabond. It has changed, for him, into the threatening: avengers of blood will everywhere hunt and slay thee (Pro_28:1).—Behold thou drivest me forth this day from the face of the Adamah, that is, out of Eden. “In Eden dwelt Jehovah, whose presence guaranteed protection and security.” Knobel. But would Cain take comfort in the idea of the divine protection? It is suffering and punishment, in itself, that, as he says, he is directly driven forth ( âøù ) from that home still so rich and charming, where, moreover, through his tilling of the ground he meant to become a permanent possessor.—And from thy face shall I be hid.—Knobel: “Outside of Eden, withdrawn from thy look. In a similar manner Jonah believed that by his withdrawal from Canaan, the land of Jehovah’s habitation, he should escape from his territorial jurisdiction.” On the contrary, Delitzsch and Keil: “from the place where Jehovah revealed his presence.” It must be observed that he mentions this suffering as of second moment. It sounds partly as a complaint, and partly as a threatening; for it is the specific expression of the morose self-consciousness that it flees from the presence of God, whilst it maintains, in order to have some plea of right, that it has been forced to do so. When I lose the face of my home, then also am I compelled to flee from the face of God. Though in every place he would fain hide from the face of God, yet the obvious sense here is neither the unbiblical thought that God dwelt only in Eden (or in Canaan), nor the loss of the beholding of the cherubim. The idea that man can hide himself from God the Scripture everywhere treats as a mere false representation of the evil conscience. It is clearly growling despair that will no more seek the presence of Jehovah through prayer and sacrifice, under the pretence that it is no more allowed to do so. Cain, however, has still religious insight enough to know, that the further from God, the deeper does he fall into the danger of death.—Every one that findeth me.—How could Cain fear lest the blood avenger should slay him, when the earth was uninhabited? Josephus, Kimchi, Michaelis, have referred the declaration to the ravenous beasts. Clericus, Dathe, Delitzsch, Keil, and others, have referred it to the family of Adam. Schumann and Tuch find in it an oversight of the narrator. Knobel takes it as embracing the representation of their having been primitive inhabitants of Eastern Asia (Chinese immigrants, perhaps) with whom Cain had fought. Delitzsch says: “It is clear that the blood avengers whom Cain feared, must be those who should exist in the future, when his father’s family had become enlarged and spread abroad; for that the murderer should be punished with death (we might even say that the taking vengeance for blood is the fountain of regulated law and right respecting murder) is a righteous sentence written in any man’s breast; and that Cain already sees the earth full of avengers, is just the way of the murderer who sees himself on all sides surrounded by avenging spirits (̓ Åñéííýåò ), and feels himself subjected to their tormentings.” Keil adds: “Though Adam, at that time, had not many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, yet, according to Gen_4:17, Gen_5:4, he must, at that time, doubtless, have had already other children, who might multiply, and, earlier or later, avenge Abel’s death.” In aid of this supposition we must take the representation that would give to Cain an immensely long life. Cain’s complaint was an indirect prayer for the mitigation of the punishment. Jehovah consents to the prayer in his sense, that is, he knows that the fear of Cain is, in great part, a reflection from his evil conscience, and, consequently, the destiny which is appointed to him appears to serve more for the silencing (not giving rest to) his frantic excitement, than as designed to protect him outwardly from any danger. For not absolutely shall he know himself protected, but only through the threatening of a seven-fold blood-vengeance against his pursuer, whoever he might be, and through the warning of the same as given by a sign. There appears to Knobel a difficulty in the question, Who then would undertake the blood-vengeance on behalf of Cain, seeing he had no companions? Seven-fold shall he be punished, or shall he (Cain) become avenged.—Set a mark upon Cain.—According to the traditional interpretation, God put a sign on Cain himself, which would make him known; and hence the proverbial expression: the mark of Cain. On the contrary, the literal language has the preposition ì (to or for). Another old interpretation (Aben Ezra, Baumgarten, Delitzsch) will have it that God gave him a token for his security, in order that he might not be slain. The language, however, does not denote a sign of security for Cain that would make him absolutely safe, but only a sign of warning, and threatening, for some possible pursuer, and which might possibly remain unnoticed, though serving to Cain himself as a conscious sign for the quieting of his fears. According to Knobel, the author had in mind, perhaps, some celestial phenomenon, which should every time make its appearance and warn away the assailant. Such a divine intervention, however, would be a placing the murderer in absolute security, and besides a thing simply inconceivable. The warning sign for the pursuer of