The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Genesis 4:8-16

⁸ Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’^[a] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

⁹ Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

¹⁰ The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. ¹¹ Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.’

¹³ Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is more than I can bear. ¹⁴ Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.’

¹⁵ But the Lord said to him, ‘Not so;^[b] anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.’ Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. ¹⁶ So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,^[c] east of Eden.

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Last week’s entry discussed Cain and Abel’s respective offerings to the Lord. Abel’s pleased the Lord greatly, as did his personal character. However, God was displeased with Cain’s offering and his character. God told Cain that he had the opportunity to make things right or enter a battle with sin. Cain remained unrepentant.

Afterwards, Cain suggested to Abel that they go out into the field; while they were there, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him (verse 8).

There is a lot in that verse. First, the two brothers going out into the field to their respective duties — crops for Cain, livestock for Abel — would have been a normal thing to do. Secondly, Cain, filled with anger and envy, deceived his righteous brother and killed him in the field. Thirdly, we have the first murder in the Bible and, sadly, it took only one generation from Adam and Eve for such a heinous act to occur.

Such is the depth and breadth of sin. It starts small and grows quickly.

Matthew Henry discusses Cain’s dreadful sin:

… Cain’s sin; and a scarlet, crimson, sin it was, a sin of the first magnitude, a sin against the light and law of nature, and which the consciences even of bad men have startled at. See in it, 1. The sad effects of sin’s entrance into the world and into the hearts of men. See what a root of bitterness the corrupt nature is, which bears this gall and wormwood. Adam’s eating forbidden fruit seemed but a little sin, but it opened the door to the greatest. 2. A fruit of the enmity which is in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman. As Abel leads the van in the noble army of martyrs (Matt 23 35), so Cain stands in the front of the ignoble army of persecutors, Jude 11. So early did he that was after the flesh persecute him that was after the Spirit; and so it is now, more or less (Gal 4 29), and so it will be till the war shall end in the eternal salvation of all the saints and the eternal perdition of all that hate them. 3. See also what comes of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; if they be indulged and cherished in the soul, they are in danger of involving men in the horrid guilt of murder itself. Rash anger is heart-murder, Matt 5 21, 22. Much more is malice so; he that hates his brother is already a murderer before God; and, if God leave him to himself, he wants nothing but an opportunity to render him a murderer before the world. Many were the aggravations of Cain’s sin. (1.) It was his brother, his own brother, that he murdered, his own mother’s son (Ps 50 20), whom he ought to have loved, his younger brother, whom he ought to have protected. (2.) He was a good brother, one who had never done him any wrong, nor given him the least provocation in word or deed, but one whose desire had been always towards him, and who had been, in all instances, dutiful and respectful to him. (3.) He had fair warning given him, before, of this. God himself had told him what would come of it, yet he persisted in his barbarous design.

John MacArthur says that Cain preferred his love of sin to the pursuit of righteousness:

Even though sin is inherited and actual, it can be defeated – but only as we come to God on His terms, embracing His sacrifice for us, with no hope of self-righteousness. And that was what God offered Cain. That was the Word of God to Cain.

God – listen – was the first evangelist. And God was giving to the sinner two choices: this way, that way. Do what’s right from the heart and in the behavior. If you continue the way you’re going, you’ve got a life of conflict and you’ll lose. And this sinner rejected the Word of God, just like they all do. We know that because of verse 8. Cain told his brother (could be talked with, spoke with his brother) and the conversation either occurred in the field or set up a meeting in the field. It’s really – it’s an incomplete sentence, even in the Hebrew.

The best way we can handle it is just say, “Cain talked to Abel, his brother.” They had a conversation. And it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Abel was lured into a trap set by his evil brother, Cain. Cain decided this: “I don’t want God, I don’t want forgiveness, I don’t want righteousness, I want sin. I love sin, my heart hankers for sin, I’m going to plan to sin, and I’m going to find my greatest fulfillment in my sin.”

Now let me tell you something, folks, that’s where the sinner ends up. “I don’t want righteousness, I don’t want God, I don’t want forgiveness, I want sin.” Jesus said it this way, “Men loved darkness rather than light because” – what? – “their deeds are evil.” They love their sin.

