Civilization, Part 2 (Gen 4:22)
You Can’t Go Home Again
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22 of bronze and iron נְחֹ֖שֶׁת וּבַרְזֶ֑ל
We concluded last time that Tuval Cain was a metallurgist and apparently a very sharp one. Now we have two much easier words to translate, which will lead us smoothly into a larger, Sunday-style topic. The two words are quite interesting, as well — and we saw both of them in other verses that also used חרשׁ ḥ-r-sh. I could have cited them both together in a verse celebrating infrastructure work.
Yes, maintaining your infrastructure is indeed a biblical value. King Joash of Judah (late 9th c. BCE) decided the century-old Temple needed some work done. It took a while to collect the money, but then things went smoothly:
2 Chr 24:12 The king and Jehoiada delivered the money to those who oversaw the tasks connected with the work of the House of the LORD. They hired masons and carpenters to renovate the House of the LORD, as well as craftsmen in iron and bronze [חָרָשֵׁ֤י בַרְזֶל֙ וּנְחֹ֔שֶׁת] to repair the House of the LORD.
These are just the guys of whom Tuval Cain is the godfather. The “carpenters” in this NJPS translation are also חָרָשִׁ֔ים, perhaps because they use metal tools in their work.
Now, a few notes on these interesting words.
נְחֹשֶׁת n’ḥóshet ‘bronze’
The first of our two metal words is the word for “copper,” but also for “bronze”; Biblical Hebrew doesn’t make this distinction. Eliezer Ben Yehuda had to invent a new word, אָרָד arad, based (as he was told) on Akkadian, to mean “bronze” in Modern Hebrew. נחשׁ is a perfectly good Semitic root with a number of homonyms. Our friend the snake was one of them; another has something to do with magic (see Genesis 44).
בַּרְזֶל barzel ‘iron’
By contrast, this is a word that obviously was invented outside the realm of the Semitic languages. I’ve read speculation that Latin ferrum (which gives iron its chemical symbol of Fe) is related to this word. As far as I’m aware, no one knows for sure how it entered the Semitic languages. (You can hear me discussing more of the words for metals in the Bible on Episode 3 of Steve Cohen’s “History of Chemistry” podcast.)
This little phrase might as well be, and I would argue that it is, shorthand for “the Bronze Age” followed by “the Iron Age.”
Our writer, of course, did not have these names at his disposal, perhaps did not even have the concept of describing a particular era of human history with a name (other than the name of someone famous). Nonetheless, we saw that a different biblical author was quite well aware of the line between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, which in his day was not chronological so much as geographical.
So we are talking about the development of civilization. Does music really fit in with the other two, basically technical and economic activities? Abraham Ibn Ezra says it does: the invention of zither and shawm “took great skill and scientific knowledge.” Nahum Sarna describes the three realms more generally:
The seventh natural-born generation comprises three brothers, and to each of them a major advance in material culture is attributed. By this time labor has become still more specialized, and an artisan class has arisen. An intriguing question is the reason for highlighting only the three ingredients of civilization mentioned here. The similarity of sound between the three personal names and the common fatherhood suggests a closeness of relationship between the pastoral, musical, and metalworking arts, which in fact is well founded. The name Cain, which means a “smith,” also means “to sing” in several Semitic languages, though Hebrew kinah is restricted to mournful song. The Cypriot god Cinyras, to whom was attributed the invention of the lyre, was revered by the Greeks both as a musician and as the archetypal smith. Pan, Greek god of flocks and shepherds, was the inventor of the flute. Similarly, Apollo, the deity who protected flocks and cattle, was also the god of song and music, and still another tradition has Hermes, god of shepherds, as inventor of the lyre.
The three main specializations depicted in verses 20–23 are well illustrated by a wall painting from the rock tomb of Khnumhotep at Beni Hasan, about 160 miles (257 km.) south of Cairo and dating to ca. 1900 B.C.E. This portrays the arrival of a caravan of Asiatics, and prominently featured among their baggage are livestock, a lyre, and bellows.
Devora Steinmetz, in her article “Beyond the Verse,” puts it more simply:
Qayin founds civilization, and his descendants, Lemekh’s sons, found animal husbandry, the arts, and technology.
Now some even more general comments.
In the Greek mythology whose stories many of us grew up with, the technological enhancements that we call “civilization” had to be stolen from the gods. Prometheus — one of the Titans — was punished for stealing fire from the (other) gods by having an eagle eat his liver out of his body every day. The gods don’t want humanity to have these advanced technologies. The Mesopotamians, of course, had similar myths.
We know from our careful reading of Version 1 of the biblical creation story that the God of Genesis 1 is actually trying to transfer creativity to his creatures, relieving him of some of the burden. Here in Genesis 4, we see the burgeoning of culture (artistic, economic, and technological cultures alike) as happening naturally; no theft or conflict involved. Genesis 1 and Genesis 4 originate in two different biblical voices, but by now you’re aware that I understand the earlier material to have been combined thoughtfully, not randomly.
Nonetheless, this third biblical story, the one I’m calling “You Can’t Go Home Again,” depicts the development of civilization running concomitantly with a certain amount of lawlessness and violence. This theme is structural — it will lead us to the Flood.
Next time, we’ll discover that Lemekh’s three sons have a sister as well. Mysteriously, she is named but not further described. We’ll see what we can discover about her.