(BA) Genesis 4:16

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2 August 2022 Navigate 'up to the Genesis index: index-genesis.

And Cain went out from before Yahweh, and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

This land of Nod is never again referred to, at least by that name, in the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretic Text, in its mostly-consonantal way, spells it nwd, while the Septuagint's Naid suggests a Hebrew spelling of nyd. If we may suppose that at an earlier stage the Hebrew lacked matres lectionis, the land would be nd, exactly like the word 'wanderer' in 4:14, a vagabond and a wanderer. Indeed, the Vulgate goes so far as to translate the word not as a proper noun, but by the common noun profugus, -- "Cain lived on the land as a fugitive" instead of "in the land of Nod."