Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 4:8

"And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." — Genesis 4:8 (ASV)

And Cain talked with Abel his brother. —Hebrew, And Cain said to Abel his brother. To this the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Vulgate add, "Let us go out into the field"; but neither the Targum of Onkelos nor any Hebrew manuscript or authority, except the Jerusalem Targum, gives this addition any support. The authority of the versions is, however, very great: first, because Hebrew manuscripts are all comparatively modern; and secondly, because all at present known represent only the Recension of the Masorites.

Sooner or later some manuscript may be found which will enable scholars to form a critical judgment upon those places where the versions represent a different text. If we could, with the Authorized Version, translate "Cain talked with Abel," this would imply that Cain triumphed for a time over his angry feelings, and resumed friendly intercourse with his brother. But such a rendering is impossible, as also is one that has been suggested, "Cain told it to Abel his brother"—that is, told all that had passed between him and Jehovah. Either, therefore, we must accept the addition of the versions, or regard the passage as at present beyond our powers.

It came to pass, when they were in the field. —The open, uncultivated land, where Abel’s flocks would find pasture. We cannot suppose that this murder was premeditated. Cain did not even know what a human death was. But, as Philippson remarks, there was a perpetual struggle between the farmers who cultivated fixed plots of ground and the wandering shepherds whose flocks were too prone to stray upon the tilled fields.

Possibly Abel’s flocks had trespassed on Cain’s land, and when he went to remonstrate, his envy was stirred at the sight of his brother’s affluence. A quarrel ensued, and Cain, in that fierce anger, to fits of which he was liable (Genesis 4:5), tried to enforce his mastery by blows, and before he well knew what he was doing, he had shed his brother’s blood, and stood in terror before the first human corpse.