Commentaires bibliques

21. coats of skins] in reference to Genesis 3:7. The sense of shame is the result of the knowledge of evil.

The present verse gives the traditional explanation of the origin of clothes. The word “coats” hardly represents the Hebrew so well as LXX χιτῶνας, and Lat. “tunicas,” cf. 2 Kings 1:8, Hebrews 11:37. The Heb. k’thôneth (= χιτῶν) was a kind of shirt without sleeves, reaching down to the knees.

The first mention of death among animals is implied in this provision for man’s clothing. Does it contain an allusion to the otherwise unrecorded institution of sacrifice?

The Divine sentence of punishment is thus followed at once by a Divine act of pity, as if to certify that chastisement is inflicted not in anger, but in affection.

22–24. The Expulsion from the Garden

22. as one of us] It is not stated to whom Jehovah addresses these words. Two explanations are possible. Either (1) He speaks to the Heavenly Beings by whom the throne of God was believed to be surrounded. See notes on Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 3:5, Genesis 6:1, Genesis 11:7. “As one of us” will then mean, not “like unto Jehovah personally,” but “like to the dwellers in Heaven,” who are in the possession of “the knowledge of the distinction between good and evil.” Or (2) the words are used in the language of deliberation, and represent the Lord moved, as it were, by apprehension or displeasure, because the eating of the Tree of Knowledge had conferred upon man an attribute to which he was not entitled.

According to either line of explanation, the sentence is one which is most easily understood as one of the few survivals of the earlier myth form of narrative.

The Targum of Onkelos, to avoid the phrase “as one of us,” renders “is become one from himself.”

and now, lest, &c.] Man must be prevented from eating of the Tree of Life, and so obtaining another prerogative of Divinity, that of immortality. Man is created mortal. Immortality, obtained by disobedience and lived in sin, is not according to Jehovah’s will.

The verse contains a survival of the naïve trait in the primitive story, which represented Jehovah as jealous of the possible encroachment by man upon the prerogatives of Divinity. The serpent had referred to this (Genesis 3:5); and it appears again in Genesis 11:5.

23. sent him forth, &c.] Man is dismissed from the garden with the duty imposed upon him to till the ground. Agriculture is here treated as the earliest human industry. See note on Genesis 3:18.

24. So he drove out] The expulsion from the garden is repeated in this verse in stronger terms. In Genesis 3:23, it was “sent him forth” (LXX ἐξαπέστειλεν, Lat. emisit): here, it is “drove out” (LXX ἐξέβαλε, Lat. ejecit). Though there is a repetition which may possibly imply different narratives combined together, the milder tone of Genesis 3:23 is connected with, the description of man’s vocation to work, the sterner tone of Genesis 3:24 expresses the exclusion of sinful beings from the privileges of the Divine presence.

at the east] Implying that the entrance was on the east side. Man is driven out eastward, in accordance with the prevalent belief that the cradle of human civilization was to be sought for in the east.

Assyrian Winged Bull.

the Cherubim] Mentioned here without explanation, as if their character must be well known to the readers. The O.T. contains two representations of the Cherubim: (1) they are beings who uphold the throne of God, cf. 1 Samuel 4:4, 2 Samuel 6:2, 2 Kings 19:15, Psalm 80:2; Psalm 99:1; possibly, in this aspect, they were originally the personification of the thunder clouds, cf. Psalm 18:10. “And he (Jehovah), rode upon a cherub, and did fly,” where the passage is describing the Majesty of Jehovah in the thunderstorm: (2) they are symbols of the Divine Presence, e.g. two small golden cherubim upon the Ark of the Covenant, Exodus 25:18 ff.; two large-winged creatures made of olive wood, sheltering the Ark in the Holy of Holies, 1 Kings 6:23. They were represented in the works of sacred art in the Tabernacle, Exodus 25:18 ff.: and on the walls and furniture of the Temple, 1 Kings 6:29; 1 Kings 6:35; 1 Kings 7:29; 1 Kings 7:36, cf. Ezekiel 41:18 ff.

The description of the four living creatures in Ezekiel 1:5 ff; Ezekiel 10:20 ff., gives us the Prophet’s conception of the Cherubim, each one with four faces (of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle), and each one with four wings. But in Ezekiel 41:18-19 the Cherubim have two faces, one of a man, and one of a lion. It is natural to compare the Assyrian composite figures, winged bulls, and lions with men’s heads, and the Greek γρύψ, or “gryphon.” In the present passage, the Cherubim are placed as sentinels at the approach to the Tree of Life, and, therefore, we are probably intended to understand that they stood, one on either side of the entrance to the garden, like the two winged figures at the entrance of an Assyrian temple. They are emblematical of the presence of the Almighty: they are the guardians of His abode.

the flame of a sword] It is not usually noticed that we have in these words a protection for the Tree of Life quite distinct from the Cherubim. The hasty reader supposes that the “sword” is a weapon carried by the Cherubim. In pictures, the sword with the flame turning every way is put into the hand of a watching Angel. But this misrepresents the language of the original Hebrew, which states that God placed, at the east of the garden, not only the Cherubim, but also “the flame of a sword which turned every way.” What the writer intended to convey we can only conjecture. Very probably it was a representation of the lightnings which went forth from the Divine Presence, and were symbolical of unapproachable purity and might.

The student should refer to the description of the Cherub, in Ezekiel 28:11-19, and note particularly the words, Genesis 3:13, “thou wast in Eden, the garden of God,” Genesis 3:14, “thou wast the anointed Cherub that covereth: and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.” (See Davidson’s Notes, in loc. in Cambridge Bible.)

The LXX τὴν φλογίνην ῥομφαίαν τὴν στρεφομένην, and Lat. flammeum gladium atque versatilem, give a good rendering of the original.

to keep the way of the tree of life] That is to “keep,” or “protect,” “the way that led to the tree of life,” so that man should not set foot upon it.

In the N.T. “the tree of life” is mentioned Revelation 2:7, “to him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God,” cf. Genesis 22:2.

NOTE ON THE FALL

I. The following illustrations of the Story of the Fall are from Jeremias (O.T. in the Light of the Ancient East, E.T.).

(a) In Mexican mythology the first woman is called “the woman with the serpent,” or “the woman of our flesh,” and she has twin sons.… In the same way the Indians have a divine first mother of the race of man, who dwells in Paradise (the Indian Meru). Also in the beginning the evil demon Mahishasura fought with the serpent, trod upon and cut off his head; a victory to be repeated at the end of the world, when Brahma will give back to Indra the rulership over all.… The Chinese have a myth according to which Fo-hi, the first man, discovered the wisdom of Yang and Yin, masculine and feminine principle (heaven and earth).… A dragon rose from the deep and taught him. “The woman,” it is said in an explanatory gloss, “is the first source and the root of all evil” (p. 231).

(b) Legend of Eabani. The [Babylonian] epic of Gilgamesh tells about a friend of the hero, reminiscent of Pan and Priapus, Eabani, whose whole body was covered with hair. He is the creation of Aruru when she “broke off clay” and “made an image of Anu.” He is a being of a gigantic strength. “With the gazelles he eats green plants, with the cattle he satisfies himself (?) with drink, with the fish (properly crowd) he is happy in the water. He spoils the hunting of the ‘hunter.’ Out of love to the animals he destroys snares and nets (?), so that the wild beasts escape. Then by the craft of the hunter, who feared him, a woman is brought to him, who seduces him, and keeps him from his companions the beasts, for six days and seven nights. When he came back, all beasts of the field fled from him. Then Eabani followed the woman, and let himself be led into the city of Erech. In the following passages of the epic the woman appears as the cause of his troubles and sorrows. A later passage records that Eabani cursed her. The First Man is not in question here, but a certain relationship of idea in this description to the story of the happy primeval state of Adam must be granted” (p. 232 f.).