People say to me so often, you know, “Why doesn’t someone come to Christ? Why doesn’t someone come to Christ? Why do people reject?” And the answer is very simple: They love their sin. They’re not desperate. They don’t want to be delivered. This is a man who was getting a direct evangelistic message from the creator God Himself. There were only four people on the planet, and he knew who was talking to him. And he knew what God could do in his life because his parents had surely told him very often about paradise and about walking and talking with God in the cool of the day.

And God said He would take away the anger and the bitterness of his heart, and He would lift up his face, and Cain said, “Sorry, I don’t want your righteousness, I don’t want your forgiveness, I don’t want a relationship with you, I want my sin.” So he plotted it all. He loved his sin and he was fulfilled by his sin. And so he put together a trap and caught his brother in it. And by the way, in the Hebrew, “his brother” in verse 8 is emphatic. It says, “Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.” “His brother” is emphatic in the Hebrew, emphasizing the closeness, the intimacy.

Henry has more on Cain’s heinous sin:

(5.) That which the scripture tells us was the reason why he slew him was a sufficient aggravation of the murder; it was because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous, so that herein he showed himself to be of that wicked one (1 John 3 12), a child of the devil, as being an enemy to all righteousness, even in his own brother, and, in this, employed immediately by the destroyer. Nay, (6.) In killing his brother, he directly struck at God himself; for God’s accepting Abel was the provocation pretended, and for this very reason he hated Abel, because God loved him. (7.) The murder of Abel was the more inhuman because there were now so few men in the world to replenish it. The life of a man is precious at any time; but it was in a special manner precious now, and could ill be spared.

This chapter also gives us the first martyr in the Bible: righteous Abel.

Henry looks at Abel’s character:

… now, 1. The first that dies is a saint, one that was accepted and beloved of God, to show that, though the promised seed was so far to destroy him that had the power of death as to save believers from its sting, yet still they should be exposed to its stroke. The first that went to the grave went to heaven. God would secure to himself the first-fruits, the first-born to the dead, that first opened the womb into another world. Let this take off the terror of death, that it was betimes the lot of God’s chosen, which alters the property of it. Nay, 2. The first that dies is a martyr, and dies for his religion; and of such it may more truly be said than of soldiers that they die on the bed of honour. Abel’s death has not only no curse in it, but it has a crown in it; so admirably well is the property of death altered that it is not only rendered innocent and inoffensive to those that die in Christ, but honourable and glorious to those that die for him. Let us not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, nor shrink if we be called to resist unto blood; for we know there is a crown of life for all that are faithful unto death.

MacArthur feels for Eve, who had placed such great hopes in Cain, hoping that he would be the one to vanquish Satan — Genesis 3:15:

¹⁵ And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring^[a] and hers;
he will crush^[b]your head,
    and you will strike his heel.’

MacArthur says:

Here were two sons, two seeds, one on the side of God, one on the side of Satan. And Cain, who the New Testament says (1 John 3) is of the evil one, he was the seed of the serpent. Poor Eve. When that first son was born, she thought he might be her seed who would bruise the serpent’s head, and it turns out that Cain was actually the seed of the serpent himself.

MacArthur discusses the meaning of kill, the debate about which continues today:

The word “killed” – end of verse 8 – common word in the Old Testament for intentional murder, not manslaughter, not an inadvertent kind of killing. This is a murder done out of envy, this is a murder done out of jealousy, done out of hatred. This is a murder done because there was a feeling of being inferior to righteous Abel, and his righteousness became intolerable to Cain. He hated his righteousness. Well, of course, there were only two people [offspring] in the world. If he wanted to have a conversation, he only had one person he could pick except his parents, so he had to hang around this righteous man.

And hanging around a righteous man can be very irritating to the unrighteous. First John 3, “Cain, who was of the evil one, slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil and his brother’s were righteous.” It just ground on him that Abel was righteous. I’m not surprised that through the history of the world God’s people have been killed, slaughtered, persecuted, and that it’s going on even today. We hear today [the year 2000] that there are more Christians today being martyred than at any time in history.

So here’s a doomed unbeliever. Has a hopeful beginning but soon offers unacceptable worship in his self-styled religion. When he’s rejected, he resents those that are truly righteous, that truly belong to God. He gets mad at them and he gets furious with God. Then on top of that, he rejects the very Word of God, who comes to him in a gracious way and offers him forgiveness. This is how it is with these apostates.

