What Cain Said: A Note on Genesis 4.8

Abstract

This article proposes a new translation of Gen. 4.8 rendering v. 8a as: ‘And Cain spoke against Abel, his brother.’ The two parts of the verse are thus felicitously aligned in aesthetic balance: Cain spoke against Abel, his brother, and Cain rose against Abel, his brother. The measured sonority of repetition, so characteristic of biblical style, is here given prominence to the advantage of both the sound and the sense of the passage. This understanding of the text depends neither on fancy nor on Freud, but on ordinary failings of human nature familiar to every reader. The interpretation has the supplementary recommendation of doing no violence to the MT; no words need be added, subtracted or construed with unique meanings.