(c) Legend of Adapa. Adapa, the son of Êa, was one day fishing when “the south wind suddenly overturned his boat and he fell into the sea. Adapa in revenge broke the wings of the south wind (the bird Zu), so that he could not fly for seven days. Anu, God of Heaven, called him to account, saying, ‘No mercy!’ but at the prayer of Tammuz and Gishzida, Watchers of the Gate, Anu softened his anger, and commanded that a banquet should be prepared, and a festival garment presented to him, and oil for his anointing: garment and oil he accepted, but food and drink he refused. Êa had warned him: ‘When thou appearest before Anu, they will offer thee food of Death: eat not thereof! Water of Death will they offer thee: drink not thereof! They will present thee with a garment: put it on! They will offer thee oil: anoint thyself with it!’ But, behold, it was Bread of Life and Water of Life! Anu breaks forth in wonder. Upon the man who has been permitted by his creator to gaze into the secrets of heaven and earth …, he (Anu) has desired to bestow also immortality. And by the envy of the God the man has been deceived” (p. 183 f.).

Jastrow remarks upon this legend: “Adam, it will be recalled, after eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, makes a garment for himself. There can be no doubt that there is a close connection between this tradition and the feature in the Adapa legend, where Adapa, who has been shown the ‘secrets of heaven and earth,’—that is, has acquired knowledge—is commanded by Êa to put on the garment that is offered him. The anointing oneself with oil, though an essential part of the toilet in the ancient and modern Orient, was discarded in the Hebrew tale as a superfluous feature. The idea conveyed by the use of oil was the same as the one indicated in clothing one’s nakedness. Both are symbols of civilization which man is permitted to attain, but his development stops there. He cannot secure eternal life” (Religion of B. and A., p. 552 f.).

In this legend, the man Adapa who has acquired “knowledge,” is prevented by the deceit of Êa, the creator of man, from acquiring immortality. There is therefore a striking parallelism of idea with the narrative of Genesis 3, but there is no resemblance in its general features.

Hitherto there has not been discovered any Babylonian story of the Fall. But, when we observe the occurrence of such features as “the garden,” “the tree of life,” “the serpent,” “the Cherubim,” it is clear that the symbolism employed is that which is quite common in the records and representations of Assyrian and Babylonian myths.

II. The Story of the Fall does not offer an explanation for the origin of sin. But (1) it gives a description of the first sin; and (2) it presents an explanation of (a) the sense of shame (Genesis 3:7), (b) the toil of man (Genesis 3:17-19), (c) the birth-pangs of woman (Genesis 3:16), (d) the use of clothing (Genesis 3:21). Whether it offers an explanation of the origin of death, is doubtful. The penalty of death, threatened in Genesis 2:17, was not carried out. In Genesis 3:19 it is assumed that man will die, if he does not eat of the tree of life. He is not, therefore, created immortal; yet immortality is not impossible for him.

The story turns upon man’s eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What is this “knowledge of good and evil”? Four answers have been given. (1) Initiation into the mysteries of magical knowledge. (2) Transition to the physical maturity of which the sense of shame is the natural symptom (Genesis 3:7). (3) Acquisition of the knowledge of the secrets of nature and the gifts of civilization, e.g. clothing (Genesis 3:21), arts, industries, &c. (Genesis 4:17 ff.). (4) Arrival at the moral sense of discernment between right and wrong.

Of these, (1) the first may at once be dismissed as quite alien to the general tenour of the story.

(2) The second emphasizes one feature in the story (Genesis 3:7; Genesis 3:10; Genesis 3:21), the sense of shame on account of nakedness. But this new consciousness of sex is only one symptom of the results of disobedience. As an explanation, though possibly adequate for some earlier version of the story, it fails to satisfy the requirements of its present religious character.

(3) The third explanation goes further. It supposes that the knowledge is of that type which afterwards characterizes the descendants of Cain (Genesis 4:17 ff.). It implies the expansion of culture with deliberate defiance of God’s will. It means, then, simply the intellectual knowledge of “everything,” or, in the Babylonian phrase, of the “secrets of heaven and earth.” Cf. Jastrow, p. 553 n.