The Lord, who knows everything, asked Cain (verse 9), ‘Where is your brother Abel?’

Henry says that some scholars think this would have happened at the next family worship. In any event, God was after a confession from Cain:

Some think Cain was thus examined the next sabbath after the murder was committed, when the sons of God came, as usual, to present themselves before the Lord, in a religious assembly, and Abel was missing, whose place did not use to be empty; for the God of heaven takes notice who is present at and who is absent from public ordinances. Cain is asked, not only because there is just cause to suspect him, he having discovered a malice against Abel and having been last with him, but because God knew him to be guilty; yet he asks him, that he may draw from him a confession of his crime, for those who would be justified before God must accuse themselves, and the penitent will do so.

Yet, Cain was still unrepentant. He not only lied but also railed at God (verse 9), ‘‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

Henry discusses Cain’s heartless response:

… he pleads not guilty, and adds rebellion to his sin. For, 1. He endeavours to cover a deliberate murder with a deliberate lie: I know not. He knew well enough what had become of Abel, and yet had the impudence to deny it. Thus, in Cain, the devil was both a murderer and a liar from the beginning. See how sinners’ minds are blinded, and their hearts hardened by the deceitfulness of sin: those are strangely blind that think it possible to conceal their sins from a God that sees all, and those are strangely hard that think it desirable to conceal them from a God who pardons those only that confess. 2. He impudently charges his Judge with folly and injustice, in putting this question to him: Am I my brother’s keeper? He should have humbled himself, and have said, Am not I my brother’s murderer? But he flies in the face of God himself, as if he had asked him an impertinent question, to which he was no way obliged to give an answer: “Am I my brother’s keeper? Surely he is old enough to take care of himself, nor did I ever take any charge of him.” Some think he reflects on God and his providence, as if he had said, “Art not thou his keeper? If he be missing, on thee be the blame, and not on me, who never undertook to keep him.” Note, a charitable concern for our brethren, as their keepers, is a great duty, which is strictly required of us, but is generally neglected by us. Those who are unconcerned in the affairs of their brethren, and take no care, when they have opportunity, to prevent their hurt in their bodies, goods, or good name, especially in their souls, do, in effect, speak Cain’s language. See Lev 19 17; Phil 2 4.

The Lord responded by asking Cain what he had done, then said ‘Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground’ (verse 10).

MacArthur says that Cain’s response is the answer of an unbeliever. MacArthur seems to think that this questioning happened soon after the murder rather than later, as Henry posits:

The doomed try to hide their sin or hide from their sin. Unbelievers, even when confronted with the truth – they might come to church – they might not hear the voice of God as Cain did, of course, today – but they might come to church and they might hear a message about sin. They refuse to listen, they refuse to admit their sin, they inevitably repudiate responsibility. This is characteristic of doomed people.

For the most part, they just will not accept the diagnosis. The Lord then said to Cain, “‘Where is Abel, your brother?’” And again, remember, God doesn’t need information. Because in verse 10, God said, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground,” so God knew what had happened. What this does reveal is that Cain was no longer near the body. Here’s God, confronts Cain and says, “Where is Abel, your brother?” which means that Abel wasn’t right there, which means that Cain had run. And that’s what the sinner does, he flees the debacle that his sins have left, and he carries on the appearance of being an upstanding and noble person.

This is typical of the sinner. He flees the scene of his crime, carries on the ruse of his self-righteousness. “Where is Abel, your brother?” And he said, “I do not know.” He not only flees the scene but he lies to cover. Again, here is a sinner who is a fixed sinner, affirming his rebellion. He won’t even acknowledge his sin. He didn’t say, “He’s over there, just where I left him after I killed him.” He says, “I don’t know.” Oh, the sinner, in his need for self-righteousness, runs from the scene of his crime, tries to hide his sin.

And then he says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Like, “I don’t have any responsibility for him.” What he’s saying to God is, “Your questions aren’t even appropriate. Why should I know where he is? Am I supposed to be taking care of him?” He is saying, “Your questions are irrelevant.” This is the sinner, hiding from his crime and hiding the truth about his wickedness. This is that pattern that you see in the sinner who will not acknowledge his sin.

