Man and Boy (Gen 4:23)

You Can’t Go Home Again

²³ Yes, … כִּ֣י

Once again we have a biblical phrase that looks simple enough when you read it in translation, much less so when you read the original. Before the violence begins, we must actually take a moment to look at that little, innocent word כי ki. (Did you really think I wasn’t going to?)

Rashi, the 11^th-c. French commentator, famously explained that ki has at least four different meanings in Hebrew. Others add more; the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, which loves to pile on, offers 15. Cassuto suggests four possibilities for ki in our verse: