* So substAntially the received text and renderinfr. Many modern scholars translate : * Is it not so that, whether thou brin^' fair gifts, or bring them not, sin lies at the door?' — but do violence to the key-word (nxt') without any clear gain wj the sense. LXX reads : cCx i«v opSms wpi>ri*iyK>is, if>(tSi ii ^ 3*!At;,-. ir.uMpTtf ; iirCx'x-^of — a variation got by 8lif;htly changing « word in the IJeb. (' at the door'), but this reading seems to misl the point by discovering the fault in ceremonial irregularity.
CAIN
CALAH
339
other versions, where C. is represented as inWting Abel to go with him into the tield (4*). As the motive of the murder, jealousy is sulliuiunt, without following Je^vi8h scholastics in supposing disputes about religion or property. More Hardened than Adam, C. would conceal his guilt, but is convicted by tlie voice of the shed blood which cries from the ground {4'°) ; and, agreeably to his deeper guilt, the curse which is upon the earth, by which it had been made an instnimentof punishment, is furtlier heightened (4"). Adam is driven from Eden, Cain from tillage-land. Afraid for his life, which he feels to be forfeited, C. is vouclisafed the pro- tection of the threat of a sevenfold vengeance and of a special sipn (4"). By the sign has been understood a miracle wrought in confirmation of the promise of protection, or a reiterated miracle whicli in time of need might deter or terrify an assailant, e.g. a lightning flash, or intermittent signs of leprosy ; but the idea rather appears to be that a permanent phjsical brand was imprinted, which would iilentilj' him to his kind, to whom by report his crime, and the will of God concern- ing him, were suHiciently known. It is further rehited that C. wont fortli into the land of Nod or Wanderland (4"), where, consistently enough with OT social ideals, if not with C.'sdoom of vagabond- ism, the hrst city is built by the first murderer (4").
The NT allusions to C. (besides He 11* ; 1 Jn 3'^ Jnde") are very general, referring simply to the spirit of his life as the antithesis to Christian faith and brotherly love. The vindication of C. was undertaken by the Cainites (cf. Epiphanius adv. HceresRs, i. 3, 38), who represented liim as posses-sed of a dignity, power, and enliglitenment superior to Abel — a phenomenon which is not without its parallels in modem pleas for the emancipation of the modern man from the self-sacri- ficing ethics of Christianity. The many problems raised by the narrative were a fertile theme for the Jewish rabbis. The tradition that C. was slain by an arrow from the bow of Laraech, who mistook him for a wild beast, and thereafter killed his youthful son who had misled him, is a fanciful structure reared by the same hands on the founda- tion of Lamech's wild song.
The historj' of C. and Abel belongs in substance to the Jahwistic section of the Pentateuch (.1, iJill- mann's C), which may be concisely described as a body of tradition edited in the light of iirophetic revelation. That the story was not found by the writer in its present setting, but was transferred by hira from a later situation to the primeval period, is argued on various grounds — that its dis- tinction of farmer and shejiherd, and al-soof fruit- ollfrings and animal sacrilices, cannot have been primitive, much less the building of a city, and especially that it assumes the existence on the earth ot a widely-distributed population. On the other hand, it must be said that none of the problems are absolutely insoluble, with the pre- snppositions of the history as it lies before us. Possibly, Assvriology may throw more light on the question vy discovering fresh jioints of con- tact oetween tlie UT and the cuneiform inscrip- tions. According to Budde, it is constructed on the tia^is of hints in the genealogies and patriarchal narratives. What remains unaH'ected by criticism is the prophetic inspiration manifested in the repre- sentation of God's holiness and long-sufl'ering, in the aniilysis of the guilty heart, and in tlie know- ledge of the rapid dillusion of the principle of sin, and its tendency to steadily increasing heinousness Its manifested in outward act.
LmBATmil. — See esp. IMllmann, Gene^i* ; Delltzsch, if no Com. on (ienftrit; Iltidae, liibtigche Urgftchichtex Ftylo, Early Sarrativf* of Genejng. For Jewish 9p<M;uIfttton. Eisonmenger, Entdfckte* Judmthunu \V. P. PaTERSON,
CAINAN (Kaifai-, W'H Kai^dM).— 1. The son ol Enos and father of Mahalaleel (Lk 3"- »•). See Kk.van. 2. The son of Arplia.xad (Lk 3*^, which follows LXX of Gn lO-^ U'^J. Tlie name is wanting in the Ueb. text of the last two passages. See Genealogy.
CAKE.— See Bread.
CALAH (n'pj). — The name of a city mentioned in Gn 10" as having been founded by Nimrod, or by Assliur ; for the rendering of the K\'m ' Out of that land went forth Assliur,' is by many scholars preferred to that of the RV text, ' Out of that land lie (i.e. Nimrod) went forth into Assj-ria.' C. is here spoken of, together with Nineveh, Keholwth- Ir, and Kesen, as bavin" been built, according to Heb. tradition, in the earliest ages of Assy r. history.
This city of C. was one of the four cities which together formed the huge city of Nineveh. Its ruins were discovered by Layard beneath the mounds which had gone by the name of Nimnid, lying .some 20 miles S. of Nineveh-Kouyunjik, and occupying the S. portion of the V-shaped piece of co\intry at the junction of the Tigris and the Greater Zab.