Lamech, whoever he might be, was the newly invented weapons of his son Tubal-Cain. The warning sign that should serve for the protection of Cain, must disclose to the pursuers the threatening prospect of a seven-fold blood-vengeance. Such a sign, although for Cain, may be, notwithstanding, represented as on Cain in some kind of threatening defence, perhaps, or in the attendance of his wife; it is enough that the history is silent, or simply means to tell us that God already, immediately after the first deed of murder, had established a modification of the natural, impulsive, and impassioned, taking of vengeance for blood;—a warning sign, in fact, that the carrying out of the blood-vengeance would have for its consequence the extirpation of the whole human race. But why this exemption of Cain? To this question every kind of answer has been given (comp. Delitzsch and Keil). The chief thing was, that this banishment had in itself the significance of a social human death. It was a member cut off from the human community, as in the New Testament history of Judas. Besides, the unfolding of the Cainitish existence was to reveal an unfolding of death in a higher degree, and, at the same time, to do service to human culture in the dissemination of the Cainitish talent. Finally, there comes into consideration, in relation to Cain, what is said by Delitzsch: “He was gracious to him in the prolongation of his time of grace, because he recognized the sin as sin.” But at the same time, God himself gives here the first example for the significance of the law of pardon in the later society. To demand the death of Cain was properly the right only of Abel’s parents. But these were also Cain’s parents. The right of pardoning is the right of modifying or mitigating the punishment in view of special mitigating circumstances.—And Cain went out.—“The name ðåã denotes a land of escape and banishment, and is therefore the contrast to the happy land of Eden, where Jehovah walks and communes with men.” Keil. The land lay eastward of Eden. In other respects it cannot be definitely determined; for Cain carried everywhere the land of Nod with him in his heart. Knobel thinks here again of China.
5. Gen_4:17-23. Cain and the Cainites.—And Cain knew his wife.—Here comes in the supposition that Adam must have already had daughters too. Cain’s wife could only have been a daughter of Adam, consequently his sister, and Abel’s sister. She still adheres, nevertheless, to the fearful man, and follows him in his misery, which is also a testimony to a humane side in his life. The marriage of sisters was, in the beginning, a condition for the propagation of the human race. At the commencement of the race, the contrasts in the members of the family must have been so strongly regarded, that thereby the conditions for a true marriage could be present in the same family; whilst the most significant motive for the later prohibition of sister marriages, such as the establishment of a new band of love, and the consequent separation of the sisterly and marriage relations, could not yet have become effectual. Keil, moreover, remarks that the sons and daughters of Adam represent not merely the family, but the race; this is indeed the case, even in single families, though on a reduced scale. Some have thought it strange that Cain should have built a city for his son. But in this objection it is overlooked that the main conception of a primitive city is simply that of a walled fortification. The city must have been a very small one. Cain might have built it for an entire patriarchal race. Moreover, it reads, as Keil calls attention to it, éַéְäִé áֹּðֶä , he was building. It was the thought and the work of his life, in proof that immediately after the protection offered to him by God, he longed for something to fortify himself against the fear of his conscience, and had need to fix for himself an outward station, in opposition to his inner unsettled condition. “Even if we do not, with Delitzsch, regard this city as the foundation-stone of the worldly rule in which the spirit of the beast predominates, yet we must not misapprehend therein the effort to remove the curse of banishment, and to create for his race a point of unity as a compensation for the lost unity in society with God; neither must we lose sight of the continual tendency of the Cainitish life to the earthly. The mighty development of the world-feeling, and of ungodliness, among the Cainites, becomes conspicuous with Lamech in the sixth generation.” Keil. This comes to be, indeed, the ground idea of the Cainite development, that in the symbolic ideality of culture, it seeks an offset to the real ideality of the living cultus (or worship), even as this is generally the character of the secularized worldliness; that is, it makes a development of culture, in itself legitimate, to be its one and all. If after this we take into view the names of the Cainitish line, it will serve for a confirmation of what has been said.
1. Henoch, initiation, the initiated and his city.
2. Irad, townsman, citizen, urbanus, civilis.
3. Mahujael, or Mahijael, the purified, or the formed of God ( îçä ).
4. Methusael, the (strengthened) man of God.
5. Lamech, strong youth. His two wives: Adah, the decorated, Zillah, the musical player (according to Schröder, the dark brunette). [Schröder is all wrong.—T. L.]