(4) The fourth explanation has been objected to on the ground that God could not originally have wished to exclude man from the power of discerning between good and evil. Notwithstanding, it seems to be the one most in harmony with the general religious character of the story, which turns upon the act of disobedience to God’s command, and upon the assertion of man’s will against the Divine. It may, of course, fairly be asked whether the fact of prohibition did not assume the existence of a consciousness of the difference between right and wrong. We need not expect the story to be psychologically scientific. But the prohibition was laid down in man’s condition of existence previous to temptation. It was possible to receive a Divine command without realizing the moral effect of disobedience. The idea of violating that command had not presented itself before the Serpent suggested it. Conscience was not created, but its faculties were instantaneously aroused into activity, by disobedience. “It is not the thought of the opposition and difference between good and evil …, but it is the experience of evil, that knowledge of good and evil which arises from man having taken evil into his very being, which brings death with it. Man, therefore, ought to know evil only as a possibility that he has overcome; he ought only to see the forbidden fruit; but if he eats it, his death is in the act.” (Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, p. 156.)

III. (a) It does not appear that the Story of the Fall is elsewhere alluded to in the Old Testament. The passages in Job 31:33, “If like Adam I covered my transgressions,” Hosea 6:7, “But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant,” are doubtful exceptions. But, in all probability, in both cases the rendering of adam, not as a proper name, but as “man” or “men,” is to be preferred. There is, indeed, a reference to the “garden of Eden” tradition in Ezekiel 28:1[8] But there is no instance, either in the prophetical or sapiential writings, in which the Story of the Fall is made the basis for instruction upon the subject of sin and its consequences. “The Old Testament,” as Mr Tennant says2[9], “supplies no trace of the existence, among the sacred writers, of any interpretation of the Fall-story comparable to the later doctrine of the Fall.” At the same time, there is no ancient literature comparable to the writings of the O.T. for the deep consciousness of the sinfulness of man in God’s sight.

[8] Micah 7:17, “to lick the dust like a serpent,” is an illustration of Genesis 3:14 rather than an allusion to the story.

[9] The Fall and Original Sin, p. 93.

The later Jewish literature shews how prominently the subject of the first sin and of man’s depravity entered into the thought and discussions of the Jews in the last century b.c. and in the first century a.d.

(b) The most notable of the passages referring to the Fall, which illustrate the theology of St Paul, are as follows:

Romans 5:12-14, “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:—for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come.” Genesis 3:18, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous.” 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” 2 Corinthians 11:3, “The serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness.” 1 Timothy 2:14, “Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression.”

In Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 St Paul compares the consequences of the Fall of Adam with the consequences of the redemptive work of Christ. Adam’s Fall brought with it sin and death: Christ’s justifying Act brought righteousness and life. The effects of Adam’s sin were transmitted to his descendants. Sin, the tendency to sin, and death, became in consequence universal. But the effect of Adam’s Fall has been cancelled by the work of Grace, by the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

For a full discussion of St Paul’s treatment of the Fall, see Sanday and Headlam’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (chap. v.), Bishop Gore’s Lectures on the Romans (vol. i. pp. 185 ff.), Thackeray’s St Paul and Jewish Thought (chap. ii.), Tennant’s The Fall and Original Sin (chap. xi.), Bernard’s article Fall in Hastings’ D.B. (vol. i.).

(c) The following passages, quoted from Charles’ Apocrypha, will illustrate Jewish religious thought upon the subject of the Fall and its consequences:

Wis 2:23-24, “Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own proper being; But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and they that belong to his realm; experience it.”

Sir 25:24, “From a woman did sin originate, and because of her we must all die.”

4 Ezra 3:21, “And to him [Adam] thou commandedst only one observance of thine, but he transgressed it. Forthwith thou appointedst death for him and for his generations.”

4 Ezra 3:21, “For the first Adam, clothing himself with the evil heart, transgressed and was overcome; and likewise also all who were born of him. Thus the infirmity became inveterate; the Law indeed was in the heart of the people, but (in conjunction) with the evil germ; so what was good departed.” Cf. 4:30, 31.

