The Land of Kain and His Descendants

 

Photo credit: Anni Vahlqvist

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden" (Gen. 4:16, KJV).

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The Hebrew phrase "east of Eden" is quimat-Eden and appears to be a Nilotic reference to a fertile plain with bulrushes. The Ancient Egyptian word for bulrushes is qma. Perhaps the biblical writer has Mesopotamia in mind. The term Eden derives from the Akkadian term edinu, which refers to a fertile plain and describes the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. If Cain went to reside east of Mesopotamia, he would have been in Pakistan.

Identifying where Kain went is difficult because Eden extended from the Upper Nile Valley to the great rivers of Mesopotamia. The Bible describes Eden as a vast well-watered territory that extended from the sources of the Nile in Uganda and Ethiopia to the Tigris and Euphrates. In Genesis 2, one of the rivers on the southern border of Eden is called the Gihon (meaning "gushing"). The Ethiopians identify the Gihon with the Abay River. The Pishon is also associated with the Nile Valley because it "skirts the whole land of Havilah" (Gen. 2:11). Havilah is the name of one of Kush's sons (Gen. 10:7) and the Kushites lived in the Nile Valley. 

Evidence of the cousin bride's naming prerogative. 

Kain's unnamed daughter married her cousin Enosh 

and named their firstborn son Kenan after her father Kain.

It seems likely that Cain's journey eastward took him out of Africa into Canaan, the land named after him. There he married and built a city which he named after his son, Enoch. Enoch is a royal title.

Canaan is where we find some of Cain's descendants, the Kenites (Gen. 15:18–21; Ex. 3:1; Num. 24:20; Jg. 1:16; Jg. 4:11). The word "Kenite" and the name Kain are related to the land of Canaan, which is כנען, pronounced kena'an. The Kenites were descendants of Tubal Cain who is identified as an early blacksmith in Genesis 4. The Kenite smiths often camped outside of cities where they did their metal work. When Saul came to attack Amalek’s city, he warned the Kenites to move away, saying, “Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.” (1 Sam. 15:5-6)

The 5100-year fortified Canaanite town of Kinna-ret (Gennesaret) is mentioned by ancient Ugarit scribes and appears to refer to the Kinna people who were called kinah-hu in the Nuzi tablets. This is another explanation for the origin of the word "Canaanite". However, kinah-hu may be related to the names Kain and Kenan. The clans of the early Hebrew brothers Cain and Seth intermarried (caste endogamy). Women descendants of Cain married male descendants of Seth. Genesis 5 lists Kenan as Kain's grandson by his un-named daughter. This is an example of the cousin bride's naming prerogative, a distinctive feature of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the early Hebrew. The name Kenan is a variant of Kain and Ghayin. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (2007) believes that ghayin lies behind the word kinah-hu. In the Canaano-Akkadian, "hu" is a pronominal suffix.

Related reading: Abraham Settled in the Land of Cain; Eden Was a Well-Watered Region

The Kenite-Horite Connection

Alice C. Linsley


About one-quarter of Genesis is the story of God’s dealings with Abraham and his ancestors (chapter 1-12). The other chapters deal with Abraham's descendants before the establishment of Israel. Because this is so, we must recognize that the promise concerning the coming of the Seed of God by the Woman (Gen. 3:15) does not originate with the Jews. It is much older. The expectation was preserved by Abraham's ancestors to whom the promise was first made in Eden, a well-watered region that extended from the Nile to the Tigris-Euphrates Valley.

The bulk of my research focuses on the first quarter of the book, material that is often dismissed as non-historical or simply ignored. However, archaeological, linguistic, genetic, climate and migration studies have begun to present a unified picture of these peoples and their consanguine ties.

Abraham's mother was a daughter of Na' Hor, a Horite name. The Horites were a caste of ruler-priests who originated in the Nile region. Exclusive intermarriage (endogamy) is a characteristic of castes. This means that Abraham's mother was Horite. Because ethnicity was traced through the mother, we must conclude that Abraham was Horite. As David is a descendant of Abraham, David also had Horite blood. This explains why all of David's sons are called "priests" in II Samuel.


David's Kenite-Horite Blood

According to the Talmud, David's maternal grandfather was Adael. Adael is the masculine equivalent of the name Adah. Adah was the wife of Lamech the Elder and the mother of Jubal and Jabal (Gen. 4). This is also the name of one of Esau the Elder’s wives. So Adah and Adael is a family name traced back to the lines of Cain and Seth. Both versions of the name are traceable to the Kenites, the descendants of Cain who intermarried with Seth's line. So David had Kenite blood. This means that he is a descendant of Cain/Kain and since the lines of Kain and Seth exclusively intermarried, he was also a descendant of Seth. This explains why David sent the spoils of war to the cities of Judah and to the Kenites (1 Samuel 30:29).