6. The sons of Lamech, by Adah: Jabal, the traveller (nomade), and Jubal, the jubilant, the musician. By Zillah: Tubal Cain, worker in brass or iron (according to the Persian, Thubal; Gesenius), the lance-forger (according to the Shemetic, mason)—if not more probably: brass (or iron) of Cain, that is, the forger of the weapons in which the Cainites trusted. His sister Naamah, the lovely.
Cain and Adam included, this is eight generations; whereas the line of Seth that follows (Genesis 5) embraces ten generations. On account of the like names, Henoch and Lamech, Irad and Jared, Kain and Kenan, Mahujael and Mahalael, Methusael and Methuselah, Knobel supposes a mingling of both genealogies, or one common primitive legend in two forms; Keil contends against this by laying emphasis on the difference of the names that appear to be similar, and the different position of those that are alike. For the sake of comparison we let the line of Seth immediately follow: 1. Adam (earth-man). 2. Seth (compensation, or the established). 3. Enoch (weak man). 4. Cainan (profit, a mere like-sounding of Cain). 5. Mahalaleel, praise of God (only an echo of Mahujael). 6. Jared, descending, the descender (only a resemblance in sound to Irad). 7. Enoch or Henoch, the consecrated. Here the devoted, or consecrated, follows the descending; in the Cainitish line he follows Cain. The one was the occupier of a city in the world, the other was translated to God; both consecrations, or devotions, stand, therefore, in full contrast. 8. Methuselah. According to the usual interpretation: man of the arrow, of the weapons of war. As he forms a chronological parallel with the Cainitic Lamech, so may we regard this name as indicating that he introduced these newly invented weapons of the Cainites into the line of Seth, in order to be a defence against the hostile insolence of the Cainites. It consists with this interpretation, that with him there came into the line of Seth a tendency to the worldly, after which it goes down with it, and with the age. Even the imposing upon his son the name Lamech, the strong youth, may be regarded as a warlike demonstration against the Cainitic Lamech. Therefore, 9. Lemech or Lamech. 10. Noah, the rest, the quieter, or peacemaker. With Lamech, who greeted in his son the future pacificator, there appears to be indicated, in the line of Seth, a direction, peaceful, yet troubled with toil and strife. It was just such an age, however, as might have for its consequence the alliances and minglings with the Cainites that are now introduced, and which have so often followed the exigencies of war. This Sethian Lamech, however, forms a significant contrast with the Cainitic. The one consoles himself with the newly invented weapons of his son Tubal Cain, as his security against the fearful blood-vengeance. The other comforts himself with the hope that with his son there shall come a season of holy rest from the labor and pains that are burdened with the curse of God. In regard to both lines in common, the following is to be remarked: 1. The names in the Cainitic line are, for the most part, expressive of pride, those of the Sethic, of humility. 2. The Cainitic line is carried no farther than to the point of its open corruption in polygamy, quarrelsomeness, and consecration of art to the service of sin. The Sethic line forms in its tenth period the full running out of a temporal world-development, in which Enoch, the seventh, properly appears as the highest point. 3. Against the mention of the Cainitic wives, their charms, and their art, appears in the Sethic line only the mention of sons and daughters. It serves for an introduction to the sixth chapter.
