Sleepless
in the Land of Nod.
from Adam Manasseh-Machir’s new commentary
on Genesis (in the Incoherent series, published by
Rantrage Press, 2020, p. 38) —
IV. 1 In due course, the man began to understand his wife
Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, saying, “I have gained a man
with Yahweh’s help. 2 Later she gave birth to Abel, his
brother. Abel became a shepherd, Cain cultivated the ground.
3 Quite some time later, Cain
brought an offering to Yahweh from the fruit of the ground; 4 and
Abel, for his part, brought the fattest of the firstlings of his flock. Yahweh
approved Abel and his offering. 5 But to Cain and his
offering he paid no attention at all. Cain was upset, and it showed.
6 So Yahweh said to Cain, “Why
so upset?—I can see that you are. 7 “Do what is right, and surely all
will be well. But don’t do what is right, and sin is lurking at your door,
desiring to take you. You must take control of it.”
8 Cain said to Abel, his
brother . . . . and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his
brother Abel and killed him. 9 Yahweh
said to Cain, “Hey, where’s Abel? Your brother?” And he [Cain] said, “Am I my brother’s keeper.” 10 He [Yahweh] replied, “What
have you done? Your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11
So, the ground shall be even more cursed, since it opened its mouth to
drink your brother’s blood from your hand.
12 You can till the ground, but it will no longer yield for you. And
you shall become an everlasting wanderer on the earth.”
Notes
iv. 1. Cain . . . gain. The true housewives of
Genesis are notorious punsters; here Eve puns קין
[qain] and קנה [qanah] though Cain doesn’t have
anything to do with gaining anything.
The name suggests something to stab with, a spear or a javelin.
2. Abel
is הבל,
fog or mist or vanity (as in Ecclesiastes 1:2 - Abel, Abel, all is Abel.)
4. fattest of the firstlings of his flock. Translators
are no better than Eve and her ilk, always playing with language to make it
sound the way they want it to. In Eve’s fall, we fell all.
7. all will be well. Literally, there will be uplift, perhaps from distress,
perhaps from descending into revenge. It’s not clear. The translator is
guessing, but so are his fellows.
8. . . . . The Masoretic Text doesn’t say
what Cain said. The LXX does: “Come, let us go out into the field.”
10. !!! Almost every translation fills this verse with exclamation
marks though there are none in the original. See note on verse 4.
12. an everlasting wanderer. Cain may later
found a city, but it must be in the land of Nod, the restlessness that lies
somewhere east of Eden [vss.16-17].
Commentary
It’s
possible to overanalyze this story. See Fabiansky for one example, Mainbridge
for another even more extreme. It is a
rich story, but it is a story, not Finnegan’s
Wake (which is not a story but a puzzle). It is moreover, the story of “Cain
and Abel” —as we rightly call it; that is, it is primarily the older son’s, as
opposed to the younger son’s story, as in “Isaac and Ishmael” or “Jacob and Esau.”
Abel is negligible; he is “fog,” the vanity
of Ecclesiastes [See the note to v. 2.], he signifies nothing in himself. In
the story, he is a ficelle character,
whose only purpose is to advance the plot far enough that God and Cain can have
their conversation. Still, it is Abel’s God that Cain must deal with—as he is
well aware.
But let’s go back to the beginning: Adam
finally begins to figure out Eve — my translation of ידע—at
least so far that he can impregnate her; and she gives birth to Cain, whom, she
says, she has got from God. [See note to v. 1. Never ones to resist a pun, these
mothers of Genesis.]
The grandfather of metalworkers [vs. 22],
Cain makes himself a plow, and he takes up the family business, the work his
father was condemned to, cultivating the ground, hoping to harvest wheat from
the midst of darnel. [See 3:18.] But long before this, as if to prove it wasn’t
a lucky guess, Adam figures Eve out again. And she gives birth to Abel, who
starts his own business, sheep.
The time of year comes round that God
expects his sacrifice, and Cain obliges, he does his duty; but his brother does
more; he seems to know exactly what God wants. And God does take up Abel’s
sacrifice; he also disdains Cain’s. He is God and can do exactly as he likes.
Cain can cry out “unfair,” but he is God: “F*** fair.”
Do I
overstep here—do I fall into the
erroneous ways of Fabiansky and Mainbridge—that is, do I overstep if I suggest
that in his frustration Cain is us. Things ought to be fair, should they not?
This is how ethics works, and ethically God should be better than us, not
worse, fairer rather than inexplicably unfair.
So Cain believes. “What the hell?” he asks
Abel’s God, who doesn’t answer. Rather God passes the blame—as this God will do
throughout the story. If Cain wants to know why, God will instead offer advice—like
a middle school teacher that doesn’t know the answer to a question that she
decides must, therefore, be impertinent. “Watch yourself,” she says to her overly
inquisitive student. “Watch yourself,” God says [vs. 6] to Cain. “Don’t let the
demon get hold of you.
“It’s up to you,” God adds.
“How is it up to me?” Cain must be
thinking.
Then
he kills Abel. It happens in a field God seems to have difficulty finding the
way to. He arrives too late for Abel though he is Abel’s God. And when he
arrives he is still the middle-school teacher, now in her role of asking the
question she already knows the answer to: “Where is your brother?” (Or the
the question she knows there’s no satisfactory answer to: “What did you think you
were doing?”)
“How should I know?” is Cain’s response in
either case. “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” “I mean,” Cain is suggesting, “where the hell were you?” It’s not a question God is even going
to listen to, much less answer. Still like our hypothetical teacher: “This is
not about me,” he argues. “Don’t you question me.”
And God sends Cain to the principal’s
office. Detention. A life-time’s worth.
06.21.20
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