What Does Genesis 4:13 Mean in the King James?
And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The line makes punishment a weight to be carried, while its Hebrew word can hold both the wrong itself and what the wrong brings.
THE MEANING
When wrongdoing and its consequence feel too heavy to carry, this verse gives that experience a voice. The Hebrew עָוֹן (ʿāwōn, crookedness and its consequence) holds the act and its penalty together. The cry remains unresolved, and the verse does not hide its severity.
THE ROOT
מִנְּשׂוֹא
minneso
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift, carry, bear (nasa).
The form מִנְּשׂוֹא comes from נשא (nasa, to lift or carry). Its branches include מַשָּׂא (massa, a load or burden) and נָשִׂיא (nasi, a leader or prince, one elevated); the same root spans bearing weight and being lifted up. Here, “bear” gives the cry physical gravity: its burden is felt, not abstract.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A load or burden; also an utterance.
מַשָּׂא
This branch names what is carried, making the weight in the verse concrete.
nasi: A leader or prince; one elevated.
נָשִׂיא
This branch shares the root’s sense of being lifted, extending the image from carrying a weight to being raised up.
THE PATTERN
A consequence can be named as a burden whose weight exceeds the one carrying it.
For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.For every man shall bear his own burden.THE THREAD
And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the ephod for stones of memorial unto the children of Israel: and Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD upon his two shoulders for a memorial.Genesis gives נשא (nasa, lift or carry) the feel of an impossible weight; here the same root carries the names of others on the shoulders. The same verb holds both crushing weight and bearing another’s name before the LORD.
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