The sign set on Cain
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καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Κύριος ὁ θεός Οὐχ οὕτως· πᾶς ὁ ἀποκτείνας Κάιν ἑπτὰ ἐκδικούμενα παραλύσει. καὶ ἔθετο Κύριος ὁ θεὸς σημεῖον τῷ Κάιν τοῦ μὴ ἀνελεῖν αὐτὸν πάντα τὸν εὑρίσκοντα αὐτόν.
Οὐχ οὕτως, "Not so," is a famous crux: many scholars think the LXX's translators here misread Hebrew לָכֵן (lākhēn, "therefore") as לֹא כֵן ("not so"), turning what the Hebrew reads as an ordinary consequential "therefore" into an emphatic denial — as if correcting Cain's own fear. σημεῖον, "a sign," gives us "the mark of Cain," though the text never says what it was — only its purpose, protective rather than punitive: τοῦ μὴ ἀνελεῖν αὐτόν, "that no one should kill him." παραλύσει, "shall discharge, release" (also, elsewhere, "to disable, paralyze" — the ordinary New Testament sense at Luke 5:18,24 and Heb 12:12's "feeble hands"), is used here in its rarer legal-financial sense of paying out or exacting a penalty.
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