Concerning the repeated appearance of like names, compare what is said by Keil, p. 71. Zillah can just as well mean the shadowy as the sounding, yet the latter interpretation is commended by the context. By the invention of Jubal a distinction is made between stringed and wind instruments. In its relation to Tubal Cain the word çֹøֵùׁ must be taken as neuter; since otherwise Tubal Cain would appear as the smith that forged the smiths. The song of Lamech is the first decidedly poetic form in the Scriptures, more distinct than Gen_1:27 and Gen_2:23, as is shown by the marked parallelism of the members. It is the consecration of poetry to the glorification of a Titanic insolence, and, sung as it was in the ears of both his wives, stands as a proof that lust and murder are near akin to each other. Rightly may we suppose (with Hamann and Herder), that the invention of his son Tubal Cain, that is, the invention of weapons, made him so excessively haughty, whilst the invention of his son Jubal put him in a position to sing to his wives his song of hate and vengeance. This indicates, at the same time, an immeasurable pride in his talented sons. He promises himself the taking of a blood-vengeance, vastly enhanced in degree, but shows, at the same time, by the citation of the case of his ancestor Cain, that the dark history of that bad man had become transformed into a proud remembrance for his race. The meaning of the song, however, is not, I have slain a man (Septuagint, Vulgate, &c.). He supposes the case that he were now wounded, or now slain; that is, it looks to the future (Aben Ezra, Calvin, &c). We may take the ëִּé with which the song begins as an expression of assurance, and the preterite of the verb as denoting the certainty of the declaration (see Delitzsch, p. 214). We think it better, however, to take it hypothetically, as Nägelsbach and others have done, and this too as corresponding to the sense as well as to the grammatical expression. In respect to the inventions of the Chinese, and the discovery of music as coming out of the shepherd-life, compare Knobel, p. 65. In regard to the conjectures concerning these genealogies, see the Catalogue of Literature, p. 56. Thus, for example, Jubal is connected with Apollo, and Tubal Cain with Vulcan. The similarity of particular forms in popular traditions cannot justify us in confounding them. Knobel refers here, in the view he takes, to the bloodthirsty cruelty of the Mongolian tribes. Ewald finds in the three sons of Lamech (Noah?) the representatives of three principal states according to the Judæan conceptions (see Delitzsch, p. 212; also similar interpretations of Ewald, p. 211).
6. Gen_4:24-26. Seth.—And called his name Seth.—Seth may denote compensation for Abel (Knobel, Keil),—one who comes in the place of Abel who has been slain and taken away; and in this way he is said to be fixed, established. Eve called the giver Elohim, according to Knobel, because the Sethites were elohists; according to Keil it was because the divine power had compensated her for what human wickedness had taken away. The fact that the name Jehovah, as mentioned further on, came to be adopted in connection with Enoch (weak man), may lead to the thought, indeed, of a lowering of hopes, and yet there lies an expression of hope in this, that she regards Seth as a permanent compensation for Abel.—And to Seth,—to him also was born a son.—Enoch,—a designation of weakness, frailty; probably a sorrowful remembrance of Abel (Psa_8:5; Psa_90:3).—Then began men to call.— ÷ָøָà áּ , primarily, to call on the name of Jehovah, and then to proclaim him, to announce. Men had before this prayed and called upon God, but now they begin to reverence God as Jehovah. But why not before, in the time of Seth? God as Jehovah is the covenant God of a pious race, of a future full of promise. First with Enoch does there appear the sure prospect of a new line of promise, after the line of Cain had lost it. With a new divine race, and a new believing generation, there ever presents itself the name Jehovah, and ever with a higher glory. Now it is for the first time after Eve’s first theocratic jubilee-cry of hope. Delitzsch is inclined to think that men now called upon Jehovah in the direction of the East (where the Cainites made their settlement). Moreover, it must be that here is narrated the beginning of a formal divine worship. In respect to this, as also in respect to the two pillars of Seth’s descendants of which Josephus speaks, compare Delitzsch, p. 218. The language undoubtedly refers to a general honoring of the name Jehovah among the pious Sethites. Concerning the name of God, compare the Bibelwerk, Matt., p. 125 (Am. ed.). In relation to Jehovah is the name of special significance, because Jehovah is the God of the covenant, or of the revelation of salvation, and because the name of God, whilst on the one side it denotes his revelation, does, on the other, present the reflex of his revelation in the human religious recognition, that is, in religion itself. In respect to the supposition that the primitive religion was the true religion, as we find it in Rom_1:19-21, Knobel gives an account in its historical relation (p. 67). According to a Hebrew interpretation of the word äåּçַì , as though from the word çìì , to profane, and which Hieronymus mentions, though he rejects it, there must have begun, in the days of Enoch, a species of image-worship, as a profanation of the name of Jehovah (see Rahmer, “The Hebrew Traditions in the Works of Hieronymus,” p. 20). It is a Rabbinical figment, resting upon the misinterpretation of a word, and of the whole text.
2. The human pairing is not an act of natural necessity, but a free ethical love, a knowing, as its fruit is a begetting, a witnessing.
3. The first mother’s-joy after the first mother’s-anguish, is a spirit of high enthusiasm, and, therefore, an expression of believing hope in the coming salvation. It takes the form of womanly precipitancy, and may mean that now she has borne the serpent-crusher (gotten him, or brought him forth). This is the first misreckoning in respect to the times and hours of God, and the person who is to bring salvation, but the believing hope itself is not a vain thing. Upon this high soaring, as it appears in the mother’s naming of Cain ( åὕñçêá , see Joh_1:42), there follows, after the human fashion, a great lowering of hope, as shown in the naming of the second son, wherein there appears to be indicated a fearful motherly foreboding, which may have been already occasioned by the conduct of the young Cain.
