Genesis 4:5

Cain vs. Abel: Who is Who?

Hebrew ויחר. and he is kindling/burning. Who is burning? The Hebrew charah (Strong’s #2734) meaning to kindle, glow, blaze up, has always been interpreted as "anger" and is used of people, not abstract things. It is typically and uniquely expressed as he is kindling to himself or he is kindling his nostril in. For example,

“And a nostril of Yahweh is kindling within Moses…” Ex. 4:14 RBT

Moses wasn't the one kindling.  "Yahweh within Moses" would mean Yahweh kindling within Moses. In instances like these translators force the singular masculine Qal form to mean an abstract (causative) “it”. That is, they assume that some “event” or “circumstance” is being referred to by the verb, i.e. it burned to Cain. From this odd conjecture, translators might then change it altogether to a causative “it angered” even though a Hiphil causative verb form is not used here. This is forcing an odd and ambiguous meaning onto a concrete verb in favor of a specific, long-standing tradition. How does an “event” burn in anger? This same verb ויחר is used of Jacob in Gen. 30:2 who "kindled in Rachel."

The text in the literal allows for the story to be understood quite differently, i.e. Cain was the one who slaughtered his dark side, the "brother of himself." The NT references in Greek also allow for this if tradition and bias are put aside. For example, 1 John 3:11-12 says literally,

“...not according as Cain was from the Evil one, and he slaughtered the brother of himself, and for the favor of whom he slaughtered himself, because the Works of himself were evil ones. Those ones however of the brother of himself, righteous/just ones.”

Cain “became just out of the evil self,” John says, which is exactly what Jesus taught his friends to pray, deliver us from out of the evil one.