David's ancestry is traced through Tamar, the daughter of a Horite priest. She was probably at her father's shrine when she tricked Judah into impregnating her. When Judah discovered that she was pregnant, he ordered that she be burned to death. This was the Levitical punishment for daughters of priests who committed adultery or harlotry. Chastity was of the first order among the priestly lines, both for males and females. Horite ruler-priests married only the daughters of priests. Some of those priests were metal-working descendants of Kain, called Kenites.

Jethro, Moses' fathers-in-law, may have been a Kenite. He is called the "priest of Midian."  Jethro was not his name but rather his title. He was a Yatir that proclaimed the laws of YHWH as they pertained to the husbandry of sheep and goats. Yatir is from the Hebrew YTR which is the 3-letter root of Jethro. According to Biblical Anthropologist Susan Burns, the Yatir was a priest of nomadic sheep herders. Although not all the priestly clans were metalworkers, all the priestly clans kept herds.

Midian was one of the Abraham's sons by his cousin-wife Keturah. Likely, Aaron was skilled in metal work which explains why the Israelites appealed to him to build the golden calf.

Rahab of Jericho was the wife of Salmon the Horite, the Son of Hur (Hor). Salmon is called the "father of Bethlehem" in 1 Chronicles 2:54. Rahab became the grandmother of Boaz who married Ruth. Salmon (also Salma or Solomon) is a Horite name and is associated with Bethlehem (1 Chronicles 2:51). This connection of the Jews to the ancient Horites is why Jews call their parents horim.

Hiram I of Tyre was kin to David and sent skilled artisans to help David build a palace in Jerusalem, “the city of the Great King” (Matt. 5:35). Hiram is also known as "Huram" and "Horam", which are versions of the names Hur, Hor and Harun (Aaron), as in Jabal Harun, the Mountain of Aaron. According to Midrash, Hur was Moses’ brother-in-law, Miriam’s husband. Hur’s grandson was one of the builders of the Tabernacle. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur as the "father of Bethlehem", a settlement in the heartland of Horite territory and the birthplace of King David and his "son" Jesus, the Christ.

The evidence concerning David's ethnicity points to Kenites and Horites who intermarried according to a unique pattern that is like a cultural signature. The pattern involves exclusive intermarriage between priestly lines. Each ruler had 2 wives. One was his half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the other was a cousin or niece (as was Keturah to Abraham). The cousin/niece bride named their firstborn son after her father. So Abraham's firstborn son by Keturah was Joktan, named after Keturah's ruler-priest father. This Joktan the Younger is probably the founder of the Joktanite tribes of Arabia. Going back further, Methuselah's Kenite bride Naamah named their firstborn son Lamech after her father (see diagram below).

Related reading:  Shepherd Priests; The Ethnicity of David and Abraham; Who Were the Horites?; Abraham's Horite Mother; Why Jesus Visited Tyre; Afro-Asiatic Metalworkers

Mohammed and Kain's Descendants

Alice C. Linsley


Mohammed left Mecca in 622 A.D. after the Meccan chiefs of his own tribe had attempted to kill him. He went to Medina which was then called Yathrib. Compared with arid Mecca, Yathrib was a paradise with lush gardens, date-palm groves, and productive farms. It was originally a Horite settlement.  Yathrib (yt-rb) means "that which belongs to the son." The Y is a solar symbol also used to designate rulers such as Yaqtan, Yitzak, Yisbak, Yacob, Yosef, etc.

Medina is situated on the western edge of the central Arabian plateau in the heart of the region of Dedan. The Dedanites descended from Kush and from Abraham by his couisn wife, Keturah. Dedan the Younger was the son of Abraham's son Joktan.

Most Southern Arabians are descended from Abraham through Joktan, his first-born son.  He is remembered by Arabs as Yaqtan. Josephus knew him as Joctan and his name is preserved in the ancient town of Jectan near Mecca.

Medina had a population of roughly 10,000 people when Mohammed arrived. Word of his prophetic utterances had gone before him and he was greeted by the common folk as a prophet, many urging him to stay in their homes which they believed would bring a blessing upon their households. In Medina there were three clans of Kenites, descendents of Kain, the earliest ruler named in the Bible.[1] The Kenites had communities throughout the territories of Ham, Shem, Midian, Dedan, Raamah, Sheba and Joktan/Yaqtan.

