Cain's Choices: my first exegetical paper

© 2008 Kathryn Marie Mainard O'Connell
**disclaimer: this is my first exegetical paper, so I'm certain that it has flaws. Feel free to point them out, but remember that I reserve the right to edit comments and anything mean will be ignored and set on fire, on principle.

Cain’s Choice

A man kills his brother in a fit of jealousy, then denies his crime in the face of overwhelming evidence. At his sentencing he pleas for mercy, which surprisingly, is granted. This isn’t the next episode of Law and Order, its Genesis 4:1-16. Cain’s choices define this text: he chooses his sacrifice, to allow anger control of his emotions, to kill, and he chooses to leave the presence of God. Throughout, however, God responds to redeem Cain from himself: God offers advice concerning how to do right, gives Cain the opportunity to confess, determines his punishment and provides a means of protection even as Cain leaves God's presence. The most surprising aspect of this text is that it is not God who banishes Cain, but Cain who chooses to banish himself from God’s presence. What does this mean for our struggle with sin today?

The text can be understood as a series of action pairs between humans and God, where human action is reciprocated by divine action (verse numbers overlap).

4: 1-2 Eve bears Cain and declares “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord”[1].
4: 3-5 Cain and Abel bring sacrifices to God; God does not choose Cain’s offering.
4: 5-7 Cain becomes angry and God offers advice regarding anger and sin.
4: 8-9 Cain slays his brother and God immediately asks his whereabouts.
4: 9-12 Cain replies with a lie and God declares both the truth and the punishment.
4: 13-15 Cain laments the severity of his punishment; God says ‘Not so!’ and marks Cain.
4: 16 Cain leaves the presence of the Lord.

Only the first and last verses don’t fit the action-reaction pattern. Eve brings forth a man “with the help of the Lord”, and Cain leaves God’s presence to dwell East of Eden; the text moves from human collaboration with God, to actions parallel to God, and finally to action without God. In this brief story of narrative prose, the first children of humanity are born, sin and die, and the text is easily framed as a series of scenes between actors. Using a scenic framework, it is interesting to note that only the characters of Cain and God have any spoken lines after the first verse; Abel is heard only after his death in the form of his blood crying. In fact, the story emerges as not simply a tale of sibling rivalry or mismanaged offerings, but of the actions and consequences of one key player, Cain. But before the text can be further explored, it is important to note some of the surrounding historical and literary context.

The reader will note that this story falls immediately after the expulsion from Eden and just prior to the establishment of the first city, and as such occupies a pivotal place at the beginning of the biblical account of human existence. Many scholars have focused on the literary emphasis provided by word repetitions of “brother”, “earth”, and “land” and all the allegorical possibilities behind the professions of farmer and herder[2]. Historically considered a work of Moses, most modern scholars believe the book of Genesis underwent a long period of communal compilation and revision during the Persian Period from approximately 539-331 B.C.E.[3] Although this story ostensibly takes place at a time before Hebrew sacrifice laws, the writer seems to assume that either these laws are understood by the reader or that the offerings were internally motivated by gratitude from the brothers[4]. A great deal of scholarship has focused on why Abel’s offering was accepted over Cain’s, with reasons ranging from God’s assumed preferences for first fruits over other fruit, or shepherding versus farming as a profession, to Levin’s interesting suggestion that a meat sacrifice smelled better than vegetables.[5] I think this last idea is amusing at the very least.

Another possibility is that God’s decision making is completely outside the realm of human management, and God’s reasons for preferring one sacrifice over the other is peripheral to the point of the story. Attempts to understand why God preferred Abel’s sacrifice meet with three serious objections: 1) the query stems from a desire to avoid Cain’s mistake in offering sacrifices, assuming that he made a mistake and that such cultic laws of sacrifice are still in operation. 2) Knowledge of how to make a proper sacrifice leads one to assume that God’s decisions can be manipulated with the correct formula, and attempts to make God into a known quantity, thus denying the intrinsic mystery of the divine will. 3) The text itself does not offer any reason for God’s decision to favor Abel, and it may be prudent to accept this fact at face value.

It is also helpful to note the social practice of avenging murder as described in Numbers 35:12-34—the established cultic law upheld capital punishment for murder, executed by “the avenger of blood”. Normally the avenger would be a close relation to the victim, a social practice also alluded to in Deuteronomy 19:6, with the establishment of refuge cities where the avenger of blood could not execute justice. In the case of familial murder, the punishment was often banishment from the clan and ancestral land.[6] In this context it is understandable that the curse from the ground might have a double meaning to a Hebrew audience; being cursed from the land, which had such strong familial ties and meaning in God’s covenant with the Hebrew people, was akin to being banished from the family and possibly from God. This also provides the prospect that Genesis 4:17 is not only the first establishment of a city, but also the concept of a city as a place of refuge. Given this context, let us return to the text for further analysis.

Considering Cain as the primary actor in the story, it becomes easy to see a pattern wherein Cain makes a destructive decision and God responds in a way that invites healing. For instance, Cain makes his choice of offering fruit, and is angered by God’s response, and God offers Cain advice regarding how he might do better in the future and master sin (Gen. 4:5b-7). When Cain chooses to kill his brother, God immediately offers the opportunity to confess what he has done, but Cain instead then chooses to lie (Gen. 4:9). God responds to Cain’s flippant retort with a pronouncement of the truth, “Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” (Gen. 4: 10) God then pronounces a curse onto Cain from the ground, namely, that it will no longer provide him with a livelihood: “And now you are cursed from the ground… it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (Gen 4: 11-12). Just as Abel was deprived of his life, so now too is Cain deprived of the only life he has ever known.

