Cain, Son of the Fallen Angel Samael

According to BDB, s.v. “קָנָה” (§8615, Strong, p. 7069), the verb means “to get or acquire, buy, or gain,” but can also mean “create” as in Genesis 14:19—בָּרוּךְ אַבְרָם לְאֵל עֶלְיוֹן קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ—“blessed is Avram to the Most High God, Creator of the Heavens and Earth” (cf. Gen. 14:22, Deut. 32:6, Ps. 139:13; see the parallel epithet in Psalms 146:6, עֹשֶׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ—“Maker of the Heavens and Earth”). See also HALOT (§8423, s.v. “קנה”), which offers “buy, acquire, and create.”

“I have gotten a man from the LORD” (KJV); “I have produced a man with the help of the LORD” (NRSV); “I have gained a male child with the help of the LORD” (NJPS); “Kaniti/I-have-gotten a man, as has YHWH!” (Everett Fox); “I have got me a man with the LORD” (Robert Alter), which I think is closest to the simple meaning. The word ʾet, may be construed as either a preposition, “with,” or the defined direct object marker.

See for example, Targum Onqelos, which translates: קניתי גוברא מן קדם יי—“I have acquired a man from the Presence of God.” See also Rashi (ad loc.) Editor’s note: For the idea that all conceptions are determined by God, see Joel Baden, “God Opened Her Womb: The Biblical Conception of Fertility,” TheTorah (2017).

See discussion in, David E. Bokovoy, “Did Eve Acquire, Create, or Procreate with Yahweh? A Grammatical and Contextual Reassessment of קנה in Genesis 4:1,” Vetus Testamentum 63 (2013): 19-35. For more on divine conceptions in the Bible, see, Samuel Z. Glaser, “Isaac’s Divine Conception,” TheTorah (2018); Marc Zvi Brettler, “Who Was Samson's Real Father?” TheTorah (2017).

See my discussion of the genre, dating, and provenance of PRE in Rachel Adelman, The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha (Leiden: Brill 2009), 3–21, 35–42. This article is based on a selection from chapter five, “Adam, Eve and the Serpent: The First Version of the Fall (PRE 13),” 98–103.

Notably, the LXX translation has Elohim (θεός) in this verse instead of YHWH, which LXX always renders as κύριος meaning “the LORD;” while YHWH only refers to the main Israelite deity, the usages of Elohim are broader. The text reads: Ἐκτησάμην ἄνθρωπον διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ—“I have gained a man through/by way of God.” As I discuss below, Second Temple period texts already read the Cain and Abel story to suggest that Cain was the child of a divine being. Perhaps some of these texts had Elohim as their main text. Alternately, the LXX translators may have known this tradition, and have rendered YHWH as θεοῦ to open up the possibility of a being, other than YHWH, as the one responsible for Cain’s conception.

The Zohar (Gen 35b) also adopts this allegorical interpretation of the Eden narrative.

דכתיב "ומפרי העץ אשר בתוך הגן" (בר' ג:ג). תנא רבי זעירא אומר "מפרי העץ" אין העץ הזה אלא אדם שנמשל כעץ שנאמר "כי האדם עץ השדה" (דברים כ:יט) "אשר בתוך הגן" (בר' ג:ג) אין "בתוך הגן" אלא לשון נקייה מה שבתוך הגוף. "אשר בתוך הגן" (בר' ג:ג) אשר בתוך האשה. ואין גן אלא האשה שנמשלה לגן שנאמר "גן נעול אחותי כלה זו" (שה"ש ד יב).

It is written, “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden…” (Gen 3:3). It was taught in a Baraitha, Rabbi Ze‘ira said: “Of the fruit of the tree”— “tree” is none other than Adam (man), who is compared to the tree, as it is said, “For man [ha-Adam] is the tree of the field” (Deut 20:19). “Which is in the midst of the garden”—“in the midst of the garden” is none other than a euphemism for what is in the body. “Which is in the midst of the Garden,” that is within [the body] of the woman. And the garden is none other than the woman who is likened to a garden, as it is said, “A locked garden is my sister, a bride” (Song 4:12).

מה הגנה (ויניציאה: הגנה הגנה כל) הזה כל מה שנזרעה היא צומחת ומוציאה, כך האשה הזאת כל מה שנזרעה הרה ויולדה מבעלה.

Just as with this garden, whatever is sown therein, it produces and brings forth, so (with) this woman, what seed she receives, she conceives and bears as a result of sexual intercourse.

