Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Abel was stronger than Cain, as the verse need not have stated: “rose up.” Rather, it teaches that he had been situated underneath him. He [Cain] said to him: ‘There are the two of us in the world, what will you go and say to Father?’35If you kill me. He [Abel] became filled with mercy for him [and released him].
Immediately, he [Cain] rose up against him and killed him. From there they say: Do not do a favor for a wicked person, and evil will not befall you. “And killed him” – with what did he kill him? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: He killed him with a stick, as it is stated: “Or [have I slain] a child by my bruise?” (Genesis 4:23)36Lemekh was telling his wives here that he, unlike Cain, did not kill anyone by inflicting a bruise. – an item that causes a bruise.
The Rabbis say: He killed him with a stone, as it is stated: “Have I slain a man by my wound?” (Genesis 4:23) – an item that causes wounds. Rabbi Azarya and Rabbi Yonatan bar Ḥagai said in the name of Rabbi Yitzḥak: Cain looked from where his father had slaughtered that bull in whose regard it is stated: “And may it be pleasing to the Lord like an ox and bull” (Psalms 69:32), and he killed him from there, from the place of the neck, from the place of the signs.37The trachea and the esophagus are the human counterparts of the animal’s windpipe and gullet, which are referred to as an animals’s ‘signs.’
During ritual slaughter, one must cut a majority of each of these ‘signs’ to render the animal kosher. Who buried him? Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat said: The birds of the heavens and the kosher beasts buried him, and the Holy One blessed be He rewarded them with the two blessings that one recites over them – one for slaughter and one for covering the blood.38See Leviticus 17:13.