As It Is Written: Genesis 4:10

In Genesis 4:10-11 we read,

And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
(Genesis 4:10-11 ESV)

Cain and his brother Abel had argued and then later when they were in a field¹. Cain murders Abel The text is unclear about the course of events leading to Abel’s death, but the context suggests that the two brothers became angry with one another and, in the struggle.

As traditionally translated (see above), many Christian commentaries understand the reference to blood as a sign of Cain’s guilt. But when read in Hebrew, its meaning is very different and theologically more profound than whether Cain is guilty or innocent. A biblical-era episode of NCIS, this is not. A more literal translation leads to a curious observation and a fascinating question: Here’s my translation. I differs from the ESV’s in only one word:

What have you done? The voice of your brother’s bloods is crying to Me from the ground (my translation)

Why does blood appear in its plural form, bloods?

A little investigation reveals why. Blood, as a singular noun, occurs 218 times and usually refers, well, to the literal blood – the stuff flowing in our veins. In its plural form, by contrast, ‘bloods’ occurs only 55 times and usually connotes kinship of various kinds, the most common being descendants yet unborn (19 times). For example, in 2 Samuel 3:28 the Bible speaks of the bloods of Abner killed by Joab, whose motive was to avenge the death of his brother, Asehel. In 1 Kings, the phrase “bloods of war” is used twice and refers to those who would never be born as a result of conflict. Another example, but by no means the last, Isaiah writes of the future glory of Zion that will descend from the righteous who remain after “purging the bloods of Jerusalem” through the spirit of judgment (Isaiah 4:4).

Interpreted this way, the divine author means to tell us that God is hearing the unborn descendants of Abel crying to Him. What does this teach us? Insofar as God is concerned, the death of one person is as the death of a multitude².”. The value of a single human life is viewed, by God anyway, as the loss of generations.

Now, go and study

1. The phrase, “in the field” is a Hebrew idiom meaning a location free from witnesses. See also, Deuteronomy 22:25-27
2. This understanding has been around for centuries, going back at least as far as Matthew-Henry’s Commentary on Genesis 4. Here is what he says: “In the original, the word is plural, thy brother’s bloods, not only his blood, but the blood of all those that might have descended from him