to add or augment (often adverbial · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
bare
לָלֶ֔דֶתla.Le.det
H3205
to bear young · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
brother
אָחִ֖יו'a.Chiv
H251
a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relation… · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Abel
הָ֑בֶלHa.vel
H1893
Hebel · proper noun, a man's name
Abel
הֶ֙בֶל֙he.vel
H1893
Hebel · proper noun, a man's name
keeper
רֹ֣עֵהRo.'eh
H7462
to tend a flock · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct
sheep
צֹ֔אןTzon
H6629
a collective name for a flock (of sheep or goats) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
Cain
וְקַ֕יִןve.Ka.yin
H7014
Kajin · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name
tiller
עֹבֵ֥ד'o.Ved
H5647
to work (in any sense) · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct
ground
אֲדָמָֽה'a.da.Mah
H127
soil (from its general redness) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 John 3:12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s…
1 John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
Luke 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be requ…
Genesis 47:3 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our f…
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,…
1 John 3:10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that lo…
Exodus 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to…
Psalms 78:70-72 He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 4:1-2
Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters, Gen 5:4. But Cain and Abel seem to have been the two eldest. Some think they were twins, and, as Esau and Jacob, the elder hated and the younger loved. Though God had cast our first parents out of paradise, he did not write them childless; but, to show that he had other blessings in store for them, he preserved to them the benefit of that first blessing of increase. Though they were sinners, nay, though they felt the humiliation and sorrow of penitents, they did not write themselves comfortless, having the promise of a Saviour to support themselves with. We have here,
I. The names of their two sons. 1. Cain signifies possession; for Eve, when she bor…
Abel was a keeper of sheep--literally, "a feeder of a flock," which, in Oriental countries, always includes goats as well as sheep. Abel, though the younger, is mentioned first, probably on account of the pre-eminence of his religious character.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 4:2
And she again bare his brother Abel - Literally, She added to bear (ותסף ללדת vattoseph laledeth) his brother. From the very face of this account it appears evident that Cain and Abel were twins. In most cases where a subject of this kind is introduced in the Holy Scriptures, and the successive births of children of the same parents are noted, the acts of conceiving and bringing forth are mentioned in reference to each child; here it is not said that she conceived and brought forth Abel, but simply she added to bring forth Abel his brother; that is, as I understand it, Cain was the first-born, Abel, his twin brother, came next.
Abel was a keeper of sheep - Adam was originally a gardener, Abe…
And she again bare his brother Abel,.... Or "added to bare" (y), not directly or immediately, but perhaps the following year; though some have thought, because no mention is made of her conceiving again, that she brought forth Abel at the same time she did Cain, or that the birth of the one immediately followed upon that of the other: and it is the common opinion of the Jews (z) that with Abel, as with Cain, was born a twin sister, whom the Arabic writers (a) call Lebuda: the name of Abel, or rather Hebel, signifies not "mourning", as Josephus (b) observes, but "vanity", Eve not making that account of him as she did of Cain; or perhaps because by this time she became sensible of her mistake…
The Church Fathers
Cain was followed by Abel, who was killed by his brother and served as the first prophetic symbol of the City of God. He was like an alien on earth, destined to suffer cruel persecutions at the hands of the wicked men who can properly be called natives of earth because they love this world as their home and find their happiness in the worldly felicity of the earthly city.
"She proceeded to give birth to his brother Abel." Since she proved to be grateful for the birth of the first child and acknowledged the former kindness, she enjoyed the good fortune of the second. Our Lord is like this, you see: when we display gratitude for previous good deeds and acknowledge the benefactor, he lavishes his gifts upon us more generously. Accordingly, because she attributed the birth to God, for that reason she receives another child. You see, the generation of children was the greatest consolation from then on, once mortality had come on the scene. For this reason, of course, the loving God at once and from the beginning reduced the severity of their punishment and stripped away the fearsome visage of death by favoring them with the propagation of children, foreshadowing, as it were, in this event an image of resurrection and ensuring that others would rise up in place of the fallen. "Abel was a shepherd, whereas Cain was a tiller of the soil." Sacred Scripture taught us the occupations of each of the children and the fact that while one preferred tending flocks, the other tilled the soil.
