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Notes and Questions and Answers: Note 4:15
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Bresheet 4:11
Therefore, you are cursed more than the ground, which opened wide its mouth to receive your brother's bloods from your hand.
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Rashi on 4:11 More than the ground:
More than it had already been cursed for its sin. In this, also, but it sinned even more, "Which opened wide its mouth to receive your brother's bloods, etc."
And behold, I give it an additional curse. With regard to you, "it shall not continue to yield its strength." [There is not a separate curse for the ground,
and a separate one for Cain. The curse is that Cain himself will suffer through the curse of the ground.
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Bresheet 4:12
When you work the ground, it shall not continue to yield its strength to you. You shall become a wanderer and an exile on earth."
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Rashi on 4:12 A wanderer and an exile:
You have no permission to live in one place.
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Bresheet 4:13
Cain said to Hashem, "Is my iniquity too great to be borne?
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Rashi on 4:13 Is my iniquity too great to be borne?:
With astonishment. You bear the higher realms and the lower realms, so is my iniquity, impossible to bear?
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Bresheet 4:15
Hashem said to him, "Therefore, whoever slays Cain! After seven generations he will suffer revenge." And Hashem placed a letter upon Cain, so that none that meet him might kill him.
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Rashi on 4:15 Therefore, whoever slays Cain!:
This is one of the verses which cut short their words, and made an allusion, but did not explain.
"Therefore, whoever slays Cain" expresses a threat, "So shall be done to him!" "Such and such is his punishment!" But the verse did not specify what his punishment is.
[This is the threat, and there is no mention of what the punishment will be. The next
verse which starts "After seven generations...", according to Rashi, should not be
understood as a continuation of this verse, but rather it should be directed back to Cain as in "...he (Cain) will suffer (Abels) revenge."]
Rashi on 4:15 After seven generations he will suffer revenge:
I do not wish to take vengeance from Cain now. At the end of seven generations I will take My vengeance from him, for Lamech will arise
from among the children's children, and slay him. [Verse 4:23 "And Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, heed my voice, wives of Lamech, give ear to my speech, Have I slain a man by my wound and a child by my bruise?"]
The end of the verse, which says, "after seven generations he will suffer revenge," which is the vengeance of Abel from Cain. It has taught us that the beginning of the verse is an
expression of threat, so that no creature should harm Cain [The verse 4:24 "for Cain suffered vengeance at seven generations..." proves the view of Rashi that the two above verses are separate.]
Similar to it, "And David said Whoever smites the Jebusite and reaches the tower!" And it does not state explicitly what shall be done to him.
But the verse speaks through hinting, "Whoever smites the Jebusite and reaches the tower..." and will approach the gate and conquer it, and the blind, etc..."
Having said that the blind and the lame are here, David shall not come inside the house,"
[David will not conquer the tower] He who smites these, I shall make a leader and a lord." Here the verse cut short its words, but
in Chronicles, it stated explicitly, "He shall be a leader and a lord."
Rashi on 4:15 And Hashem placed a letter upon Cain:
He etched for Cain a letter of His name on his forehead. [The choice of the Hebrew word here for placed represents a permanent marking.]
Alternatively, "Whoever meets me will kill me" The animals and the beasts, but there were not yet people,
that he should fear them, only his father and his mother, [and sisters], and he did not fear them, that they would kill him. But Cain said,
"Until now there was dread of me over all of the beasts, as it is written "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth..."
But now, because of this sin, the animals will not be afraid of me, and they will kill me." Immediately... "And Hashem placed a mark upon Cain"
He restored the fear of him over the animals.
SEE Note 4:15
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