The Hebrew and English translation are based on the 1^st ed. (Constantinople 1514), checked against Dagmar Börner-Klein’s bilingual German-Hebrew edition, Pirke de-Rabbi Elieser (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2004), supplemented with reference to 2^nd ed. (Venice 1544), and other manuscripts.

Samael is not mentioned by name here, but based on the connection between Samael and the serpent PRE establishes in chs. 13–14, where the story of the sin is retold, it is clear that Samael is who the text means here. Based on an alternative manuscript (no longer extant), Friedlander translates the phrase here as: “[Samael], riding on the Serpent, came to her and she conceived”; the MS En866 reads: בבעילה קרב אליה רוכב נחש ועיברה את קין (“in sexual intercourse, the Snake Rider approached her and she conceived Cain”). But, at least in the 1^st printed ed., the Hebrew is clearly feminine: rokhevet nahash.

Similarly, in the Sethian Gnostic tradition, when Eve uses the Tetragrammaton in naming her son—“I have gotten a man with the LORD” [qaniti ʾish ʾet-YHWH] (Gen 4:1), she is alluding to the lesser deity or the demiurge—Samael (or Ialdabaoth). According to this sect of Gnosticism, Cain is genetically corrupt as the offspring of the demiurge and Eve, while Adam’s son, Seth, is the only true offspring of man who is made in the divine image: “he begot a son in his likeness after his image” (Gen 5:3). The same tradition is preserved in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:1 and 5:1–3. See the discussion in Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1984), 38-53. On the peculiar form of Sethian Gnosticism, which PRE seems to draw from, see J.D. Turner, “The Gnostic Seth,” in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible, eds. Michael E. Stone and T. E. Bergren (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International 1998), 33–58.

Drawing from PRE, the late Aramaic Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Gen 4:1 also attributes Cain’s conception to Samael:

ואדם ידע ית חוה איתתיה דהוה חמידת למלאכא ואעדיאת וילידת ית קין ואמרת "קניתי לגברא ית מלאכא דיי":

And Adam knew that his wife Eve was desired by the angel [Samael], and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. He was like the angels and not like humans, so she said, “I have acquired a man, indeed, an angel of the LORD.” (See, Kugel, How to Read the Bible, 61).

Second Temple sources about divinely conceived children also assume that they look different somehow. See discussion in, Samuel Z. Glaser, “Demigods and the Birth of Noah,” TheTorah (2020).

Notably, early midrash, which solves the problem of where humans come from by positing that Cain and Abel were born with twin sisters (e.g., Genesis Rabbah 22.2, Conflict of Adam and Even with Satan 1.74–75), makes the parallel between the midrashic story and the Greek myth even starker.

This translation is based on the 1^st ed., checked against Börner-Klein Pirke de-Rabbi Elieser, 235–237. For a semi-critical edition of the Hebrew text, see Appendix E in Adelman, The Return of the Repressed, 285–287. Here, I have added punctuation and references to the exact citations from the Tanakh. I have also supplemented the printed edition with reference to four manuscripts, as well as Radal’s edition (Warsaw 1852) and the first edition. Much of this chapter is dedicated to expanding on on the causes of the flood, including the genesis of the giants by the Fallen Angels. See my article, “Reintroducing the Myth of the Fallen Angels into Judaism,” TheTorah (2015).

This phrase appears in the printed edition but not in the manuscripts.

This phrase appears in the printed edition but not in the manuscripts.

^{בראשׁית ה:ג} וַיְחִי אָדָם שְׁלֹשִׁים וּמְאַת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בִּדְמוּתוֹ כְּצַלְמוֹ וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ שֵׁת.

^{Gen 5:3} When Adam had lived one hundred thirty years, he begot in his likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.

Perhaps, in response to the slaying of Abel and Cain’s banishment, she has lost that overweening confidence in her own powers.

This is a word-play on the verb שית, meaning “to put, set, or place” (BDB §9914, s.v. “שׁית” p. 1011, Strong 7896), but which can also connote “to constitute, make one (dir. obj.) something (indir. obj.),” as in 1 Kings 11:34, נָשִׂיא אֲשִׁתֶנּוּ “I will make him prince”; see also Isaiah 5:6 and 26:1; Jeremiah 22:6; Psalms 21:7, 84:7, 88:9, 110:1; and 2 Samuel 22:12. In this sense, Eve is implying that God has made this seed into another/different one [zer‘a aḥer] to replace Abel [taḥat hevel]; that is, “different” than Cain’s “bad seed.”

See the genealogical list of ten generations from Adam to Noah via Seth in Genesis 5:3–32.

