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15 findeth me will slay me. Then Jehovah said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him. And Jehovah made a sign to 16 Cain, lest any one who found him should kill him. So Cain went away from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt

Verse 15.-Laken, 'propterea,' 'therefore,' meaning 'in order that this may not happen.' The old translations facilitated the transition by lo ken, 'not thus '.' The participial construction, as nominative absolute, creates no difficulty, but yuk'kam (vengeance) must be referred to Cain :—he (Cain) shall be avenged sevenfold,-[i. e. whoever kills Cain] shall suffer a far greater punishment than now Cain himself does. Hitzig's commentary3 on the idea contained in 'oth (mark) is excellent; it is neither a guarantee, nor an outward mark on Cain's body, by which he might be known, in which case we should have found here be K'ayin (on Cain), not le K'ayin (to Cain), but it was a sign, and it is wisely not stated in what this sign consisted.

Verse 16.-It is very evident, and is also in accordance with the views of many commentators, that Nod, notwithstanding its appropriate meaning of 'flight,' is a proper name: the narrator has twice purposely alluded to it, in verses 12 and 14, and he places it here without the article in a similar manner to the mention of Gan and Eden. I am therefore of the opinion, in which I agree with Buttmann and Bruns1, that this is not a Semitic name; and the supposition of the actual existence of such a land does not appear to me chimerical. Nod lay more eastward than Eden; and if the compiler (as often happens in Arabic with foreign names) was deceived by imagining that there was a Semitic article in Hind, [Heb. and Arab. for India]-for which Hoddu

1 See Gesenius, Lex. Man. p. 489.

2 See Gesenius, Lehrgeb. pp. 723, 802.

3 On Isaiah vii. 10.

4 In Gabler's Journal für Theol. Literat. v. 64.

17 in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch ; then he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch.

18

And unto Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begat Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methusael, and Methu

occurs in Esther i. 1—as if it had been han-Nod, we should in that case, of course, with J. D. Michaelis, have here an expression for India in its widest meaning. Chenok [Enoch], 'consecrated,' in verse 17, is as little appropriate either to the name of a man or a city, especially in central Asia; and the use of the name for an individual was certainly derived originally from its previous employment for the name of a city. We are reminded of the very ancient commercial city of Chanoge, Arab. Khanug, Sanscrit Kanyd or Kubja, in northern India, celebrated in the early epics of the Hindoos, and called by the ancients Canogyza, of which the narrator might have heard'; and even China is mentioned in Isaiah xlii. 12. No refutation is needed of the opinion that by 'ir (city) is to be understood a cave;' the narrator represents Cain as really building (bana') a city; and this is the more natural view of the case, as both agriculture and the arts were derived from his age.

Verse 18.-Respecting 'eth (the), as an old pronoun and article, see Gesenius, Lex. Man. p. 114, in the note against Ewald and Schumann. The interpretation "One gave birth to a son," is in itself artificial, and in many cases impossible. Some names contained in the genealogical table given in chapter v. are here anticipated, and the Hebrew compiler has rather confounded them: Irad is there the fifth, for Yered differs only in the mode of writing and in the later construction of the vowels. Mehujael, or Mehijael (Septuagint, Maλaλenλ), is there likewise the

1 See afterwards chap. v. 19.

2 Gen. xvii. 5; xxi. 5; xxvii. 42; xlvi. 20.

19 sael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two

wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name 20 of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal; he was the 21 father of the dwellers in tents and of herdsmen. And the name of his brother [was] Jubal; he was the father

fourth, and is called Mahalaleel: Methuselah is the seventh, and Lamech the eighth. Our narrator however goes back to Seth and Enos, and must unquestionably have borrowed from that genealogy. The names appear foreign, and they seem to have received some other form in the Semitic pronunciation. Irad is found in Persian myths, and iravati is the name of copious streams in India; but all arbitrary conjecture is fruitless. Adah, beauty, and çillah, [or Zillah] shadow, belong to the Semitic narrator, as Jabal and Jubal do also, which resemble each other in sound; the word Yobel, tuba,' a trumpet, offered a ready opportunity to refer to the inventions which were attributed to Jubal1.

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Verse 19.-Lamech took two wives. This would agree equally well either with the example of other Asiatic nations, or with the views of the Hebrew people; for polygamy was common among the Hebrews in all times, and was sanctioned by law. We frequently find two wives mentioned, and an indefinite number of concubines3.

