figures of speech, its imagery and its symbolical visions. Beside the cherubim, stationed on the threshold of Paradise, is mentioned the flame (n, from , related with by, to consume, burn, and scorch; comp. na, na, with, lambère) of the sword, with its threatening circular motion. The blade of the sword is a flame (comp. Nah. iii. 3, “ flame of sword and lightning of lance "). We are not told that it was in the hand of the cherubim as in that of the angel, Num. xxii. 23, but it is conceived of, as in Isa. xxxiv. 5, as an independent penal power. V. Hofmann (Schriftbewis, i. 365) aptly compares the "fire like the appearance of torches" which in Ezekiel's vision, i. 13, goes up and down among the four .

THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY OUT OF PARADISE, CH. IV.

Adam and Eve are now out of Paradise. They were driven eastwards, and therefore had it to the west of them. Not where the sun rose, but where it vanished, was the place of their former communion with God. Every sunset would. remind them of what they had lost (v. Hofm.). Still Paradise and the tree of life were not destroyed; and hence the hope of recovering what they had forfeited was not cut off from them.

The history of the first pair now extends to the history of the family. The duality of man and wife now grows into the triad of man, wife and child, and to the connubial are added the parental and fraternal ties and that of kinship, and these give rise to a variety of new ethical relations. At the same time the two contrasts of sin and faith in the promise, which henceforth rule all history till the end pledged by iii. 15, are developed.

The first seed of the woman, ver. 1: And the man knew his wife Chawwa; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have produced a man with Jahveh. From the fact that we have not here T, Rashi infers that the verb is used in the pluperfect sense, which Heidenheim confirms by comparison

with xxii. 1; 2 Kings viii. 1. In these passages however the perfect precedes the chief historical tense (imperf. consec.) as an accessory fact, which describes the circumstances and acts as a basis. The case is the same as with p, visitavit, in xxi. 1, and not as with N, which means promiserat, in the same verse. Hence it cannot be syntactically inferred from

, that what is stated had taken place in the Paradisaic epoch. If regarded also according to the matter, it is far more probable that the narrator intends to say the contrary, viz. that procreation did not begin till now that man was out of Paradise, till now that mankind having come to a moral decision, they had advanced from a state of childhood to the maturity which is the prerequisite for the consummation of marriage. The work of procreation is common both to man and to animals, but y never occurs in this sense of the animals, for that which in the latter is a necessary and purely sensual process is in the case of man a free act for which he is morally responsible, and one which, if he has not sunk to the level of the brutes, is produced by love, which rises to the supersensuous and is consecrated thereby. When Eve saw her first-born son, she exclaimed (for so is the occasion and

The verb קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת-ה' (meaning of naming him related

combines the notions of Kтiew and Kтâolai, procreare (condere) and acquirere; for only the owner's own work or production is his true property and not a merely accidental possession. Hence we may here translate: I have produced, or I have got for my own-for both are implied in ʼn♪♪. But is n here the sign of the accusative or a preposition? The first impression is that is an explanatory apposition to

, for a second accusative with more nearly defining a first is often found, e.g. vi. 10, xxvi. 34; Isa. vii. 17; Ezek. iv. 1. Accordingly Umbreit explains: I have obtained a man, Jahveh, i.e. I have gained a man, through whom I have become a mother, Jahveh Himself, whose power and goodness have helped me herein. But since the name is to be explained, it is not Jahveh, but the new-born child, which is

M

the object obtained. It is impossible however that the words. should be so understood as to make her regard herself as Deipara, as is done by Rörer, following Luther's own explanation of the passage in papers of 1543 and 1545, and in his edition of the Bible of 1546, where he adopts the meaning, I have the man, the LORD, and by several moderns (Philippi, Boehl, Hoelem. in the Neuen Bibelstudien, 1866). Impossible, for the primitive promise does not yet declare that the conqueror of the tempter shall be God and man in one person, and if the words of Eve could have such a meaning, her knowledge would exceed even that of Mary. The impression nevertheless that 'nns is a second accusative is so strong, that the Jerus. Targum translates: I have obtained a man, the angel of Jahveh; but the angel of God does not appear in history and consciousness till patriarchal times. In conformity with both time and matter it may be explained: I have obtained a man, i.e. a male individual, hence a manchild and therewith Jahveh, viz. communion with Him, since He has so wonderfully favoured me. But p with God as object is not biblical, and why should not лs be a preposition ? It is true that we have no other example of 'л-лs, " with Jahveh," but Day occurs only 1 Sam. xiv. 45; and in', xxxix. 3 and elsewhere, proves, if it were necessary, the possibility of this form. Ancient translators who have translated by diá (LXX.), per (Jer.), DP (Onk.), ¡? (Samar.), have all understood ns of God as helper and giver, as it also appears in the Babylonian proper name Itti-Marduk-banú, i.e. begotten with Merodach. According to this, the correction лs for лs, though convenient, is not necessary. The choice of the name of God (comp. on the contrary, 256) is not without significance. Eve by this first birth, this issue of the as yet unknown and mysterious process of pregnancy and of the pains of parturition, was transported as by a great marvel into a state of joyous astonishment, and her joy was greatly exalted by the circumstance that the promise of Jahveh concerning the seed of the woman seemed to her to be thus fulfilled.

