Genesis 4:7 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Genesis 4:7
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
to be (causative) make well · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
accepted
שְׂאֵ֔תse.'Et
H7613
an elevation or leprous scab · noun, common feminine singular absolute
well
תֵיטִ֔יבtei.Tiv
H3190
to be (causative) make well · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
sin
חַטָּ֣אתcha.Tat
H2403
an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
lieth
רֹבֵ֑ץro.Vetz
H7257
to crouch (on all four legs folded · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
door
לַפֶּ֖תַחla.Pe.tach
H6607
an opening (literally) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
desire
תְּשׁ֣וּקָת֔וֹte.Shu.ka.To
H8669
a longing · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
rule
תִּמְשָׁלtim.shol-
H4910
to rule · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
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
James 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Romans 2:6-10 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
Isaiah 3:10-11 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedie…
Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of h…
Numbers 32:23 But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.
Romans 7:8-9 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which i…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 4:6-7
God is here reasoning with Cain, to convince him of the sin and folly of his anger and discontent, and to bring him into a good temper again, that further mischief might be prevented. It is an instance of God's patience and condescending goodness that he would deal thus tenderly with so bad a man, in so bad an affair. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Thus the father of the prodigal argued the case with the elder son (Luk 15:28, etc.), and God with those Israelites who said, The way of the Lord is not equal, Eze 18:25.
I. God puts Cain himself upon enquiring into the cause of his discontent, and considering whether it were indeed a just cause:…
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?--A better rendering is, "Shalt thou not have the excellency"? which is the true sense of the words referring to the high privileges and authority belonging to the first-born in patriarchal times.
sin lieth at the door--sin, that is, a sin offering--a common meaning of the word in Scripture (as in Hos 4:8; Co2 5:21; Heb 9:28). The purport of the divine rebuke to Cain was this, "Why art thou angry, as if unjustly treated? If thou doest well (that is, wert innocent and sinless) a thank offering would have been accepted as a token of thy dependence as a creature. But as thou doest not well (that is, art a sinner), a sin offering is necessary, by…
If thou doest well - That which is right in the sight of God, shalt thou not be accepted? Does God reject any man who serves him in simplicity and godly sincerity? But if thou doest not well, can wrath and indignation against thy righteous brother save thee from the displeasure under which thou art fallen? On the contrary, have recourse to thy Maker for mercy; לפתח חטאת רבץ lappethach chattath robets, a sin-offering lieth at thy door; an animal proper to be offered as an atonement for sin is now couching at the door of thy fold.
The words חטאת chattath, and חטאת chattaah, frequently signify sin; but I have observed more than a hundred places in the Old Testament where they are used for sin-o…
The Church Fathers
But his desire shall be for you, and you shall rule over him. In accordance with the idiom of the Hebrew language, he substituted the indicative mood for the imperative, such as you have innumerable times: You shall love the Lord your God, you shall love your neighbor, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness (Deut. VI, 5), instead of saying: Love, and do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness. Therefore, he says, his desire shall be for you, and you shall rule over him; you, because you are of free will, I advise you to combat and restrain the desire of sin, and not let it grow over you anymore, but you shall rather rule over it more righteously by living correctly. This passage in the ancient translation reads thus: If you do well, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do well, sin lies at your door; and its desire shall be for you, but you should rule over it. It is rightly offered to God, who alone must be sacrificed to. But it is not rightly divided when neither places nor times of the offerings nor the things themselves which are offered, nor who offers, nor those to whom the offering is distributed for eating are rightly discerned, so that here division means discernment. In what of these was Cain displeasing to the Lord, it cannot easily be found. But since the Apostle John, when speaking of these brothers, said, Not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil, but his brother's were righteous (John III, 13); it is understood therefore that God did not look favorably upon his offering because he wrongly divided it, giving something of his to God, but keeping himself for himself, as all do who follow their own will, not God's, that is, living with a perverse, not a righteous heart; yet they offer to God a gift, with which they think He can be appeased, not to aid them in curing their bad desires, but to fulfill them. Rest, he says, for his desire will be for you, and you shall rule over him. Cease to be consumed by the sin of envy toward your brother, for the conversion of that same sin shall be for you, and your iniquity will rebound upon your own head, and you shall rule over it, having the power through the grace of divine help to repel the evil conceived in your heart. God spoke these things…