It is as a result of the curse that Cain must become a wanderer, as he has no other livelihood beyond farming and the reader is not textually aware of any other possible professions. Perhaps Cain could not stay with his family because of social traditions regarding banishment and revenge; although this practice is not explicitly in the text of Genesis 4, it can be deduced from later scripture as a part of the common lexicon of an early Hebrew audience. In any case, God pronounces Cain’s wandering as a consequence of his sin, although not necessarily the punishment itself. Cain outlines a fourfold punishment that extends beyond what God had pronounced, and only two of his assertions can be construed as true, having been voiced by God. Cain laments, “Today you have driven me from the soil and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and anyone who meets me may kill me” (Gen. 4:14; emphasis mine). The previous italics highlight the punishments that were adduced by Cain (why does he add these?) and not explicitly noted by God. God responds to Cain’s plea with an emphatic !kel':: “Not so!” (Gen. 4:15). It is uncertain as to whether this refers to banishment from God’s presence or to his chances of being killed—in either case God reacts with mercy.

The translation of the Hebrew lamed-caph-nun (nkl)is worth some exploration. A prominent suggestion is that this combination of letters is a reduction of the Hebrew "lamed-holem-aleph" and "kaph-nun" (or nk xl), meaning “not so”.[7] Another translation reads it as a combination of lamed “to/for/in” and kaph-nun “so” for a translation of “if so” or “therefore”, which emphasizes agreement with a previous statement. While both translations are acceptable, the first one offers the most insight into the text and is more widely accepted.[8] The NRSV translation of “not so” plausibly corrects Cain’s overblown statement of his punishment. God answers Cain’s fear of death by giving him a mark of protection, and it would fit that the first half of God’s statement also corrects Cain’s assumption that banishment from the land is also banishment from God’s presence. God does not press the point, however, as Cain has decided for himself to leave God’s presence. The mark God provides may itself be a way in which God can remain with Cain without his knowledge, for although Cain moves away from the presence of God, God’s blessings follow him into exile in the form of successful progeny (Gen 4:17-22). In addition, the text does not indicate that Cain may never return to God’s presence in the future, or that the physical exile from the land must result in a physical exile from God’s presence. When Cain assumed his own banishment, God did what God could to provide protection to him outside of a relationship.

The important question for the text is simply this: so what? What hold does this text have on readers today, who are not under Hebrew laws of cultic sacrifice, and likely have not committed fratricide? It seems that this text, both as a cautionary tale and an allegory, functions to remind the audience that the goal is a close relationship with God, and that sin drives us away from God’s presence even as God does not desire our punishment. Just as Cain made the choice to leave God’s presence, it is a human choice to consider whether to recognize the presence of God in our lives, and it is a human choice to sin. God, for God’s part, continues to work in our lives to promote healing, growth and relationship even when we choose not to acknowledge it. Despite our sins, God is with us, and has marked us for protection even in our exile, desiring our confession and a return to close relationship. Perhaps it is that we—like Cain—do not believe that we deserve to be in God’s presence because of our sins, but God would beg to differ: “Not so!” When we sin, we choose to leave God’s presence, exiling ourselves from God’s love in addition to the natural consequences of sin. We may choose to leave God, but does God leave us? It is part of God’s amazing grace that God may well go with us into our self-imposed exile, that even when we deny God, we are marked as God’s children.

[1] All scripture citations are taken from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Gordon J. Wendham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books Inc, 1987), 96.
[3] Richard H. Lowry, “Genesis.” in Chalice Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Marti J. Steussy, (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2003), 31-32.
[4]Terence E. Fretheim, “Genesis,” in The New Interpreters Bible, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994), 1:373.
[5] Saul Levin, “The More Savory Offering: a Key to the Problem of Gen 4: 3-5,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 no. 1 (1979): 85.
[6]Gordon J. Wendham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books Inc, 1987), 107-108.
[7]John Joseph Owens, Analytical Key to the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989), 16.
[8] E.A. Speiser, Genesis. The Anchor Bible. (New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1964), 31.

Ack, how did I miss November??

So I missed most of November...it had a holiday! TWO in my family, as my hubby's side celebrated Christmas as well, in order to capitalize on the high concentration of siblings in one location. So it was a big deal.

And it was my first Thanksgiving-in-charge! I didn't do the turkey (we mostly-vegetarians clearly know nothing about cooking such an important meat dish; I was happy to abdicate it) but I did do most of the rest of the cooking for 15 people! It was wild. And I had a lot of help, but by the end of it, it all came out at the right time and we all ate ourselves stupid. I was quite pleased with it, and would gladly do it again. Hooray!

This is going to be a brief shout out to my new bud Maurice (I hope I spelled your name right). May you start reading the Bible with joy, buddy. Cause it's a big thing, and kinda complicated in many respects. I mean, when you consider that it's really the love story between God and the Israelites (well, the first half at least, it's a love story for everyone by the time you get to the end of it all) you have to accept some pretty interesting concepts. Like maybe it's not...it CAN'T be a word-for-word literal history. Because the ancient Hebrews just didn't think like we do about history, they weren't necessarily interested in proving events happened or citing specific dates or numbers...it's like asking you to retell your life story; it's true because it's yours, but some details might be a little different than from how they actually happened. That, in fact, doesn't make them less true. I know people might not agree with that, but I think this opinion is pretty solid.
I mean, have you read it in Hebrew??? I've only read bits, but it's a fascinating language--and mind set! They just didn't think like we do, have concerns about details like we do...they were much more physical and visual in their words and experiences, whereas we value concepts and ideas. I mean, it's basically the difference between a literate and an oral culture, really.

And the beauty of it is that it's still true, and good, and the wonderful Word. Even if, no, it may not be literal historical proveable fact...it is still true. I love that paradox!

I think my next post will just be my latest paper. I'm pretty pleased with it, and would be happy to take comments.