Genesis4chapter 4

This chapter is heard inside the opening portion of the annual cycle, which runs from the first verse of Genesis into Genesis 6 and is read in one sitting (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The first murder is therefore read on the same Sabbath as the creation account and the fall. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Rashi is the main voice on this chapter in the corpus, in the public domain edition of M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary, 1929 to 1934. Radak stands beside him on two verses, in the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Rashi reads the offerings by what each brother brought. Abel kept flocks because the ground had been cursed, and Cain brought "of the worst fruits" of the ground (Rashi on Genesis 4:2:1 and 4:3:1, the second citing Genesis Rabbah 22:5). Rashi takes the regard God had for the one offering as a turning toward it, and the lack of regard as a turning away (Rashi on Genesis 4:4:1). He reads the words Cain spoke to his brother as the picking of a quarrel, and he says that the Midrash explains them further while this is the plain sense (Rashi on Genesis 4:8:1).

Radak reads the same two verses toward repentance. He holds that the offering was refused because "His intention had not been good and pure". Cain learned of the refusal when fire came down on his brother's offering and none came down on his own (Radak on Genesis 4:5:1). He reads God's question to Cain as discipline meant to bring him back, and as the teaching of repentance for the generations after him (Radak on Genesis 4:6:1).

The exchange at the ninth and thirteenth verses is read in the same direction. Rashi holds that God asked where Abel was in order to open a friendly conversation, so that Cain might repent and own the killing (Rashi on Genesis 4:9:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 19:11). He reads Cain's answer about his punishment as a question put back to God. The One who bears the worlds above and below is asked whether He can bear one man's sin (Rashi on Genesis 4:13:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 22:11).

Ibn Ezra comments on two verses of this chapter, and the corpus holds the text of neither, because the licence Sefaria reports for that English version keeps it out. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 4:14:1 and 4:21:1.

Rashi carries three of the best known traditional insights on this chapter, and each stands here as what the rabbis taught.

The first is on the plural word for blood in the tenth verse. He reads it as the blood of Abel together with the blood of the descendants he would have had. His second reading is that Cain struck many blows, because he did not know from which wound the life would leave (Rashi on Genesis 4:10:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 22:9 and Sanhedrin 37b).

The second is on the sons of Lamech. Rashi reports the Midrash that the tents and cattle of the twentieth verse were shrines for idol worship. The harp and pipe of his brother made the music for it (Rashi on Genesis 4:20:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 23:3). Of Tubal-cain he says that the man refined the handicraft of Cain by making weapons for murderers (Rashi on Genesis 4:22:1, same locator).

The third is the story behind the song of Lamech. Rashi reports that Lamech was blind and that Tubal-cain led him about. The son saw Cain at a distance, took him for an animal, and told his father to draw the bow, and so Lamech killed his own forefather. Learning what he had done, Lamech struck his hands together and killed his son between them. This is why the wives of Lamech separated from him and why he sang to win them back (Rashi on Genesis 4:23:1). Rashi reads the sevenfold vengeance of the fifteenth verse in the same story, holding that Lamech was the seventh generation and the one by whom the promise was kept (Rashi on Genesis 4:19:1 and 4:24:1).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty two under Midrash and eight under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah runs the length of the chapter. It reads the first verse at 21:9 and 22:1, the second at 22:3 and 30:8, the third at 22:4 and 22:5, the fourth at 22:6 and the eighth at 22:7. It reads the ninth verse at 19:11, the eleventh at 22:10, the thirteenth at 22:11 and the seventeenth at 23:1. It reads the eighteenth at 23:2, the twentieth at 23:3, the twenty third at 22:8 and the twenty sixth at 2:3.

Bamidbar Rabbah reads the fourth verse at 13:2, the tenth at 20:6, the twelfth at 9:7 and the fifteenth at 7:5. Bereshit Rabbati reads the ninth verse at Parashat Bereshit 80, the twelfth at Parashat Noah 6, the fourteenth at Parashat Bereshit 86 and the nineteenth at Parashat Vayishlach 36. Midrash Sekhel Tov reads the sixth verse at Bereshit 20:16:3 and 40:6:2, and the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai reads the eleventh at 15:12.

The Talmud is cited at Arakhin 15b:19 on the thirteenth verse and at Jerusalem Talmud Bava Batra 2:2:2 on the twenty second. Avot DeRabbi Natan carries the other six, at 16:3 and 31:2 and 14:6, and in its second recension at 44:1, 45:5 and 44:2.