4 Ezra 7:118, “O thou Adam, what hast thou done! For though it was thou that sinned, the fall was not thine alone, but ours also who are thy descendants!”

2 Baruch xvii. 2, 3, “For what did it profit Adam that he lived nine hundred and thirty years, and transgressed that which he was commanded? Therefore the multitude of time that he lived did not profit him, but brought death, and cut off the years of those who were born from him.”

2 Baruch xxiii. 4, “When Adam sinned and death was decreed against those who should be born.”

2 Baruch xlviii. 42, “O Adam, what hast thou done to all those who are born from thee? And what will be said to the first Eve who hearkened to the Serpent?”

2 Baruch liv. 15, 19, “Though Adam first sinned and brought untimely death upon all, yet of those who were born from him each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come.… Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, But each of us has been the Adam of his own soul.”

2 Baruch lvi. 6, “For when he [Adam] transgressed, untimely death came into being.”

It will be observed that in some of these passages, e.g. 2 Baruch liv. 15, 19, the spiritual consequences of Adam’s Fall are in the main limited to Adam himself. Jewish thought was not agreed upon the question whether all men inherited from Adam a tendency to sin, or whether each man enjoyed freedom of choice and responsibility. Both views could be supported from St Paul’s words, “Through the disobedience of the one the many were made sinners,” “And so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned.”

(d) The teaching of the Talmud is summed up by Weber: “Free will remained to man after the Fall. There is such a thing as transmission of guilt, but not a transmission of sin (es gibt eine Erbschuld, aber keine Erbsünde); the fall of Adam occasioned death to the whole race, but not sinfulness in the sense of a necessity to sin. Sin is the result of the decision of each individual; as experience shows it is universal, but in itself even after the Fall it was not absolutely necessary” (quoted by Thackeray, ut supra, p. 38). Compare the Midrash Bemidbar Rabba, chap. xiii.; “When Adam transgressed the command of the Holy One, and ate of the tree, the Holy One demanded of him penitence, thereby revealing to him the means of freedom (i.e. from the result of his sin), but Adam would not show penitence.”

(e) Christian doctrine has been much influenced by the teaching of the Fall. But it is not too much to say that speculation upon Original Sin and the effects of the Fall of Adam has too often been carried into subtleties that have no warrant either in Holy Scripture or in reason. “Speaking broadly, the Greek view was simply that ‘the original righteousness’ of the race was lost; the effect of Adam’s sin was a privatio, an impoverishment of human nature which left the power of the will unimpaired. But the Latin writers who followed Augustine took a darker view of the consequences of the Fall. It is for them a depravatio naturae; the human will is disabled; there is left a bias towards evil which can be conquered only by grace.” (Bernard, art. Fall, D.B.)

According to St Augustine, Adam’s sin was the abandonment of God, and his punishment was abandonment by God. Adam forfeited the adjutorium of grace. His will was no longer capable of good. In virtue of the “corporate personality” of Adam, all in Adam sinned voluntarily in him. All shared his guilt. This idea of the whole race being tainted with Adam’s act of sin, rests partly upon the exaggerated emphasis laid upon the Roman legal phrase of “imputation,” partly upon the mistranslation, “in quo,” of St Paul’s words ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον, as if it were “in whom all sinned,” instead of “in that all sinned.”

The Fathers very generally held that original righteousness, which combined natural innocence and the grace of God granted to Adam, was lost at the Fall: and that man, therefore, lost primaeval innocence and the Divine Spirit simultaneously.

(f) Thomas Aquinas went still further in the systematization of the doctrine. Mr Wheeler Robinson gives the following summary: “The immediate result of the Fall was the loss of man’s original righteousness, that is, of the harmonious inter-relation of his nature, through the complete withdrawal of the gift of grace and the decrease of his inclination to virtue (I. b, Q. lxxxv. 1). The disorder of his nature, when uncontrolled by grace, shews itself materially in concupiscentia and formally in the want of original righteousness (I. b, Q. lxxxii. 3), these two elements constituting the ‘original sin’ which passed to Adam’s descendants with the accompanying ‘guilt’ (I. b, lxxxi. 3).… all men are one, through the common nature they receive from Adam. As in the individual the will moves the several members, so in the race the will of Adam moves those sprung from him” (I. b, lxxxi. 1). (The Christian Doctrine of Man, p. 206 f.)

