Kejadian 4:9

4:9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” ¹  And he replied, “I don’t know! Am I my brother’s guardian?” ² 

Kejadian 11:5

11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people ³  had started ⁴  building.

Kejadian 16:8

16:8 He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from ⁵  my mistress, Sarai.”

Kejadian 18:20-21

18:20 So the Lord said, “The outcry against ⁶  Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so blatant ⁷  18:21 that I must go down ⁸  and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests. ⁹  If not, ¹⁰  I want to know.”

[4:9]  ¹ sn Where is Abel your brother? Again the Lord confronts a guilty sinner with a rhetorical question (see Gen 3:9-13), asking for an explanation of what has happened.

[4:9]  ² tn Heb “The one guarding my brother [am] I?”

[4:9]  sn Am I my brother’s guardian? Cain lies and then responds with a defiant rhetorical question of his own in which he repudiates any responsibility for his brother. But his question is ironic, for he is responsible for his brother’s fate, especially if he wanted to kill him. See P. A. Riemann, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” Int 24 (1970): 482-91.

[11:5]  ³ tn Heb “the sons of man.” The phrase is intended in this polemic to portray the builders as mere mortals, not the lesser deities that the Babylonians claimed built the city.

[11:5]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text simply has בָּנוּ (banu), but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea (“had started building”) should be understood here.

[16:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “from the presence of.”

[18:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “the outcry of Sodom,” which apparently refers to the outcry for divine justice from those (unidentified persons) who observe its sinful ways.

[18:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “heavy.”

[18:21]  ⁸ tn The cohortative indicates the Lord’s resolve.

[18:21]  sn I must go down. The descent to “see” Sodom is a bold anthropomorphism, stressing the careful judgment of God. The language is reminiscent of the Lord going down to see the Tower of Babel in Gen 11:1-9.

[18:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “[if] according to the outcry that has come to me they have done completely.” Even the Lord, who is well aware of the human capacity to sin, finds it hard to believe that anyone could be as bad as the “outcry” against Sodom and Gomorrah suggests.

[18:21]  ¹⁰ sn The short phrase if not provides a ray of hope and inspires Abraham’s intercession.