Verse 21.-Jubal is the originator, or inventor, of musical instruments, which are therefore confessedly foreign; the names of the instruments also confirm this, which are not referable to any Semitic root: Kinnor, or Kıvvupa, is the ten-stringed cithara

1 [The two lines of descent here referred to are, in chap. v.—( —(1) Seth, (2) Enos, (3) Cainan, (4) Mahaleel, (5) Yered, (6) Enoch, (7) Methuselah, (8) Lamech, and (9) Noah; and in chap. iv. (1) Cain, (2) Enoch, (3) Irad, (4) Mehujael, (5) Methusael, (6) Lamech, and (7) his three sons, Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain.]

2 Gen. xxvi. 34; xxix. Deut. xxi. 15; 1 Sam. i. 2.

3 Gen. xvi; Judges viii. 30; 2 Sam. iii. 7; v. 13; 1 Kings xi. 1, 3; 2 Kings xxiv. 15. See Michaelis, Mos. R. ii. 171, &c.

22 of all players on the lyre and the lute. And likewise Zillah bare Tubal-Cain, who sharpened all kinds of implements of brass and iron; and the sister of Tubal

or lyre, which was struck with a plectrum1: the heavenly musicians in the Hindoo epics are called Kinnaras, which may refer to the same name. 'Ugab (lute, organ, &c.) appears not to have been known until a late period, and is perhaps the bagpipe; compare ghugha and kuku khordan, to play on an instrument, in Persian; also the Sanscrit gu, of the hollow sound of a wind instrument. Agab, 'spiravit,' in Gesenius, is a conjecture. The two names kinnor (the lyre) and ugab (the pipe) are here used in a generic sense for stringed and wind instruments, unless indeed similar performers on the lyre and pipe came from Persia to Jerusalem.

Verse 22.--Tubal K'ayin is rendered by the best interpreters the worker in metals;' from the Persian tubal, metal,' and the Arabic k'ayn, 'smith:' it is thus compounded from two languages, and, containing such names, cannot be considered very remarkable. This meaning is confirmed even by the Persian mode of composition, and above all by the name of the Tibarenes3, as well as by the occupation of Tubal-Cain mentioned in this verse. Rosenmüller, with Simonis, would give to Tubal the sense of 'posterity,' from yěbel, a stream;' so that the compound word would signify the posterity of Cain:' but this is devoid of analogy, and is contrary to the meaning of the narrator. Choresh, means the cutting one, or that which cuts, in the sense of swords: thence also lotesh (he sharpened) is used, of the sharpening of swords, as in Psalm vii. 13.

1 Josephus, Arch. 7, 12, 3, which is not contradicted by 1 Sam. xvi. 23; xviii. 10; xix. 9.

2 Compare Psalms cl. 4; Job xxi. 12; xxx. 31.

3 Genesis x. 2.

23 Cain was Naamah. And Lamech said unto his wives:

24

25

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

Ye wives of Lamech, attend to my words;

That on account of my wound I slew a man,
And on account of my hurt a young man.

That Cain was avenged sevenfold,

And Lamech seventy-and-sevenfold.

And the man [Adam] knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: for God [said she] hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, be

Verse 23.-The following metrical verses, with their parallelism and even rhyme, appear to have been borrowed from some popular song, and are here interwoven with the mention of the sword, just as the Easterns frequently insert verses into the midst of their narratives. Such verses are generally very obscure when taken out of their connection, but in this instance their meaning cannot be mistaken: some person had wounded Lamech, and he revenged himself immediately in the severest manner, by slaying the offender; and in his revenge we observe a reference to the command of Jehovah in verse 15. Cain had been protected by the Deity, but soon afterwards Lamech took the sword in his own hand, fiercely to resent every insult, including of course premeditated murder. Ki (that), like the Greek őrt, is, as Schumann well remarks, the commencement of an address, depending upon shima'an (hear ye), used by poetical license for shima'anah; and lefiç'i (on account of a wound inflicted on me).

Verse 25.-The author returns in this verse to the first man, in order to give the commencement of the subsequent genealogy, from which he takes the names Seth and Enos, and to which he transfers his etymology: he explains Seth to mean 'reparation,' and introduces his own explanation of the name, by putting it into the mouth of the mother, with the prefatory word ki (for).

It is remarkable, that in the Hindoo legend of the flood,

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