The Council of Trent, Sessio Quinta §§ 2, 3, June 17, 1546, in the “Decree concerning Original Sin,” laid down the following dogma: “If any one asserts that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death and pains of the body into the human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema: whereas he contradicts the apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom (in quo) all have sinned” … “this sin of Adam,—which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own.…” (Schaff’s Creeds of the Gr. and Lat. Churches, p. 85.)

(g) XXXIX Articles. “Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the fault and corruption (vitium et depravatio) of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone (quam longissime distet) from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to do evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection (depravatio) of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated (in renatis).…” (Art. ix. Of original or Birth Sin.)

“The condition of man after the fall of Adam (post lapsum Adae) is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God.…” (Art. x. Free Will.)

For a valuable series of discussions, in which traditional Christian doctrine respecting “Original Sin” and the “Fall of Adam” is criticized, see The Origin and Propagation of Sin (1909), The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (1903), The Concept of Sin (1912) by the Rev. F. R. Tennant, D.D., B.Sc., Cambridge University Press.

The problem has very largely been modified by modern enquiry, both as regards the origin of the race and the character of the Scripture narrative. Christian doctrine is no longer fettered by the methods of the Schoolmen. Modern philosophy of religion, assisted by the newer studies of sociology, anthropology, and comparative religion, is beginning to revise our conceptions both of personality and of sin. It is inevitable, that, in the larger horizon which has opened up, the attempt should be made to restate Christian thought in reference to the nature of “sin,” of “guilt,” and of “personal freedom.”

In conclusion, the following extract from Sanday and Headlam’s Note on Romans 5:12-21 (p. 146 f.) will repay the student’s careful consideration:

“The tendency to sin is present in every man who is born into the world. But the tendency does not become actual sin until it takes effect in defiance of an express command, in deliberate disregard of a known distinction between right and wrong. How men came to be possessed of such a command, by what process they arrived at the conscious distinction of right and wrong, we can but vaguely speculate. Whatever it was, we may be sure that it could not have been presented to the imagination of primitive peoples otherwise than in such simple forms as the narrative assumes in the Book of Genesis. The really essential truths all come out in that narrative—the recognition of the Divine Will, the act of disobedience to the Will so recognised, the perpetuation of the tendency to such disobedience; and we may add perhaps, though here we get into a region of surmises, the connexion between moral evil and physical decay, for the surest pledge of immortality is the relation of the highest part of us, the soul, through righteousness to God. These salient principles, which may have been due in fact to a process of gradual accretion through long periods, are naturally and inevitably summed up as a group of single incidents. Their essential character is not altered, and in the interpretation of primitive beliefs we may safely remember that ‘a thousand years in the sight of God are but as one day.’ We who believe in Providence and who believe in the active influence of the Spirit of God upon man, may well also believe that the tentative gropings of the primaeval savage were assisted and guided and so led up to definite issues, to which he himself perhaps at the time could hardly give a name but which he learnt to call ‘sin’ and ‘disobedience,’ and the tendency to which later ages also saw to have been handed on from generation to generation in a way which we now describe as ‘heredity.’ It would be absurd to expect the language of modern science in the prophet who first incorporated the traditions of his race in the Sacred Books of the Hebrews. He uses the only kind of language available to his own intelligence and that of his contemporaries. But if the language which he does use is from that point of view abundantly justified, then the application which St Paul makes of it is equally justified. He, too, expresses truth through symbols, and in the days when men can dispense with symbols his teaching may be obsolete, but not before.”

Ch. Genesis 4:1-16. The Narrative of Cain and Abel. (J.)

The vivid interest, which this section inspires, sometimes causes it to be forgotten that we have here the only tradition relating to the family life of Adam and Eve.