So what is the upshot? You have sinned, and sinned grievously, but I am not imposing punishment for the sin; after all, I am loving, and "I do not want the death of the sinner, rather that he be converted and live." Since, then you have sinned, be at peace, lend calm to your thinking and rid yourself of the onset of the waves crashing around your mind, settle the storm lest you add to the previous sin another more grievous one and set your mind on something beyond repair. Don't give yourself into the clutches of the wicked demon. "'You have sinned, be at peace.'" He knew right from the outset that the future attack against his brother would take place, and by these words he checks it beforehand. You see, since he was God and knew the unspoken intentions of Cain's mind, he was aware of the movements of his heart; so with this earnest exhortation and the considerateness of his words he applies the appropriate remedy to him, doing everything in his power in case this man should reject the medication and fall headlong into the abyss of fratricide. "'You have sinned, be at peace." ' Don't think, he says, even if I have turned away from your offering owing to your incorrect attitude and have welcomed your brother's gift because of his sound choice, that I have stripped you of your pride of place and removed you from the distinction of firstborn. "'Be at peace," ' even if he has been deemed worthy of my regard and his gifts have proved acceptable, nevertheless "'his movement is towards you, and you will be superior to him.'" And so even after this sin I permit you to have the privilege of being firstborn, and I bid him be subject to your authority and your control. See the Lord's loving kindness, how he wishes to defuse the wild frenzy and remove the anger by means of his words. You see, he observed the stages of his thinking and realized the savagery of his deadly intention; so he intends at this early stage to sedate his thinking and bring repose to his mind by placing his brother subject to him and not undermining his authority. But even despite such great concern and such potent remedies, Cain gained nothing from the experience. Such was the degree of difference in their attitudes and the excess of evil intent. Lest, however, we prolong the sermon unduly and thus seem to tax the patience of your good selves, and lest our homily bore you to tears and be…
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…
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.,…
Abel · 1. — 1.
Anger · .Of — .Of
Cain · .Jealousy and crime of — .Jealousy and crime of
Consecration · . — .
Contingencies · IN DIVINE GOVERNMENT OF MAN — IN DIVINE GOVERNMENT OF MAN
Envy · . — .
Judgment · ACCORDING TO OPPORTUNITY AND WORKS — ACCORDING TO OPPORTUNITY AND WORKS
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?.... That is, either if thou doest thy works well in general, doest good works in a right way and manner, according to life will of God, and directed to his glory, from right principles, and with right views: so all the Targums,"if thou doest thy works well;''for it is not merely doing a good work, but doing the good work well, which is acceptable to God; hence that saying,"that not nouns but adverbs make good works:''or particularly it may respect sacrifice; if thou doest thine offering well, or rightly offereth, as the Septuagint; or offers not only what is materially good and proper to be offered, but in a right way, in obedience to the divin…
If thou does well. In these words God reproves Cain for having been unjustly angry, inasmuch as the blame of the whole evil lay with himself. For foolish indeed was his complaint and indignation at the rejection of sacrifices, the defects of which he had taken no care to amend. Thus all wicked men, after they have been long and vehemently enraged against God, are at length so convicted by the Divine judgment, that they vainly desire to transfer to others the cause of the evil. The Greek interpreters recede, in this place, far from the genuine meaning of Moses. Since, in that age, there were none of those marks or points which the Hebrews use instead of vowels, it was more easy, in consequenc…
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…
Sin is crouching at the door . . . you must subdue it: Sin is pictured as a vicious animal lying in wait to pounce on Cain (cp. study note on 3:16). Either sin will dominate Cain, or Cain will resist the temptation to sin. There is no neutral ground in that conflict.
Rashi on Genesis 4:7
הלא אם תטיב IF THOU MENDEST — Its meaning is as the Targum gives it: “if thou wilt improve thy doings, thou shalt be forgiven”.
לפתח חטאת רובץ SIN CROUCHETH AT THE ENTRANCE — Right up to the door of your grave (until your death) your sin will be preserved.
ואליך תשוקתו AND UNTO THEE IS ITS LONGING — The longing of sin; it refers to the evil inclination. This is continually longing and desiring to make you sin.
ואתה תמשול בו NEVERTHELESS THOU MAYEST RULE OVER IT — If you desire to, you can gain the victory over it (Kiddushin 30b).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Religion · .Abel — .Abel
Sin Offering · Probable origin of — Probable origin of
Will · .Freedom of, recognized by God — .Freedom of, recognized by God
Worship · Of the wicked rejected — Of the wicked rejected
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).
