Genesis 4

## Summary Genesis 4 narrates the birth of Cain and Abel, their offerings to *YHWH* (H3068G), Cain's murder of his brother, the divine curse and protective mark placed on Cain, the genealogy of Cain's line down to Lamech, and finally the birth of Seth and Enosh to Adam and Eve. The chapter closes noting that people began "to call on the name of *YHWH*." ## Key words - *yada* ("he knew", H3045) — qal perfect, used in v.1 and v.17 for sexual union ("the man knew his wife") and in v.9 for cognitive knowledge ("I do not know"), showing one verb covering both senses. - *achi* ("brother of", H0251G) — masculine singular construct with pronominal suffixes, repeated eight times across the chapter, structurally binding the Cain-Abel episode around the kinship term. - *chattah* ("sin", H2403B) — feminine singular noun paired with the participle *rovets* ("crouching", H7257), a grammatical combination that personifies sin as an entity positioned "at the door." - *shiv'atayim* ("sevenfold", H7659) — feminine dual/cardinal number appearing in v.15 and v.24, marking the escalation from Cain's protection-formula to Lamech's boast. - *qara* ("to call", H7121H) with *be-shem* ("by the name of") in v.26 — qal infinitive construct construction marking the onset of a recurring cultic practice tied to the divine name. ## What the text says The chapter is built on repeated narrative-vav chains (*va-yomer*, "and he said"; *va-yehi*, "and it happened"), which drive the story forward in tight sequential clauses typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative prose. Direct speech is framed by the formula *va-yomer X el Y* ("and X said to Y"), used for Eve (v.1), Cain (v.8,13), and *YHWH* (v.6,9,10,15), structuring the chapter as a series of dialogues punctuated by narrated action. The offering scene (vv.3–5) uses the verb *shaʿah* ("he looked", H8159) with the negation *lo* ("not") for Cain's rejected offering, contrasted with its unnegated use for Abel — the same verb marking both acceptance and rejection through simple negation rather than a different lexeme. The divine question to Cain in v.7 employs a chiastic rhetorical structure with repeated *hetiv* ("to do well", H3190), framing moral choice as conditional (*im...ve-im*, "if...and if"). The curse formula in vv.11–12 uses *arur* ("cursed", H0779) as a passive participle, and the punishment is described through *na va-nad* ("wanderer and fugitive", H5128/H5110), two participles paired asyndetically to intensify the sense of permanent displacement — repeated verbatim in Cain's own words in v.14. ## Differences between versions In v.1, the LXX renders *qaniti* ("I have acquired", H7069) together with *et YHWH* ("with Yahweh", H3068G) as διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ("through God"), interpreting the preposition differently than the Hebrew *'et* ("with"), while the Vulgate's *per Deum* follows the LXX's reading rather than a strict "with" sense. In v.9, the Hebrew *YHWH* is rendered by the LXX as ὁ θεός ("God") rather than κύριος, differing from its own pattern elsewhere in the chapter where *YHWH* is usually translated κύριος.