Signs and Wondering

Following humanity’s first fratricide, Cain became a marked man. Having murdered his brother Abel, he was concerned he would be subject to an avenging attack.

God, having already punished Cain with exile, was sympathetic. So, Genesis 4:15—which we read this Shabbat in Parshat Bereshit—tells us, God “put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.”

But what, pray tell, was the mark? A tattoo? A horn? A dog? Commentators have suggested all these and more.

An early rabbinic opinion supposed it was leprosy, that classical biblical mark of shame. It signified him as stained by his actions, literally bearing the consequences.

The medieval sage Rashi, citing another midrash, suggested God “inscribed on his forehead a letter of His Divine Name.” Others suggested the letter lay not on his forehead but his arm. A means of divine branding, it warned off potential aggressors from attacking God’s protected property.

Later editions of Rashi’s commentary add the possibility that it was animals, not humans, who concerned Cain. The beastly savagery he had exhibited in slaying his brother had lowered his humanity so much that animals would no longer fear him. The sign was a means of restoring deterrence.

Abraham Ibn Ezra, Rashi’s contemporary, hedged, offering two options. Perhaps the sign was a horn, a means of exhibiting animalistic intimidation to ward off the beasts. Alternatively, perhaps it was not a physical sign but a psychological boost—God gave Cain courage to be brave in this new world, as he sought to overcome the weight of his sin.

The mystical work Tikkunei Zohar sensed in the sign a circumcision—and a reincarnation. Noting that a brit milah is also called a “sign” in the Bible, that must have been what Cain experienced. This bris was then “fulfilled” with the conversion, centuries later, of Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, to Judaism. Jethro’s descendants were known in the Bible as Cainites. Must be, mused the metaphysical text, that Jethro was Cain reincarnated.

The midrashic collection Bereshit Tanchuma added that Shabbat, too, is called a “sign.” Perhaps God had the sun set early on a Friday afternoon, ushering in the day of rest, as a reassurance of his commitment to Cain’s relaxation.

Nahmanides, the 13th-century Spanish sage, saw in the sign an ancient form of Waze. “Perhaps it indicates,” he suggested, “that as he wandered from place to place he had a sign from God indicating the way in which he should walk, and by that he knew that no misfortune would overtake him on that road.” An earlier midrash had suggested it was less a subconscious intuition than a canine: “Rabbi Aba said: He gave him a dog. Since he feared the beasts, He [God] gave him one of them to walk before him, and wherever the dog turned to go, Cain knew that God commanded him to go there.”

To the 18th-century commentator known as the Or HaChaim, the placing of a letter from God’s ineffable Name was an acknowledgement that the penitent Cain finally understood God’s “supervision of the fate of every individual.”

The 19th-century German scholar Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in a meta move, understood Cain himself to be the sign. “God decreed upon Cain a life that will serve as a sign and a warning. Henceforth, [God said] ‘no one who found him will kill him’; for everyone knows that Cain’s life serves as a warning to murderers—more so than would his death.” Maybe God’s stated assurance that no one would harm Cain was itself the sign, posited the Italian commentator Shadal.

Whatever form the sign took, concludes the contemporary Israeli scholar Rabbi Yaakov Medan, it was ultimately a measure of mercy. After all, Cain, only the third human in history, “could not have known and understood the severe meaning of striking his brother, of death, and of the fact that death is irreversible.” The full fallout of his failures, in other words, was not anticipated. God, therefore, offered a sympathetic gesture. It was the least he could do as humanity, bearing its failings and frailties, began its endless wanderings east of Eden.