In Medina, Mohammed built an open-air mosque with a shaded area to the south called the suffah and he aligned the prayer space facing north towards Jerusalem. The qibla (prayer direction) was later changed to face Mecca, to the south. Adjoining this mosque were homes for Mohammed’s two wives Sauda and Aisha. Aisha lived long after Mohammed died and was regarded as a prophet in her own right. Later Mohammed added other apartments for his many concubines. One of these was a Jewish girl named Safiya, who had been betrothed to the chief Kinana, who was slain when Mohammed’s raiders attacked the Khaibar Jews in their settlement six days journey northeast of Yathrib.

Among the people in Medina, there was a small community of Jews, a three-clan confederation who had resided in this area from before recorded history. These Jews agreed to protect Yathrib alongside Mohammed were the Meccans to attack. The agreement, called the Constitution of Medina, stated that “The Jews shall be responsible for their expenses and the Believers for theirs. Each, if attacked, shall come to the assistance of the other.” It also stated that “The Jews shall maintain their own religion and the Muslims theirs.” The nature of this treaty is the subject of dispute among historians. Many maintain that it is a cobbling together of oral and written agreements, and likely reflects different periods.[2]

The Banu Kainuka (بنو قينقاع‎) was one of the Jewish clans living in Medina. In 624, they threatened Mohammed's political authority by rejecting his claim to be The Prophet of Allah. Around this time, a Moslem girl visited a goldsmith shop owned by one of the Kainuka Jews. As she sat in the shop a mischievous Kainuka pinned her skirt behind her to her upper dress. When she arose she cried out in shame at her exposure. A Moslem then slew the offending Jew, whose brothers retaliated by killing the Moslem. For fifteen days, Mohammed blockaded the Kainuka Jews in their quarter until they surrendered. He then ordered them to leave Medina without their possessions.

These Jews were descendants of Kain or "Kenites" who had intermarried with their Arab brothers for many centuries. They numbered about 700, and their principal occupation was metal work. They resided in two fortresses in the south-western part of the city and they had Arabic names. Old Arabic, sometimes called "Dedanite" was in use in this region since the 8th century B.C.[3] 

Mohammed considered himself at war with the rulers of Mecca and felt justified in removing hostile elements living in Medina. He attacked the Banu-Nadhir Jews, charging them with helping his enemies and plotting against his life. After a three-week siege, these Jews were forced to leave Medina. This time, each family was allowed to take as much as a camel could carry.[4]

Mohammed appropriated their date orchards to support his household, and distributed other lands among his supporters.

Arab historians identify twenty Jewish clans living among the Arabs, including two priestly lines. These priestly lines are traced back to Abraham's Afro-Arabian ancestors. The priestly lines intermarried, with priests marrying the daughters of priests. This intermarriage began long before Jews can be identified as a separate group in about 580 BC. The ruling ancestors of Jews and Arabs intermarried so that the two groups are blood kin.


NOTES
 
1. Kain is associated with metal smiths and one of his descendents – Tubal-Kain – is said to be the “father” of smiths. Smiths held a high social status in the ancient world. Early in the Upper Nile, Badari smiths smelted copper. These are the same people who used ritual flint knives for circumcision, such at that used by Zipporah.

2. Ibn Ishak, an 8th century A.D.,  historian wrote a history for Muslims which includes genealogies representing the Islamic tradition. He appears to be the principal source of information about the Constitution of Medina.
 
3. The highest concentration of Old Arabic texts has been found in the region of Dedan. Genesis 10:7 tell us that Dedan the Elder was a grandson of the Kush by his son Raamah.
 
4. A large bull camel can carry up to 1323 pounds (600 kg) and smaller camels up to 882 pounds (400 kg). To read about Abraham's camels, go here.


Related reading: The Shock of Mohammed Atta's Afterlife; Some Jews and Some Arabs Have Horite Blood

Documents, Sources, and the Bible's Purpose

Alice C. Linsley

The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit always points us to Jesus Messiah. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the main purpose of the Bible is to help us understand who Jesus is and how His mission radically transforms all of life.

Twentieth century scholarship has failed to account for the purpose of the Bible. It has explored the texts from different disciples: text criticism, the documentary hypothesis, Near Eastern studies, and fundamentalist interpretations with their tendency to read Genesis as a literal account of the creation.

The Documentary Hypothesis proved to be of limited use, but it failed, as has most modern scholarship, to demonstrate the purpose of the Bible. Until we can answer that question we miss the larger picture.

