Footnotes

1. Genesis 4:1 The story of Cain and Abel, in which agriculture and shepherding are already developed practices, may be an episode from the Neolithic Age, when the human race was already widespread. It is not impossible that Cain was the founder of the Kenites, a tribe allied with the Hebrews (Jdg 1:16; etc.). The Yahwist author would have chosen this known and important incident and moved it back to the time of the early ancestors in order to stress the point that there is a direct passage from breaking with God to breaking with the neighbor.
   Thus sin multiplies and gradually becomes a power that tends to overwhelm the human race. But history will always be governed by two distinct forces: God and human beings, and God does not allow the wicked to gain exclusive control of the world.
2. Genesis 4:1 Chapter 4 is also from the Yahwist source. Sin kills not only the sinner but the innocent.
3. Genesis 4:15 The mark is not a sign of disgrace but a sign of belonging to a clan and of the protection this ensures.
4. Genesis 4:16 A very ancient tribal document. The tribe of Cain is connected with the origin of an inhabited area and with the legendary first practitioners of three trades associated with nomads. Moreover, Lamech, their father, is supposed to have begun the practice of polygamy and to have been noted for his savage and unbridled vendettas. In the eyes of the sacred writer, the passage shows that the progress of civilization cannot prevent a frightening moral regression.
5. Genesis 4:16 Land of Nod or region of foreigners; Nôd, nad, is the fugitive and foreigner. Its geographical location has not been determined.
6. Genesis 4:20 Shepherds, musicians, and smiths, three types of nomads, are traced back to three ancestors whose names point to their trades: Jabal (ybl, to lead), Jubal (yôbel, trumpet), and Tubalcain. (The Tubal were a people of the north, the land of metals, Gen 10:2; in other Semitic languages kain is a “smith”).
7. Genesis 4:25 God responds to human sin by seeing to it that life prevails over death. The section contains two parallel passages. The first, and shorter (4:25-26), concludes the Yahwist story of the origins. The void left by Abel is filled by Seth, the new founder of the people of God. Enosh, son of Seth, is the first to know the Lord under the ineffable name of Yahweh, which will later be revealed to the Israelites (Ex 3:14-15). The other passage (Gen 5:1-32), from the Priestly tradition, links up with chapter 1. The image of God, which was imprinted in the first human beings, has not been completely destroyed by sin but passes on in some manner to their descendants (see Gen 9:6). The extraordinary ages reached by these individuals have a symbolic value, but the meaning is obscure to us; the ancient lists of Sumerian-Babylonian kings likewise assign them very great lengths of life.
   One of the patriarchs, Enoch, seems privileged: he is placed seventh in the list and has a much shorter life than the others, but the number of his years is a perfect number, that of the days in a solar year. The writer emphasizes his holiness and describes his end in a mysterious fashion, not saying that he died. All this suggests that the righteous are ripe for a higher destiny.
8. Genesis 4:25 Who was named Seth: Hebrew, Shet, is explained by its assonance with the Hebrew verb, shat, which means “[God] has placed” (i.e., “has granted”).