Again, she bore his brother Abel. Abel is interpreted as grief or miserable, by which name from the earliest age was foreshadowed the condition of his lamentable untimely death. For, although precious is the death of his saints in the sight of the Lord, having tasted the cup of saving suffering, yet, as far as human view is concerned, it is sufficiently mournful, since we have so far departed from the innocence of the first condition that not even those who were first born on earth as brothers could have peace and concord between themselves, but one envied the other and killed him, while they still existed alone with their parents as masters of the whole world; already clearly foreshadowing that saints in this life would be oppressed by the reprobate and suffer deaths: in this also to be noted that Cain was born first in this life, but Abel was taken away first from this life, because indeed this life is properly the life of the wicked, from which they are precipitated into eternal death; but truly the life of the elect is properly the future life, to which that they may come more happily, they are daily put to death in this life and are considered as sheep for the slaughter.
Dictionary and topics
Abel — (Heb. Hebhel), a breath, or vanity, the second son of Adam and Eve. He was put to death by his brother Cain (Gen. 4:1-16). Guided by the instruction of their father, the two brothers were trained in…
Agriculture — Tilling the ground (Gen. 2:15; 4:2, 3, 12) and rearing cattle were the chief employments in ancient times. The Egyptians excelled in agriculture. And after the Israelites entered into the possession…
Cain — A possession; a spear. (1.) The first-born son of Adam and Eve (Gen. 4). He became a tiller of the ground, as his brother Abel followed the pursuits of pastoral life. He was “a sullen, self-willed,…
Deep — Used to denote (1) the grave or the abyss (Rom. 10:7; Luke 8:31); (2) the deepest part of the sea (Ps. 69:15); (3) the chaos mentioned in Gen. 1:2; (4) the bottomless pit, hell (Rev. 9:1, 2; 11:7;…
Naamah — The beautiful. (1.) The daughter of Lamech and Zillah (Gen. 4: 22). (2.) The daughter of the king of Ammon, one of the wives of Solomon, the only one who appears to have borne him a son, viz.,…
Sheep — Are of different varieties. Probably the flocks of Abraham and Isaac were of the wild species found still in the mountain regions of Persia and Kurdistan. After the Exodus, and as a result of…
Abel · 1. — 1.
Adam · .Subsequent history of — .Subsequent history of
Agriculture · Practiced by — Practiced by
Agriculture Or Husbandry · Persons engaged in, called: Tillers of the ground — Persons engaged in, called: Tillers of the ground
And she again bare his brother Abel [226] It is well known whence the name of Cain is deduced, and for what reason it was given to him. For his mother said, qnyty (kaniti,) I have gotten a man; and therefore she called his name Cain. [227] The same explanation is not given with respect to Abel. [228] The opinion of some, that he was so called by his mother out of contempt, as if he would prove superfluous and almost useless, is perfectly absurd; for she remembered the end to which her fruitfulness would lead; nor had she forgotten the benediction, "Increase and multiply." We should (in my judgment) more correctly infer that whereas Eve had testified, in the name given to her firstborn, the j…
The propagation of the human race did not commence till after the expulsion from paradise. Generation in man is an act of personal free-will, not a blind impulse of nature, and rests upon a moral self-determination. It flows from the divine institution of marriage, and is therefore knowing (ידע) the wife. - At the birth of the first son Eve exclaimed with joy, "I have gotten (קניתי) a man with Jehovah;" wherefore the child received the name Cain (קין from קוּן = קנה, κτᾶσθαι). So far as the grammar is concerned, the expression את־יהוה might be rendered, as in apposition to אישׁ, "a man, the Lord" (Luther), but the sense would not allow it. For even if we could suppose the faith of Eve in th…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Arts Of The
· Husbandman
— Husbandman
Eve · Children of — Children of
Shepherd · .Abel — .Abel
Shepherds · Early mention of — Early mention of
Strife · General references — General references
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
