Rightly offered, rightly divided
Read the full text in our reader
οὐκ ἐὰν ὀρθῶς προσενέγκῃς, ὀρθῶς δὲ μὴ διέλῃς, ἥμαρτες; ἡσύχασον· πρὸς σὲ ἡ ἀποστροφὴ αὐτοῦ, καὶ σὺ ἄρξεις αὐτοῦ.
This is the LXX's most famous departure from the Hebrew of Genesis 4, and one of the Old Testament's hardest cruxes in either language. The Hebrew ("sin crouches at the door… its desire is for you, but you must master it") is not what Swete's Greek says: instead of a personified "sin" (ἁμαρτία, a word that never appears in this verse) crouching at a door, the LXX has God ask a legal-sounding double question about the *offering* — did Cain bring it ὀρθῶς, "rightly," and did he ὀρθῶς διέλῃς, "rightly divide" it — and only then judge: ἥμαρτες, "you sinned" (the verb, not the noun). ἀποστροφή, "turning, recourse," is the same rare, debated word used of Eve at Gen 3:16 (ch3-lex.json's entry there): whatever "its turning is toward you" means, the wording deliberately echoes the marriage-verse, applying the same enigmatic vocabulary to Cain's contest with something (his brother? his own sin-impulse? the text supplies no unambiguous antecedent).
Open The Septuagint 4.7 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the The Septuagint — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
The Septuagint 4.7 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/septuagint/4.7/