Genesis 4:6
And the Lord said to him: Why art thou angry? and why is thy countenance fallen?
Open Genesis 4:6 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dixitque Dominus ad eum : Quare iratus es ? et cur concidit facies tua ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν Κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῷ Κάιν Ἵνα τί περίλυπος ἐγένου, καὶ ἵνα τί συνέπεσεν τὸ πρόσωπόν σου;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֥אמֶר יְהוָ֖ה אֶל קָ֑יִן לָ֚מָּה חָ֣רָה לָ֔ךְ וְלָ֖מָּה נָפְל֥וּ פָנֶֽיךָ
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, Of the Cause of Cain’s Crime and His Obstinacy, Which Not Even the Word of God Could Subdue
But though God made use of this very mode of address which we have been endeavoring to explain, and spoke to Cain in that form by which He was wont to accommodate Himself to our first parents and converse with them as a companion, what good influence had it on Cain? Did he not fulfill his wicked intention of killing his brother even after he was warned by God’s voice? For when God had made a distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain’s, regarding Abel’s, which was doubtless intimated by some visible sign to that effect; and when God had done so because the works of the one were evil but those of his brother good, Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily XXIII on Rom. xiii. 1
Observe how it has both virtues, abstinence from evils (for it “worketh no ill,” he says), and the working of good deeds. “For it is,” he says, “the fulfilling (or filling up) of the Law;” not bringing before us instruction only on moral duties in a concise form, but making the accomplishment of them easy also. For that we should become acquainted with things profitable to us was not all that he was careful for (which is the Law’s care), but also with a view to the doing of them it brought us great assistance; accomplishing not some part of the commandments, but the whole sum of virtue in us. Let us then love one another, since in this way we shall also love God, Who loveth us. For in the case of men, if you love a man’s beloved, he that loveth him is contentious at it. But here He deemeth thee worthy to share His love, and hateth thee when thou sharest not. …