The narrative, as we have it, is evidently intended to describe the spread of sin, its hereditary character, and its issue in violent deeds and death. It is conceivable that J preserved other ancient narratives in which the Hebrew folk-lore recounted the sayings and doings of the first family and their descendants. They might have answered the questions which the gaps in the present narrative inevitably raise; e.g. what was the origin of sacrifice (Genesis 4:3)? why was Cain’s sacrifice rejected (Genesis 4:5)? whose vengeance did Cain fear (Genesis 4:14)? did Cain confess his deed to his parents? who was Cain’s wife (Genesis 4:17)? who lived in the city which Cain built (Genesis 4:17)? As it is, such questions are incapable of being answered, except by conjecture. Only such portions of the Hebrew folk-lore have been incorporated from the J source of narrative as seemed likely to serve the religious purpose of the book.

Our curiosity remains unsatisfied. The narratives, more especially in the early part of Genesis, obviously make no claim to be regarded as complete. They are brief, disjointed, and fragmentary excerpts from Hebrew tradition, recording the popular belief respecting the infancy of the human race.

In its original setting, the narrative of Cain and Abel may have been intended to give an account of the first murder, and to supply the origin of blood-revenge. At any rate, the absence of any reference to Adam and Eve between Genesis 4:2 and Genesis 4:24 is very noticeable.

1, 2.  The birth of Cain and Abel.

3–7.  The sacrifices of Cain and Abel: Abel’s accepted, Cain’s rejected: Cain’s anger; Jehovah’s remonstrance.

8–15.  Cain’s murder of Abel: the curse of Jehovah: Cain’s fear, and the sign of Jehovah for his protection.

16.  Cain an exile.

1. Cain … gotten] Heb. ḳanah, to get. The word “Cain” does not mean “gotten”; but Eve’s joyful utterance gives a popular etymology, which derived the proper name from the verb whose pronunciation it resembled. The word “Cain” (Ḳayin) means in Hebrew “a lance”; and by some the name is interpreted to mean “a smith.” Its relation to Tubal-Cain “the artificer” is doubtful (see Genesis 4:24). That the name is to be identified with that of the nomad tribe of the “Kenites” (cf. Numbers 24:22, Jdg 4:11) is a view which has been strongly maintained by some scholars. But the evidence seems to be very slight. The Kenites were not traditionally hostile to Israel, and did not play any important part in the history of the people so far as is known. The fact that the name appears in another form, “Kenan,” in the genealogy (chap. Genesis 5:9-14) should warn us against hasty identifications. Pronunciation notoriously suffers through transmission, and spelling of proper names is wont to be adapted to the sound of more familiar words.

Eve gives her child its name as in Genesis 4:24. It has been pointed out that elsewhere, where the mother is mentioned in J and E, she gives the name, cf. Genesis 29:32-35, Genesis 30:1-24 (but see Genesis 4:26, Genesis 5:29, Genesis 25:25); whereas, in P, the father gives the name, cf. Genesis 21:3. That the mother should name the child, has been considered to be a survival of a primitive “matriarchal” phase of society: see note on Genesis 2:24. But the inference is very doubtful.

I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord] Literally, “I acquired (or, have acquired) man, even Jahveh.” Eve’s four words in the Hebrew (ḳânîthi îsh eth-Yahveh) are as obscure as any oracle.

(i) The difficulty was felt at a very early time, and is reflected in the versions LXX διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, Lat. per Deum, in which, as R.V., the particle êth is rendered as a preposition in the sense of “in conjunction with,” and so “with the help of,” “by the means of.”

König, who holds an eminent position both as a commentator and as a Hebrew grammarian and lexicographer, has recently strongly defended the rendering of êth as a preposition meaning “with,” in the sense here given by the English version “with the help of” (see Z.A.T.W. 1912, Pt i, pp. 22 ff.). The words will then express the thanksgiving of Eve on her safe deliverance of a child. It is a pledge of Divine favour. Child-birth has been “with the help of the Lord.”

