3–4 Jubilees, which with Genesis locates the crime “in a field,”
reproduces the motif of Abel’s blood crying from the ground (Gen 4:10b). but
presents it differently than in Genesis, where it is part of a statement by the
Lord. The book entirely eliminates the quoted conversations between the Lord
and Cain and settles for a third-person summary. Where the deity says “your
brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground,” Jubilees interprets “to
me” to mean “to heaven.” It also adds a reason why Abel’s blood was crying
out—“because he had been killed.” Jubilees explains further that God blamed
Cain for the act (perhaps summarizing Gen 4:10–12) and imposed a curse on him
(Gen 4:11). Yet the writer also introduces a divine concession: where Gen 4:12
quotes the Lord’s verdict that Cain would be a “fugitive and a wanderer on the
earth” (Cain echoes these words in v. 14), Jubilees reads, “While he allowed
him a length (of time) on the earth.…” In Genesis being “a fugitive and a
wanderer on the earth” is a punishment—one that Cain laments and fears;
Jubilees replaces it with a different notion. The term used in the Ethiopic
text of v. 4 is unexpected—nuḫ,
“length, height, tallness, extent.” Dillmann considered the meaning doubtful in
the context, but Charles and Littmann thought it was a transcription of נע, one of the terms designating Cain as a wanderer (so also
Wintermute). Their suggestion is unlikely to be right; the word nuḫ probably refers to the delay in
punishing Cain the murderer with death (as he should have been), since he lived
for many years after killing his brother, according to Jub 4:31–32. There is a
widespread tradition that the sevenfold vengeance mentioned in Gen 4:15
(“Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance”) and 24 (“If Cain is
avenged sevenfold”) pointed to a delay in carrying out the punishment of death
that Cain merited. The basis for the claim may have been an interpretation of
the expression “my punishment is greater than I can bear” in the sense of “my
sin is beyond forgiveness”—that is, as a confession by Cain. Josephus
paraphrases the scene: “God, however, exempted him from the penalty merited by
the murderer, Cain having offered a sacrifice and therewith supplicated Him not
to visit him too severely in his wrath; but He made him accursed and threatened
to punish his posterity in the seventh generation [the generation of Lamech;
see Gen 4:24], and expelled him from that land with his wife” (Ant. 1.58 [Thackeray, LCL]). Or in Gen. Rab. 23:4 (on Gen 4:23–25), Lamech
is quoted as saying, “Cain slew, yet judgment was suspended for him seven
generations; for me, who did not slay, surely judgment will wait seventy-seven
generations!” (see also Tg. Ps.-J.
Gen 4:24; Tg. Onq. Gen 4:24). In
Jubilees, with LXX OL Eth Gen 4:11, he is cursed upon the earth, whereas in MT SP Syr he is cursed from the earth/ground. Perhaps the
different preposition (upon) conveys the sense that his entire life on earth
fell under a curse, not merely his work as a farmer. (James C. VanderKam, Jubilees: A Commentary on the Book of
Jubilees, Chapters 1–50, 2 vols. [Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical
Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2018], 1:242-43)
31 Jubilees dates the death of Cain, but it is not entirely clear
which year is intended—the year of his father’s death or the next year (931).
In his characteristic way of formulating dates, the writer says of Adam’s last
year (see 4:29) that it was in jubilee 19, week 7, year 6 = the year 930 of the
world. Regarding the year of Cain’s death it says, “At the conclusion of this
jubilee Cain was killed after him in the same year [lit., ‘after him in one
year’].” The conclusion of a jubilee should be year 7 of week 7—in this case
the year after Adam’s death—but the expression “in one year” gives pause. The
Ethiopic number ’aḥadu can mean both
“one” and “same.” As a result, one could render as above, “after him in the
same year.” This was the translation adopted by Dillmann, Schodde, and Charles,
whereas Littmann, Wintermute, Berger, and VanderKam (1989) preferred “one year
after him.” The only other version of the passage is from Syncellus: “In that
same [τω αυτω] 930th year, Cain also died
when his house fell in on him, for he himself had also killed Abel with stones.