So, God cursed Cain for his lie and his unrepentance.

God began by saying that Cain would be under a curse and driven from the ground which ‘opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand’ (verse 11).

Henry offers this analysis:

God gave no direct answer to his question, but rejected his plea as false and frivolous: “What hast thou done? Thou makest a light matter of it; but hast thou considered what an evil thing it is, how deep the stain, how heavy the burden, of this guilt is? Thou thinkest to conceal it, but it is to no purpose, the evidence against thee is clear and incontestable: The voice of thy brother’s blood cries.“ He speaks as if the blood itself were both witness and prosecutor, because God’s own knowledge testified against him and God’s own justice demanded satisfaction. Observe here, 1. Murder is a crying sin, none more so. Blood calls for blood, the blood of the murdered for the blood of the murderer; it cries in the dying words of Zechariah (2 Chron 24 22), The Lord look upon it and require it; or in those of the souls under the altar (Rev 6 10), How long, Lord, holy, and true? The patient sufferers cried for pardon (Father, forgive them), but their blood cries for vengeance. Though they hold their peace, their blood has a loud and constant cry, to which the ear of the righteous God is always open. 2. The blood is said to cry from the ground, the earth, which is said to open her mouth to receive his brother’s blood from his hand, v. 11. The earth did, as it were, blush to see her own face stained with such blood, and therefore opened her mouth to hide that which she could not hinder. When the heaven revealed Cain’s iniquity, the earth also rose up against him (Job 20 27), and groaned on being thus made subject to vanity, Rom 8 20, 22. Cain, it is likely, buried the blood and the body, to conceal his crime; but “murder will out.” He did not bury them so deep but the cry of them reached heaven. 3. In the original the word is plural, thy brother’s bloods, not only his blood, but the blood of all those that might have descended from him; or the blood of all the seed of the woman, who should, in like manner, seal the truth with their blood. Christ puts all on one score (Matt 23 35); or because account was kept of every drop of blood shed. How well is it for us that the blood of Christ speaks better things than that of Abel! Heb 12 24. Abel’s blood cried for vengeance, Christ’s blood cries for pardon.

… And now art thou cursed from the earth, v. 11. Observe here,

1. He is cursed, separated to all evil, laid under the wrath of God, as it is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, Rom 1 18. Who knows the extent and weight of a divine curse, how far it reaches, how deep it pierces? God’s pronouncing a man cursed makes him so; for those whom he curses are cursed indeed. The curse for Adam’s disobedience terminated on the ground: Cursed is the ground for thy sake; but that for Cain’s rebellion fell immediately upon himself: Thou art cursed; for God had mercy in store for Adam, but none for Cain. We have all deserved this curse, and it is only in Christ that believers are saved from it and inherit the blessing, Gal 3 10, 13.

MacArthur has more:

God pulls him into the court. God is the interrogator who asks, “What have you done?” God is the investigator who brings in the evidence, and the evidence is the blood of Abel, crying to God out of the ground, metaphorically. God moves from being the interrogator to being the investigator to then being the prosecutor, and there are no more questions. Verse 11, “Now you are cursed.” Brought before the divine tribunal, this is the indictment of God, interrogator, investigator, and prosecutor. And judge. No more questions. “Your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” Really an important sentence in the Bible.

Every crime committed, every sin committed rises to God, cries to God. Whatever that sin is, it cries to God. That’s why David in Psalm 51 said, “Against thee, thee only have I sinned.” He knew that every sin reaches God. That’s a figure of speech to indicate that every sin rises to God, and all sin offends Him and is known to Him. God responds as the divine avenger. He was the evangelist, and then He became the interrogator and the investigator and the prosecutor.

And the blood of dead Abel, obviously, couldn’t actually speak, but the fact that there was blood on the ground spoke volumes to God. It cried out to God before His heavenly throne, demanding divine vengeance, and Cain is bloodguilty before God. And the divine sentence comes in verse 11. “Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.” The very ground from which he had drawn his self-congratulatory offerings, the very ground which had yielded the crop which was such a delight to him, that very ground, which not only gave him the crops but opened its mouth to receive his brother’s blood.