(ii) The Targum of Onkelos reads mê-êth = “from” (instead of êth = “with”), and so gets rid of the difficulty: “I have gotten a man from Jehovah,” i.e. as a gift from the Lord. But this is so easy an alteration that it looks like a correction, and can scarcely be regarded as the original text. Praestat lectio difficilior.

(iii) According to the traditional Patristic and mediaeval interpretation, the sentence admitted of a literal rendering in a Messianic sense: “I have gotten a man, even Jehovah,” i.e. “In the birth of a child I have gotten one in whom I foresee the Incarnation of the Lord.” But, apart from the inadmissibility of this N.T. thought, it is surely impossible that the Messianic hope should thus be associated with the name of Cain. The Targum of Palestine, however, has “I have acquired a man, the Angel of the Lord.”

(iv) Another direction of thought is given by the proposed alternative rendering: “I obtained as a husband (i.e. in my husband) Jehovah,” in other words, I discern that in marriage is a Divine Gift. Perhaps the Targum of Palestine meant this, “I obtained as a husband the Angel of the Lord”: my husband is the expression to me of the Divine good-will which I have received. The objection, however, to this interpretation is that it is the reverse of simple and natural. It makes Eve’s words go back to marriage relations, instead of to the birth of her child.

(v) Conjectural emendations have been numerous, and ingenious. Thus, at one time, Gunkel conjectured ethavveh for eth-Yahveh, i.e. “I have gotten a son that I longed for”; the unusual word ethavveh accounted, in his opinion, for the easier reading eth-Yahveh. But in his last edition (1908) the conjecture does not appear.

2. Abel] Heb. Hebel = “breath,” or “vapour,” a name suggestive of fleeting life, cf. Job 7:16. No better explanation of the name is given. Assyriologists have suggested that the name reproduces the Assyrian aplu = “a son.” But it is doubtful whether the resemblance is anything more than accidental. At any rate, no Babylonian version of this narrative has yet come to light. More probable is the suggestion that “Hebel” might represent a form of “Jabal,” as the keeper of sheep (cf. Genesis 4:20). As in the case of Cain (see above), the original form and significance of proper names preserved in primitive folk-lore must be extremely uncertain. In the course of the transmission and repetition of the narrative, less known names would continually be altered to forms which would suggest familiar ideas.

keeper of sheep] Abel is here mentioned first, as the representative of pastoral life. Cain follows the agricultural life, which was commanded for Adam in Genesis 3:17; Genesis 3:23. The calling of Abel is one for which the Israelites had a special fondness. The metaphors taken from the shepherd and the sheep are among the most frequent and the most striking in Holy Scripture.

3. in process of time] Lit. “at the end of days,” a phrase for a period of quite indefinite length; LXX μεθʼ ἡμέρας; Lat. post multos dies.

of the fruit of the ground] Probably the best, or the earliest, of the fruit, corresponding to the “firstlings” in Abel’s offering. Cf. Numbers 18:12, “All the best (Heb. fat) of the oil, and all the best (Heb. fat) of the vintage, and of the corn.”

an offering] Heb. minḥah, lit. a “gift” or a “present,” as in Genesis 32:13, when Jacob sends “a present for Esau his brother,” and in Genesis 43:11, where he says unto his sons, “carry the man down a present.” The word is used especially for “a gift” made to God; and with that sense, especially in P and Ezek., of the “meal offering,” cf. Leviticus 2; Leviticus 6:7-10. Here it is used of “offerings to God” generally, both of animals and of the fruits of the earth.

This is the first mention of sacrifice in Scripture. Its origin is not explained, nor is an altar mentioned. Man is assumed to be by nature endowed with religious instincts, and capable of holding converse with God. Worship was man’s mode of approach to the Deity; and sacrifice was its outward expression. The purpose of the offering was (1) propitiatory, to win favour, or to avert displeasure; and (2) eucharistic, in expression of gratitude for blessings on home or industry. It was deemed wrong to approach God with empty hands, that is, without an offering or gift, Exodus 23:15; Exodus 25:30.