Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
The sixth earth, the Ziah, is inhabited by handsome men, who are the
owners of abundant wealth, and live in palatial residences, but they
lack water, as the name of their territory, Ziah, "drought," indicates.
Hence vegetation is sparse with them, and their tree culture meets with
indifferent success. They hasten to any waterspring that is discovered,
and sometimes they succeed in slipping through it up to our earth,
where they satisfy their sharp appetite for the food eaten by the
inhabitants of our earth. For the rest, they are men of steadfast
faith, more than any other class of mankind.[36]
Adam remained in the Adamah until after the birth of Seth. Then,
passing the third earth, the Arka, the abiding place of the Cainites,
and the next three earths as well, the Ge, the Neshiah, and the Ziah,
God transported him to the Tebel, the seventh earth, the earth
inhabited by men.
THE DESCENDANTS OF CAIN
Cain knew only too well that his blood-guiltiness would be visited upon
him in the seventh generation. Thus had God decreed against him.[37] He
endeavored, therefore, to immortalize his name by means of
monuments,[38] and he became a builder of cities. The first of them he
called Enoch, after his son, because it was at the birth of Enoch that
he began to enjoy a measure of rest and peace.[39] Besides, he founded
six other cities.[40] This building of cities was a godless deed, for
he surrounded them with a wall, forcing his family to remain within.
All his other doings were equally impious. The punishment God had
ordained for him did not effect any improvement. He sinned in order to
secure his own pleasure, though his neighbors suffered injury thereby.
He augmented his household substance by rapine and violence; he excited
his acquaintances to procure pleasures and spoils by robbery, and he
became a great leader of men into wicked courses. He also introduced a
change in the ways of simplicity wherein men had lived before, and he
was the author of measures and weights. And whereas men lived
innocently and generously while they knew nothing of such arts, he
changed the world into cunning craftiness.[41]
Like unto Cain were all his descendants, impious and godless, wherefore
God resolved to destroy them.[42]
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