Abel: the second son of Adam and Eve, the shepherd whose offering God accepted and whom his brother Cain killed.
In Hebrew this name is spelled and said exactly like the everyday word for a puff of breath or a wisp of vapor (הֶבֶל), the word Ecclesiastes repeats when it says that everything is fleeting. Naming a son Hevel is close to naming him Breath. The story never pauses to explain the name, the way it explains his brother's a verse earlier, so the hint is left for the reader to hear in the word itself.
All five verses that carry the name belong to one short episode:
- He is born after Cain and becomes a keeper of sheep.
- He brings the best of his flock and God accepts it.
- His brother kills him in a field, and God asks Cain where he is.
- When Seth is born, Abel is spoken of as the son who was lost.
The name is never used of anyone or anything else in the Hebrew Bible, and within a handful of verses the man himself is gone. Most readers of the Hebrew hear the name as a quiet forecast of that: a life as brief as an exhaled breath.
Where the name came from is a separate question from what it sounds like. An older proposal traced it to a foreign word for "son"; most scholars now prefer the plain Hebrew connection, and the standard lexicons rate the foreign derivation unlikely. Some scholars also think Ecclesiastes' famous refrain that everything is breath deliberately looks back at Abel, whose life was short, whose treatment was unjust, and who was gone before he could hold on to anything. Others hear no more than a faint echo.
Disputed
Whether the name הֶבֶל is the common Hebrew noun "breath, vapor," chosen proleptically for the brevity of Abel's life, or a name of foreign derivation unrelated to that noun.
- majorityThe name is the Hebrew noun for breath or vapor, and the narrative intends the resonance: the brevity of his life shows the name to be prophetic, even though Genesis supplies no explicit etymology for it as it does for Cain in the preceding verse.; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (Word Biblical Commentary, 1987), 102; N. M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), 32; V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 1-17 (NICOT, 1990); U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part I (Magnes, 1961); G. von Rad, Genesis (Old Testament Library, rev. ed. 1972); R. Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (Norton, 1996)
- minoritySince the narrative offers no etymology for Abel at all, in contrast to Cain in verse 1, the connection with the noun for breath is at most the narrator's understated hint and should not be pressed as a stated meaning of the name.; C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11 (Continental Commentary, 1984), 292-293
- minorityThe name derives from the Akkadian word for son (aplu / ablu) and is therefore unrelated to the Hebrew noun for breath; the proposal applies to the name only, not to the common noun.; E. Schrader and J. Wellhausen, as reported in BDB, s.v. הֶבֶל, 210-211, where the derivation is rated "not probable"