Sunday, June 4, 2023

Genesis 4:4-5

In mid-April, I finished reading The Lutheran Study Bible, the first time (hopefully of many) that I read the Bible straight through.  The same day I finished, I also started reading the NIV (my current plan is to alternate between the two, but I'll see what happens).

When I read Genesis 4, I noticed something interesting in these verses:  "3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD.  4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.  The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.  So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast."

Bridging verses 4 and 5, there's a chiastic structure in the description of how the Lord receives Abel and Cain and their respective offerings:  "The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor."  The structure highlights that the Lord's responses are opposite.

This feature is also present in Hebrew (I can't get the formatting to work correctly, so here's a link to the  passage in the STEP Bible) and in Latin ("et respexit Dominus ad Abel et ad munera eius ad Cain vero et ad munera illius non respexit").