The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 165

EXPOSITION. Ver. 17.-Domiciled in Noel, whither, im- xxil. 6) and to consecrate (Deut. xx. 5 ; 1 pelled by woman's love, his wife had accom- Kings viii. 63). Canillish detects in the panied him, the unhappy fugitive began to name the impious pride of the first murderer; seek, if not to find, relief from the gnaWU1g with more charity, Keil and Kalisch sec " agonies of remorse in the endearments of promise of the renovation of his life. The conjugal felicity and the occupations of se- latter think~ that Cain called his son "Ini- cular industry. And Cain knew hia wife. tiated" or "Instructed" to intimate that ho Who must have been his sister, and married intendeJ to instruct him from his early years . before the death of Abel, ns "after that event in tho duties of virtue, and his city "Dedi- it can scarcely be supposed that any woman cated " to signify that he now recognised that would bo willing to connect herself with such ' '' the firstling of his social prosperity belongs a miserable fratricide" (Bush). Though after- to God." If Luthcr's conjecture be correct, wards forbidden, tho tendency of Divine legis- that the child received its name from its lation on the subject of marriage being always mother, it will touchingly express that young in the direction of enlarging rather than mother's hope that the child whom God ha:! restricting the circle of prohibited relation- sent might be an augury of blessing for their ships, the tmion of brothers and sisters at saddened home, and her resolution both to the first was clearly indispensable, if the race consecrnte him from his youth to God and ,vas to .multiply outwards from a common to instruct him in God's feo.r and worship. stock. " Even in much later times, and And he builded. Literally, was biiildinrr, among very civilised nations, such alliances L e. began to build, " but never finished, were not considered incestuous. The Atheninn leading still a nma,,aate life, and so often con- law mnde it compulsory to marry the sister strained to leave the work, as the ginnts did if she had not found a husband at a certain who built the tower of Babel" (Willet). A age. Abraham married his half-sister, Sara\1; city. Yater, Hartmann, 11nd Bohlen discover and the legislator Moses himself was the off- in the city-building of Cain 11 " m3L-J. !;'roof s;erin~ of II matrimony which he Inter inter- of the mythical contents of the narrative," d1cte<1 as unholy" (Kalisch). And she con- an ndvnnced state of civilisation "utterly ceived. For even from the unbelieving and unsuitnble to so early 11 period ; " but ancient unth11nkful, the disobedient and the repro- tradition (Phrenicisn, Egyptian, and Hellenic) b11te, God's providential mercies are not is unanimous in ascribing to the first men entirely withhold (Ps. cxlv. 9 ; Matt. v. 45). the invention of 11griculture and the 11rts, And bare Enooh. Ohanoch, "dedicated," with the discovery of metals, the origin at initiated," from chana.ch, to instruct (Prov. music, &c. (vide. Hnvernick's 'Intr,, , ' § 1~).  88 TitE BOOK OF GEN~SlS. [en, 1v. 17-28,