The Controversial Meaning of 'Timshel,' the Word at the Core of 'East of Eden'

Do we have free will and the ability to craft our own fates, or are we bound to play out a predetermined story written by forces outside our control? There is one scene in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden that resoundingly answers this question and encapsulates the book’s core thesis. It takes place in Chapter 24, during a discussion between the character Adam, his servant, Lee, and their neighbor, Samuel Hamilton.

The pair are discussing the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, and considering the warning that God delivers to Cain. In the King James Bible, the passage reads like this: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him” (Gen. 4:7). Adam, Samuel, and Lee’s discussion fixates on one part of that translation: thou shalt, a translation of the original Hebrew term timshel.

East of Eden and the question of timshel

Lee tells Adam that he took the passage to his Chinese elders, who studied it for years. “My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin,’” he says.

“Don’t you see?” he continues. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—’Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

In essence, Lee’s argument is that the real message of this passage is that humans can choose whether or not to sin. Both translations of the Bible that he references essentially order men to triumph over sin, but then, of course, Cain fails to do so. But according to Lee, this translation fails to encapsulate what God is really trying to say to Cain: that he has personal autonomy over his choices.

This is also a central theme of East of Eden, a book that recognizes the influence of inherited traits but ultimately argues that people possess free will and the power to choose good over evil. This theme—and the word that encapsulates it—has become something of a mantra for fans of the book, with many embracing it as a reminder that we all, as William Ernest Henley wrote in the poem “Invictus,” are the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls. 

Does timshel actually mean “thou mayest”?

Technically, the Hebrew word from Genesis 4:7 that Steinbeck is referencing is spelled timshol. Scholars do not entirely agree on why Steinbeck chose to spell it timshel, though we do know he went so far as to carve the altered spelling in Hebrew on the manuscript box in which he presented the completed novel to his editor. (Steinbeck’s son, Thomas, later claimed that his father’s hand had slipped when carving the box, thus turning the “o” sound into the “e” sound).

Additionally, strict adherents to Hebrew grammar say that the word actually translates to “thou shalt rule” or “thou wilt rule.” The 1917 Jewish Publication Society, meanwhile, lists the word’s translation as “thou mayest rule over it.”

Steinbeck’s translation accounts “only for the tav at the beginning of the word, a prefix that indicates you, singular masculine, future tense—you will,” writes Sheila Tuller Keiter for the Jewish Review of Books. “The remaining letters of the verb, mem, shin, lamed, form the Hebrew root that means to rule, control, or govern.”

How did Steinbeck settle on his “thou mayest” translation of timshel? 

While Steinbeck was writing East of Eden, he asked his editor, Pascal Covici, to connect him to a rabbinical authority to help with the translation of Genesis 4:7. Covici subsequently began corresponding with the renowned rabbinical scholar Professor Louis Ginzberg of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. 

Ginzberg’s assessment of the passage is not entirely clear, but Steinbeck’s letters do reveal that he didn’t entirely agree with it. “Don’t forget that in the Jewish translation you sent, they did not think ‘timshel’ was a pure future tense. They translated it ‘thou mayest.’ This means that at least there is a difference of opinion and that is enough for me,” Steinbeck wrote in a letter to his editor regarding Ginzberg’s assessment. “I will have to have the whole verb before I will finish, from infinitive on through past, subjunctives and compounds and futures. But we will get it. We may have to go outside of rabbinical thought to pure scholarship which may be non-Jewish….Dr. Ginzberg, dealing in theology, may have a slightly different attitude from that of a pure etymologist.”

It’s also possible, Keiter speculates, that Ginzberg’s Lithuanian (or Litvish) accent may have led him to pronounce timshol like timshel, leading to the translation that appears in East of Eden. Regardless, it’s also clear that Steinbeck was attached to his own interpretation of timshel’s meaning and was determined to make it part of his book.

What does timshel mean in East of Eden?

East of Eden tells a multi-generational story of two families living in California’s Salinas Valley. One family is the Hamiltons, who were loosely inspired by Steinbeck’s own maternal family. The other is the Trask family, which consists of a man named Adam, his wife Cathy, and their two sons, Caleb and Aron. 

Cathy is a monstrous and cruel woman who abandons her sons when they are young. The book explores the consequences of her actions and the way they manifest in both of her boys, Cal and Aron, who embody elements of Cain and Abel’s contrasting natures. The novel explores human nature, choice, and the capacity each person has within them for both good and evil.

Timshel gets to the heart of the novel’s argument that each person has within them the ability to choose their own fate. The word embodies Steinbeck’s argument that no one is defined by their pasts, and that we all have the ability to choose how we respond to what happens in our lives—to choose to live in a way that prioritizes love over fear, peace over violence, and empathy over cruelty. 

Regardless of its original meaning and spelling, Steinbeck’s version of timshel has become well-loved by many, serving as a reminder that we can always choose how we respond to life’s vicissitudes. Perhaps, as some have argued, the word is evidence of Steinbeck’s attempts to impose his own free will on language itself, using his power of choice to create a new word that has gone on to inspire countless people. 

Ultimately, we may not have the power to change the past or to ask Steinbeck about his translation process—but we are certainly free to choose whether or not to adopt his concept of timshel.