And that’s the final verdict, that Cain is the killer, by the way. That is the final statement. “From your hand,” at the end of verse 11. 

Then God said that when Cain worked the ground in future, it would no longer yield crops for him; furthermore, he would become a restless wanderer — a vagabond — on the earth (verse 12).

Henry explains the gravity of this curse:

Cain found his punishment where he chose his portion and set his heart. Two things we expect from the earth, and by this curse both are denied to Cain and taken from him: sustenance and settlement. (1.) Sustenance out of the earth is here withheld from him. It is a curse upon him in his enjoyments, and particularly in his calling: When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee its strength. Note, every creature is to us what God makes it, a comfort or a cross, a blessing or a curse. If the earth yield not her strength to us, we must therein acknowledge God’s righteousness; for we have not yielded our strength to him. The ground was cursed before to Adam, but it was now doubly cursed to Cain. That part of it which fell to his share, and of which he had the occupation, was made unfruitful and uncomfortable to him by the blood of Abel. Note, the wickedness of the wicked brings a curse upon all they do and all they have (Deut 28 15, etc.), and this curse embitters all they have and disappoints them in all they do. (2.) Settlement on the earth is here denied him: A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. By this he was condemned, [1.] To perpetual disgrace and reproach among men. It should be ever looked upon as a scandalous thing to harbour him, converse with him, or show him any countenance. And justly was a man that had divested himself of all humanity abhorred and abandoned by all mankind, and made infamous. [2.] To perpetual disquietude and horror in his own mind. His own guilty conscience should haunt him wherever he went, and make him Magormissabib, a terror round about. What rest can those find, what settlement, that carry their own disturbance with them in their bosoms wherever they go? Those must needs be fugitives that are thus tossed. There is not a more restless fugitive upon earth than he that is continually pursued by his own guilt, nor a viler vagabond than he that is at the beck of his own lusts.

Even so, Henry posits that God would have forgiven Cain had he repented:

… even in this there was mercy mixed, inasmuch as he was not immediately cut off, but had space given him to repent; for God is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish.

MacArthur has this:

That ground, which has received your brother’s blood, that ground which yielded you the crops will be reluctant to yield its bounty to you from now on. You will never be able to survive as a farmer. You are cursed from the ground.” This, by the way, is a direct commentary on the offering of Cain. God would see that he never, ever was able again to make another offering of the fruit of the ground. No more hypocritical offerings.

The curse is further explained in verse 12. “When you cultivate the ground, if you try, it’ll no longer yield its strength to you.” You’re never going to be able to produce anything out of the ground. You’re never going to be able to farm. If you try, you’re going to get absolutely nothing. At the point of your cherished pride, at the point of your cherished profession, you will not succeed.

Cain replied saying that this punishment was more than he could bear (verse 13).

Henry says that Cain cannot see God’s justice in this curse and points out that the Pharaoh in Egypt had a similar mindset:

Cain seems rather to speak the language of indignation: My punishment is greater than I can bear; and so what he says is a reproach and affront to the justice of God, and a complaint, not of the greatness of his sin, but of the extremity of his punishment, as if this were disproportionable to his merits. Instead of justifying God in the sentence, he condemns him, not accepting the punishment of his iniquity, but quarrelling with it. Note, impenitent unhumbled hearts are therefore not reclaimed by God’s rebukes because they think themselves wronged by them; and it is an evidence of great hardness to be more concerned about our sufferings than about our sins. Pharaoh’s care was concerning this death only, not this sin (Exod 10 17); so was Cain’s here. He is a living man, and yet complains of the punishment of his sin, Lam 3 39. He thinks himself rigorously dealt with when really he is favourably treated; and he cries out of wrong when he has more reason to wonder that he is out of hell. Woe unto him that thus strives with his Maker, and enters into judgment with his Judge.

Both commentators say that God could, rightly, have killed Cain on the spot.

Henry says:

God could have taken vengeance by an immediate stroke from heaven, by the sword of an angel, or by a thunderbolt; but he chose to make the earth the avenger of blood, to continue him upon the earth, and not immediately to cut him off, and yet to make even this his curse.

MacArthur goes further, saying that a) there was no government in place to deliver a sentence and b) God wanted Cain to be an example to what happens when grave sin is committed:

Why doesn’t God just kill Cain? Why doesn’t He just slay him on the spot?