4. The formation of the family: the fundamental law of human relations (“next to the conjugal the parental, the sisterly and brotherly, the general relation of kindred,” Delitzsch) and of all human ordinances. Church and state, with their binding cement, the school, all in the embryo form. The offering. The sentence upon Cain for his brother’s murder. The first moral lesson, an admonition or warning to Cain.
5. In the bosom of the first family there appears the first contrast between the two ground-forms of the human calling,—between worldly power and a divine endurance, between an ungodly and a godly direction, between one who was godless and one who was pious, between one who was loaded in life with the curse of God and one who was slain for his piety, yet whose death, blood, and right, had still an abiding value in the eyes of God.
6. The religious offering is indicated and introduced as early as humanity in the state of sin, Gen_3:21. It has its origin in thankfulness for God’s gifts, and the acknowledgment that all belongs to him and must be presented or consecrated to him. It is, moreover, an expression of the feeling that the failure to present a real and perfect obedience of the heart and will, and of a perfectly holy life with prayer, is attested by the symbolical offering, which, as such, denotes a longing for, and a craving need of restoration to, that perfect condition wherein life and offering unite in one. Concerning the offering, see Exodus and Leviticus.
7. God’s pleasure in the one offering, his displeasure at the other. See the Exegetical notes.
8. God’s warning to Cain. Sin evidently appears in Cain in an advanced stage of progress, and this indicates hereditary sinfulness. The divine warning, moreover, characterizes this hereditary tendency to sin, in its most peculiar being, not as a fatalistic force, but as a seducing inclination to evil, as a tempting power which already, like a ravenous wild beast, was crouching at his door, and ready to spring upon him. Therefore does God ascribe to him a capacity to rule over sin by the aid of the warning word of God standing as security to him for such assistance. It does not depend upon his choice whether he shall be tempted or not, but it does belong to his choice, whether he will let sin have its will in him, or whether he himself shall rule over it. Sin (though feminine) is presented in the figure of a male beast, or of a masculine nature,—as a lion, dragon, or serpent. On account of a supposed strangeness in the expression: rule over him (or it), Ewald takes it as a question: Wilt thou be able to rule over it? And Delitzsch holds that it does not mean the ruling over the sin that is lurking for him, but only over the inward temptation. But this inward temptation, in so far as it is temptation only, is just the sin that is crouching at the door; for the door denotes the entrance to his inclination, or to his will. Keil corrects Delitzsch by saying: “it is not the holding down of the inner temptibility which is commanded, but the withstanding of that power of evil which invades man from without,”—a view which here gives no proper sense. The personification of sin, and what is said about its desire and its craving after men (as though to devour them), appears not without significance, yet still the remembrance of 1Pe_5:8 should not lead us to find here, as Delitzsch does, a conscious intimation of Satan. More rightly does the Book of Wisdom make a distinction between men’s being raised out of the fall, on the one hand, or their permitting sin to charm them, increase in strength, and so give power to the hereditary sinful tendency, on the other (Wisd. of Solomon, Gen_1:13-16; Gen_2:24; Gen_10:1). What is said Rom_5:12 : “Death has passed upon all men,” bears alike upon all; but what follows: ἐö ’ ᾧðÜíôåò ἥìáñôåí , allows an endless diversity of individual character, and within the ratios of its gradations, forms that contrast between the pious and the godless, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, which the Scripture everywhere sets forth.
9. The Fratricide. “Thus sin attains to its dominion, and in the outward act reveals its inhuman, beastly, diabolical nature. Devilish hate, brutal savageness; it is in these two together that murder has its origin. At the same time there comes out openly here, for the first time, the conflict of the two seeds in the relations of man to man. It is the serpent-nature of Cain under whose stab in the heel Abel falls—the first example of martyrdom; in appearance a defeat, but in truth a victory. From the innocent murdered man, there goes on, even to the case of Zachariah the son of Jehoiada, one great stream of blood throughout the whole history of the Old Testament (Mat_23:35). At the very head of the New Testament history does the bloody deed of Cain against his brother Abel again repeat itself in its counterpart, the bloody act of the Jewish people as com