Thus, when a year had been completed after the death of Adam, Cain died”
(11.4–6). Syncellus seems to support both understandings. A decision about the
date intended does not affect the overall chronology, and Genesis supplies no
information about the number of years Cain lived. The meaning may be that Adam
died at the beginning of the 930th year and Cain at its end.
Far more important than the year
of his death is the nature of Cain’s end. In Jubilees it is the first instance
of measure-for-measure retribution and thus the reason for a law of retaliation
that is inscribed on the celestial tablets. The text reports that he died when
his house collapsed on him, perhaps recalling Jub 4:9: where “houses were built
on the earth. Then Cain built a city” (cf. Gen 4:17). The house is not the key
factor; that it was built of stones is. A stone from his house killed Cain just
as he had killed Abel with a stone. Genesis 4:8 discloses only that “when they
were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.” To
no one’s surprise, speculation arose about how he killed him—bloodshed was
involved (vv. 10–11), but no instrument is named. Several Jewish sources attest
the idea that a stone was the weapon, a likely inference from their being in a
field. Genesis Rabbah 22:8 mentions
R. Simeon’s view that he killed him with a staff, while the “Rabbis said: He
killed him with a stone: For I have slain
a man for wounding me [Gen 4:23] indicates a weapon which inflicts
bruises.”
32 The law etched on the heavenly tablets is cited in v. 32. The
first clause—“By the instrument with which a man kills his fellow he is to be
killed”—is not a citation of a passage from the HB. It recalls something of the
Lord’s declaration to Cain in Gen 4:15: “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer
a sevenfold vengeance.” The unit Num 35:16–21 covers acts of murder that take
several forms (with an iron object, with a stone, a weapon made of wood,
pushing, and hitting); for all of them it decrees the death penalty. Verse 19
stipulates that the avenger of blood is the one to carry out the penalty. By
matching the instrument of punishment with the instrument of the crime, the law
in Jubilees is more specific than the one in Numbers and seems to be an
inference from the general law of retaliation: “life for life, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound,
stripe for stripe” (Exod 21:23–25). The formulation in Jubilees reflects more
particularly what is said in Lev 24:19–20: “Anyone who maims another shall
suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.” The method of
punishment in Jubilees’ ruling is contrary to the one attested in rabbinic
sources—a point noticed very early in the study of Jubilees. “And these are
they that are to be beheaded: the murderer and the people of an Apostate City.
If a murderer had struck his fellow with a stone or with [an instrument of]
iron, … he is culpable” (m. Sanh.
9:1; cf. 7:3).
That the author had Lev 24:20 in
mind is likely because the second clause in v. 32 contains a near citation of
Lev 24:19—one that brings the law into connection with the biblical penalties
for injuring someone: “As he wounded him so are they to do to him.” Where the
MT/LXX phrase the first clause in Lev 24:19 as literally “gives a blemish,”
Eth. Lev 24:19 uses a form of the very verb Jubilees employs here (’aqwsalo). The writer has taken the verb
from the first clause of Lev 24:19 and has inserted it into the second clause.
The MT/LXX word the end of the second clause as “so it will be done to him,”
but Ethiopic Leviticus phrases it as Jubilees does: so they are to do to him
(Eth. Lev.: “against him”). Jubilees, therefore, draws an inference from the lex talionis and applies it to cases of
murder. “By having Cain killed by a stone the author of Jubilees has solved the theological problem. Not only are the
missing details of Cain’s death included, but the type of death he suffered
fulfills the requirements found in Gen 9:6 and Exod 21:12–14, 24. Cain receives
the kind of death he deserves in response to his killing of Abel.” In Jubilees
Cain had earlier experienced a delay in punishment (4:4), but now the
appropriate penalty of death fell to the first murderer. (James C.
VanderKam, Jubilees: A Commentary on the
Book of Jubilees, Chapters 1–50, 2 vols. [Hermeneia—A Critical and
Historical Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2018], 1:266-68)
