How Shifting One Letter Can Eliminate Eve’s Curse

Moving a Hebrew consonant from one word to another adjacent to it can change meaning as illustrated here with a portion of a verse from Genesis 4:7 regarding Cain’s sin. Read in the conventional way the words are as follows:

Two scholars translate the passage as follows:

For E.A. Speiser;¹ a concerned YHWH warns Cain, “Sin is the demon at the door, whose urge is toward you; yet you can be his master.”

For Everett Fox,² an austere YHWH admonishes Cain, “At the entrance is sin, a crouching-demon, toward you his lust—but you can rule over him.”

Because word separations are uncertain in biblical Hebrew,^a the last letter “sin” may be shifted to the, beginning of the word, “lying down,” Then the following reading is possible:

For Adrien Bledstein, who shifts the tov to the left, the passage now presents a kindly yet firm YHWH who cautions Cain lest he become a predator: