Genesis 4:9
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־קַיִן אֵי הֶבֶל אָחִיךָ וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא יָדַעְתִּי הֲשֹׁמֵר אָחִי אָנֹֽכִי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־קַ֔יִן אֵ֖י הֶ֣בֶל אָחִ֑יךָ וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ לֹ֣א יָדַ֔עְתִּי הֲשֹׁמֵ֥ר אָחִ֖י אָנֹֽכִי׃
καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Κάιν Ποῦ ἐστιν Ἅβελ ὁ ἀδελφός σου; ὁ δὲ εἶπεν Οὐ γινώσκω· μὴ φύλαξ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μού εἰ μί’ ἐγώ;
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Et ait Dominus ad Cain: Ubi est Abel frater tuus? Qui respondit: Nescio: num custos fratris mei sum ego?
Entonces Yehová le preguntó a Caín: “¿Dónde está tu hermano Abel?” “No lo sé respondió él. ¿Acaso soy yo el guardián de mi hermano?”
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y Jehová dijo á Caín: ¿ Dónde está Abel tu hermano? Y él respondió: No sé; ¿ soy yo guarda de mi hermano?
And the LORD said to Cain, “ Where is your brother Abel?” “ I do not know!” he answered. “ Am I my brother’s keeper?”
✦ What the text says
Summary
Yehovah asks Cain where his brother Abel is, and Cain answers that he does not know, following this with a rhetorical question about whether he is responsible for watching over his brother. The verse consists of a divine question and a two-part human reply.
Key words
- 'ei ("where?", H0335) — interrogative particle opening Yehovah's question, seeking location without any accusatory verb attached.
- ya.Da'.ti ("I know", H3045) — qal perfect, first person; the perfect aspect marks this as a completed, stated fact ("I have not known" / "I do not know"), negated by lo' ("not", H3808).
- sho.Mer ("keeper", H8104H) — qal participle, masculine singular; participles in Hebrew describe an ongoing role or habitual function ("one who guards"), not a single completed act.
- 'a.Chi. / 'a.Ch ("brother", H0251G) — construct form of "brother," appearing twice, each time bound to a following element (-kha "your" in v.9a, -i "my" in v.9b), showing the grammatical relationship of possession.
- 'a.No.khi ("I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun placed at the end of the clause, adding emphasis to "I" beyond what the verb's built-in subject already conveys.
What the text says
The verse divides into two speech units joined by the narrative va- ("and", H9001) prefixed to yo.mer ("he said", H0559), a construction repeated twice to mark sequential speech acts: Yehovah speaks, then Cain speaks. Yehovah's question uses the bare interrogative 'ei ("where?", H0335) with no verb "to be" expressed — Hebrew allows a nominal question of location without a copula — followed by the name He.vel ("Abel", H1893) and 'a.Chi.-kha ("your brother", H0251G + H9021).
Cain's answer has two parts. First, lo' ya.Da'.ti ("I do not know", H3808 + H3045) uses a qal perfect verb, which in this construction denotes a state resulting from a completed action — a flat statement of non-knowledge, not a process. Second, the interrogative ha- ("¿", H9008) attached to the participle sho.Mer ("keeper", H8104H) forms a yes/no question: literally "keeper of my brother, I?" The participle sho.Mer frames the question in terms of an ongoing role or task ("one who watches/guards") rather than a single event, and the sentence has no explicit verb "to be" — the participle plus the independent pronoun 'a.No.khi ("I", H0595) placed at the very end functions as the predicate, giving weight and emphasis to "I" as the last word of the utterance.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders sho.Mer ("keeper", H8104H) as φύλαξ ("guard"), and translates the Hebrew interrogative ha- with μή, a Greek particle that in this position signals an expected negative answer to the question. The Hebrew ha- (H9008) itself is a neutral interrogative marker without built-in expectation. The Vulgate's num similarly frames the question as anticipating "no," matching the LXX's nuance more than a strictly neutral rendering of the Hebrew particle.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.