According to this, the name P means acquisition (with the help of Jahveh); it is formed from pp, (related with ɲɔ), to set up, establish, prepare (especially forge), which is of similar root with p, .

The birth of Abel and the different vocations of the brothers, ver. 2: And she bore again his brother Hebel. And Hebel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. A second child, a brother of Cain, but not a twin brother (Reuss), though is not repeated (comp. xxx. 10, 12, 21), received the name 27, which is not designated as one given him from the beginning. Since Oppert the word has on the Assyriological side been compared with the Assyr. ablu (constr. abal), which means son; but if the name meant nothing else, it would have suited the first-born as the first child of man, while as the name of the second it would be without significance. As found in Hebrew, it means nothingness, and is the expression of disappointed hope, whether as declaring the vanity, the nothingness of human life in general apart from God and His promise, or the nothingness of this man whose life was to last but as a breath, like Ps. xxxix. 6, Job vii. 16), to pass away as quickly as a breath. The brothers when grown up divide between them the labour most necessary for their subsistence. ¡N (Assyr. ṣénu from the verb y, saánu, to be gentle, yielding1) is the collective appellation of tame small cattle, of sheep and goats. The farmer is called 87, as in the Latin agricola. In iii. 17 sq. God directed man to agriculture, and the clothing of man with skins of animals by God, consecrated the rearing of cattle, the purpose of which was the obtaining of milk. For milk is indeed animal nourishment, but not nourishment obtained by the destruction of animal life. Whether and how far the different dispositions of the brothers co-operated in their choice of a calling must remain undecided. The offerings of the brothers, vv. 3, 4a: And it came to pass after the lapse of some time, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to Jahveh. And Hebel also brought on his part of 1 Friedr. Delitzsch, Hebrew Language, p. 46 f,

T":

the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. With the author transports us into the midst of the vocations of the two men; PD, from the end onwards, like viii. 6, and '', like xl. 4, comp. Num. ix. 22, a long time, hence after the

הִנְחָה = נחה not from ,מִנְחָה .end of an indefinite, a long time

1

T:

which is no sacrificial word, but from л,, to present, is an all-comprising appellation of sacrifice (here, as e.g. Judg. vi. 18, 1 Sam. ii. 17, of a bloody sacrifice also), which has as the ultimate basis of its notion the sacratio and oblatio, and is therefore first ἱερεῖον, then δῶρον or προσφορά. his means the firstlings of animals, as D does first-born sons, and firstfruits. The of a unites the particular to the general, like iii. 16; and indeed of their D. For the raphatum with Tsere marks ab as a defectively written plural, like Nah. ii. 8, and like the frequent ; the sing. is, hilb (from, to scrape off, to loosen, to cover by redeeming), to be well distinguished from , halab, milk (from 5n, la, to draw, to milk). But whether on here means pieces of fat or the fattest animals, and therefore that the offering of Abel has the character of the shelamim or whole offering, is already disputed in Sebachim 116a. It cannot however be proved that may mean fattest animals (Keil). We have therefore to admit, with R. Eliezer in the Talmud, that Abel offered to God the fat of the firstlings of his flock. That the brothers offered by the direction of God is not said, and it is without Scripture proof to refer the sacrifice, as do Thiersch and Goethe, to Divine institution. The very name П bears not upon obligation but spontaneity; and the circumstance that Cain was the first to make an offering leads us to infer that it is not the fulfilment of a Divine command, but an act resulting from a more or less pure feeling of dependence which is here in question. The different reception of the two offerings, 46, 5: And Jahveh looked upon Hebel and his offering: and upon Cain and his offering He did not look. As it is not said that Abel himself kindled his offering, it appears that