Say What? (Gen 4:8)
You Can’t Go Home Again
8 Cain said to his brother Abel, וַיֹּ֥אמֶר קַ֖יִן אֶל־הֶ֣בֶל אָחִ֑יו
There are two rather remarkable things about this seemingly simple statement:
The one everyone knows about: the Bible does not tell us what Cain said to Abel.
The one I don’t remember ever hearing discussed: Cain says something to Abel rather than replying to YHWH, who has just finished speaking.
Let’s discuss these in reverse order.
This is the third time in Genesis 4 that someone has “said” something, but it will not be until the fourth time, in v. 9, that anyone replies to something that someone said. These three first “sayings” can be outlined this way.
In v. 1, Ḥavvah said, “I have gained a man with YHWH.” She didn’t say this to anyone. It’s more of an announcement than a conversation. Perhaps I should have translated va-tómer here the same way I translated va-yómer in Gen 1:3, “Ḥavvah thought.” [Update: I have decided to do just that.]
In vv. 6–7, YHWH said something to Cain. More on the nature of this “saying” in a moment.
Now in v. 8, Cain said something to Abel. We’re not told what, but what follows implies that Abel heard him and responded.
Now that middle “saying.” Was this an announcement, like Ḥavvah’s, or an attempt at opening a conversation, as Cain’s here in v. 8 seems to be?
In favor of conversation is va-yómer el ‘he said to’, the completely standard way of presenting dialogue in a biblical story. We’ve talked about how strange this sudden question is, but when you say something to someone else and what you say ends with a question mark, you are presumably awaiting an answer. (There are no question marks in Biblical Hebrew, of course, but the word לָ֚מָּה lámma ‘why?’ does the same job perfectly well.)
The argument against this being a conversation starter is more complicated. It’s based on the sophisticated compositional strategy we saw in Genesis 3, where in 3:13 there is clearly a dialogue going on, but by the time YHWH God has finished addressing each of the three other characters in the story, we’re beginning to think he is not talking to them but about them. If you missed my explanation of this, you can find it here.
I’ve said several times that I see YHWH in this story pushing Cain’s buttons in order to get him to commit an act of violence — one that will spiral into the crime-ridden world that will demand cleansing by water. In the same way that Genesis as a whole is aimed at getting the (future) Israelites down to Egypt so they can be enslaved there, this story — “Life and Death in the Aftermath,” as I originally thought of calling it — seems to be aimed at the Flood story to come.
If that’s so, doesn’t YHWH have to be talking directly to Cain about the sin he might commit? Cain has shown no evidence of being sinful up to this point in our story.
Well, maybe. But if I’m right about Genesis 3, with YHWH God tapping the keys on his Heaven & Earth™ software and muttering to himself, he might be doing the same thing here. Being God means never having to say you’re sorry, and he might have decided that paying no attention to Cain’s generous gift would be enough to tip Cain in the wrong direction. The most important word in the world would be his alibi.
I’ve been giving the composer of these chapters a great deal of credit as a literary writer, not just conveying information “inerrantly” but fashioning a work of art. That encourages me to understand the missing element in all three of our sayings so far in Genesis 4 as a deliberate artistic choice. That doesn’t mean I’ve correctly understood this particular example; in truth, though I’m convinced I’m correct about Genesis 3, I’m not sure I’m correct about this one. But I am sticking with it for lack of a better explanation of why Cain does not reply.
Now we turn to the third “saying,” the one here in v. 8. Here is Richard Elliott Friedman’s translation, where you can see the full strangeness of it:
And Cain said to his brother Abel. And it was while they were in the field …
Just like “said” in English, Hebrew va-yómer insists on being followed by the words that were said. It’s perfectly possible, in both languages, to avoid this by saying “he spoke” instead of “he said” — that’s Biblical Hebrew וַיְדַבֵּר va-y’dabber — but our text does not say that.
I’m aware of just two other places in the Bible where someone “says” something but we’re not told what. The first is at the end of chapter 2 of Jonah:
Jonah 2:10 YHWH said to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the dry land.
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר יְהוָ֖ה לַדָּ֑ג וַיָּקֵ֥א אֶת־יוֹנָ֖ה אֶל־הַיַּבָּשָֽׁה׃
I’d love to write a series like this on the book of Jonah, a remarkable piece of writing. If I did, I would probably suggest, if only as a joke, that what YHWH said to the fish is missing here because he said it in Fish, which could not be transcribed onto the page.
The second example is in Chronicles:
1 Chr 21:27 YHWH said to the angel, and he returned his sword to its scabbard.
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ לַמַּלְאָ֔ךְ וַיָּ֥שֶׁב חַרְבּ֖וֹ אֶל־נְדָנָֽהּ׃
You may know that Chronicles seems to be using the books of Samuel and Kings as a base, so there are many texts in Chronicles that “parallel” the earlier sources. (For more on this, see the “Historical Voices” chapter of my book The Bible’s Many Voices and/or listen to the companion podcast starting here with a discussion of “Who Killed Goliath?” For even more, see Marc Brettler’s The Creation of History in Ancient Israel.)
The relevant part of the parallel verse in Samuel to 1 Chr 21:37 is this (in the NJPS translation):
2 Sam 24:16 But when the angel extended his hand against Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD renounced further punishment and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Stay your hand!”
וַ֠יֹּאמֶר לַמַּלְאָ֞ךְ הַמַּשְׁחִ֤ית בָּעָם֙ רַ֔ב עַתָּ֖ה הֶ֣רֶף יָדֶ֑ךָ
That same NJPS translation in Chronicles says that “The LORD ordered the angel,” and in Jonah that “The LORD commanded the fish.” You can certainly give someone a command by saying it to them, but not if you don’t tell them what it is! I prefer to join those who want to reveal, rather than conceal, the sometimes very strange way the Bible expresses itself.
We’ll go on with this simple, yet absurdly complicated phrase next time.