See the list of seven generations in 4:17–24: 1) Cain; 2) Enoch; 3) Irad; 4) Mehujael; 5) Methujael; 6) Lamech, who then begot 7) Jabal and Jubal (through Adah) and Tubal-cain (through Zillah). None of these survive the flood. This explains the exegetical tradition which renders “sevenfold” (vengeance for the murder of Cain) as up to the seventh generation (Gen. 4:15 and 24). See James Kugel, “Why Was Lamech Blind?” in In Potiphar’s House (San Francisco: Harper Collins: 1990), 91–103.

Rabbi Shimon in Higger’s edition and in the Epstein manuscript (the basis for Friedlander’s English translation).

An emendation based on Higger.

A parallel to this appears (in some versions) of the previous chapter of PRE:

רבי ישמעאל אומר: משת (ויניציאה: משם) עלו ונתייחסו כל דורות הצדיקים ומקין עלו ונתייחסו כל דורות הרשעים המורדים והפושעים במרום.

Rabbi Ishmael said: from Seth arose the lineages of all the righteous generations, and from Cain arose all the lineages of the wicked generations that rebelled and sinned against the Almighty.

This paragraph does not appear in all the manuscripts—not in Enelow, nor in the Epstein manuscript (the basis for Friedlander’s English translation), nor in Higger’s version.

See, for example, 1 John 3:10–12; Tertullian, On Patience 5:15; the (Gnostic) Gospel of Philip 61:6–10; 4 Maccabees 18:7–8; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:1; and Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer 21 (discussed in depth later). See the discussion in James Kugel, How to Read the Bible (New York: Simon & Schuster 2007), 60–61, and Traditions of the Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1998), 147, 169.

Moreover, the villain in this story, Samael, is almost all but absent in classic rabbinic midrash.

Other texts see the serpent as a lecherous creature. For example, Genesis Rabbah 18:6 suggests that the reason the Serpent is introduced immediately after Adam and Eve are described as “naked” (Gen 2:25) is because he saw Adam and Eve engaged in sexual intercourse and desired her (see also Gen. Rab. 19:3, 22:2). This is implied in Eve’s excuse: “The Serpent beguiled me and I ate” [הנחש השיאני ואוכל] (Gen 3:14). The Talmud expounds: “The Serpent set his eyes on what he did not deserve. Therefore that which he wanted he was deprived of, and what he had (in hand) was taken from him” [הנחש נתן עניו במה שלא ראוי לו לפי' משהו ביקש לא ניתן לו ומה שהיה בידו ינטלוהו ממנו] (b. Sotah 9b). The first phrase is understood—that the Serpent desired what was not rightfully his, coveting another man’s wife. But the second phrase, Rashi interpolates: “the Primordial Serpent set his eyes on Eve and went into her, as it is said, ‘The Serpent beguiled me…,’ which is the language of sexual relations and marriage” [נחש הקדמוני נתן עיניו בחווה ובא עליה והיינו דכתיב "הנחש השיאני" לשון תשמיש ונשואין הוא] (loc. cit.). See the discussion in Stephen T. Lachs, “Serpent Folklore in Rabbinic Literature,” Jewish Social Studies 27 (1965): 167–184.

The expression is Freud’s, borrowed by Boyarin, to explain the relationship between the biblical text and certain trends in midrashic exegesis, “which makes manifest the repressed mythic material in the Bible’s “textual subconscious’” (Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash [Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1990], 94).

Alexander Altmann, “The Gnostic Background of the Rabbinic Adam Legends,” in Essays in Jewish Intellectual History (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England 1981 [orig. 1945]), 1–16. He traces many of the rabbinic traditions on the enmity of Satan (or Samael) towards Adam and his glorification by the angels to Gnostic Myth.

For Christian sources, see Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis, in which Ephrem paraphrases the curse thus: “you shall go about on your belly because you brought pangs upon womankind…And I will place enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed because by your fraudulent show of love you deceived and subjected both her and her children to death” (emphasis added, S. Brock, St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns on Paradise [Crestwood N.Y.: St. Valdimir’s Press 1990], 219); see also 2 Enoch 31:6. The legend was most probably known to Paul, who refers to the Serpent as having “beguiled Eve in his craftiness”; see 2 Corinthians 11:3, and 1 Timothy 2:14–15; and Protoevangelium of James 13:5, and 4 Maccabees 18:8. cf. Gerald Friedlander’s comment, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, 1^st ed. (London, 1916), 4^th ed. (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1981), 150–151, [n. 5].

This is connected to PRE’s belief that the Primordial History will be recapitulated in the End of Days. Just as evil (manifest in the genetic matter of Cain) was wiped out in the flood, so evil would be eradicated in the eschaton.