The Documentary Hypothesis was the dominant approach in critical scholarship for most of the 20th century.  Its detractors were largely ignored, but some were too persuasive to dismiss, such an Hermann Gunkel. In his three commentaries on Genesis, Gunkel posed serious doubts about Wellhausen's hypothesis. Wellhausen regarded Genesis as a compilation of narratives projected back into pre-Mosiac times at the time of the Monarchy. He argued that the material reflects the life and times of the Monarchy and presents an erroneous picture of the earlier time of the Patriarchs. Gunkel, on the other hand, insisted that the Patriarchal sagas are a reliable oral transmission from before the time of Moses.

Wellhausen wasn't interested in the archaeological discoveries that shed light on the Afro-Asiatics living in Canaan, but Gunkel recognized that the finds of biblical archaeology revealed that Canaanite culture was not an anomaly. Rather it was consistent with the larger ethnological and linguistic heritage of the Afro-Asiatics who had been around for centuries before the time of Moses.

Both men failed to account for the purpose of the Bible, and especially for the uniqueness of Genesis, the account of Ha'biru (Hebrew) ruler-priests who preserved their bloodlines through endogamy. The intermarriage between fraternal priestly lines existed long before the emergence of the Jewish people. The pattern is consistent throughout the Bible and can be traced from Genesis to Jesus' mother, the Virgin Mary, the daughter of Joachim, a Hebrew priest. I have been unable to find the pattern muchbeyond Jesus' time, probably because the temple priests were either killed to forced to flee with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It is also possible that the pattern ended because with the incarnation of the Son of God, the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the Hebrew priest casts fulfilled its purpose, and that purpose is explained in the Bible.

The historical-critical method of Gunkel, R. H. Pfeiffer and Julian Morgenstern is helpful in identifying older sources. Pfeiffer identified the Seir Source (S) which brings forth the people of Edom whose history is linked to Abraham and his Horite ancestors. Morgenstern identified a Kenite Source (K) and explores the Kenite link to Moses through his bride, Zipporah. In both sources, we uncover important information about Jesus' ruler-priest ancestors. Pfeiffer and Morgenstern were scratching the more ancient level of the biblical material.

Having completed lengthy research on Genesis, I'm persuaded that the genealogical data provided is accurate, verifiable, and the account of historical people. This is the single conclusion that one could reach based on analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36. The analysis authenticates the data and proves that the rulers are historical persons.

The distinctive kinship pattern of the Horite Hebrew remains unchanged from Genesis to the New Testament. Some might assert that this pattern was written back into the text by a later editor. That would be impossible, given that the Bible consists of sixty-six books written by many different authors over a period of around 1300 years.

So how do we explain the consistent pattern of intermarriage between priestly lines from Genesis to the New Testament? There is only one explanation. The Bible is the account of the people whose story it claims to be: the ancestors of Jesus Christ our God. This provides a clue as to how the Bible came to be. Only God could have authored a book over 1300 years! Granted He used human agents, but they were agents who understood God’s purpose and who were attached to the ruler-priest lines from which Jesus would come.

Twentieth century scholarship has failed to account for the purpose of the Bible and for the uniqueness of Genesis. In part, this is due to the blind eye European scholars have turned to the African context of much of the earliest material.

Today it is impossible to ignore the African substrate, since the haplogroup of the biblical peoples has been identified and it includes peoples of Lake Chad and the Upper Nile. Genesis 10:8 tells us that Nimrod, the great kingdom builder, was a Kushite. Abraham is one of his descendants.

There were Habiru in Nimrod's kingdom. These ruler-priests married the daughters of other ruler-priests and thereby preserved their priestly bloodlines. Study of the Akkadian lexicon of Nimrod's kingdom tells us a great deal about these priests. They believed in a supreme Creator called Anu. Anu was said to have a son. The son of God was called En-Ki, which means "Lord over the Earth."

The endogamous marriage pattern of the Hebrew ruler-priests is consistent throughout the Bible and can be traced from Genesis to Jesus, the Son of God. The pattern ends with Jesus’ appearance, having fulfilled its purpose. The purpose of the Bible is to refresh the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our minds.

I wish all the readers of JUST GENESIS a blessed Holy Week. May you have joy in knowing that the Son of God has destroyed death and opened for us the way to Paradise.

Related reading: The Social Structure of the Biblical Hebrew (Part 1); Abraham's Ancestral Faith; The Virgin Mary's Ancestry; Marrying that Christ May be Born