Doesn’t tell us, but there are several thoughts. One, grace – and certainly that’s true, isn’t it? God is by nature gracious. And even though God had pronounced a curse on Cain, He was still going to extend some grace to him. Secondly, government. The right of capital punishment belongs to a duly constituted government and is never, ever to be an act of personal, private vengeance. God didn’t establish an illustration of personal vengeance here. God could have said, “Okay, I’m going to ask your father, Adam, to kill you.” There was no government at this point. God designed capital punishment to be carried out by society, not as a matter of personal vengeance.

And I agree with capital punishment. Judicial execution is indeed the usual punishment for murder, prescribed by God, but at the time, there were no established courts. To be put to death by the blood avenger as a means of punishment is opposed by the law of God. And when there was no court to sentence him to death, God graciously allowed him to live.

And I think there’s a third reason God allowed him to live. If God killed him, there wouldn’t be any living example of what an unbeliever’s life is like. Might have been the best thing to kill him rather than have him go on with the horrible life he lived, but if God had killed him, then there wouldn’t be anybody to see what an ungodly life is like. And so I think because there were so few people in the world, God wanted to make it very clear to the rest that were being born after that the distinction between the life of the righteous and the life of the unrighteous.

MacArthur explains what ‘restless wanderer’ means:

So He says to him in verse 12, “You’ll be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” This is what they call a hendiadys, which is just, “You’ll be a wandering wanderer.” You’ll be a roaming roamer, is the kind of idea. Not a nomadic shepherd, that’s different. Not somebody who has sort of a mobile tent and moves around. You’ll just be a vagrant. You will be a wanderer. You will never stop anywhere. You will never be able to do anything but wander just to eke out survival.

You will be a fugitive, a nawanod, a wandering wanderer, a wandering fugitive. Cain was to be a vagabond, aimless, detached, no roots, roaming the earth under the sentence of God. And this, again, is the pattern for the unbeliever, for the lost person. Meandering purposelessly, meaninglessly through the world, under divine judgment. Nothing they ever touch has any eternal value, nothing they ever touch has any lasting meaning. They cannot draw anything out of life that matters eternally.

Cain continued talking, saying that God was driving him from the land and that he would be hidden from His presence; as he would become a restless wanderer — vagabond — whoever finds him could kill him (verse 14).

Henry says that some scholars interpret ‘whoever’ to include ‘whatever’, meaning animals:

Some read it, Whatsoever finds me shall slay me; not only, “Whosoever among men,” but, “Whatsoever among all the creatures.” Seeing himself thrown out of God’s protection, he sees the whole creation armed against him. Note, unpardoned guilt fills men with continual terrors, Prov 28 1; Job 15 20, 21; Ps 53 5. It is better to fear and not sin than to sin and then fear.

Henry also points out that the Bible scholar Dr Lightfoot thought that Cain now had a death wish:

Dr. Lightfoot thinks this word of Cain should be read as a wish: Now, therefore, let it be that any that find me may kill me. Being bitter in soul, he longs for death, but it comes not (Job 3 20-22), as those under spiritual torments do, Rev 9 5, 6.

MacArthur says that Cain probably repeated God’s curse on him in the hopes that He would change His mind:

And to reinforce his resentment, he recites the curse, as if such a recitation in God’s ears is going to make God change His mind. Verse 14, “Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face I shall be hidden, and I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” He’s reciting it as if in God’s hearing it, He somehow will reconsider. Actually, it’s possible to translate: and from thy face I will seek to hide. Cassuto, the Hebrew commentator, translates it that way.

So, God, I can’t get anything out of the ground, you’ve cursed me. And I’m going out and I’m going to hide from your presence. This is what you’re doing to me. And I’m just going to wander all over the place all my life as a vagrant and a wanderer in the earth. And he adds this: “It’ll come about that whoever finds me will kill me.” I know what’ll happen. Whoever finds me will kill me. Why? Because they were all related to Abel. Right? Now, this indicates that the population may have been growing, certainly soon would be growing. There must be adults in the world who would kill him.

So it is reasonable to assume that somewhere along the line – and it’s hard to be dogmatic about this. The population was growing and developing, and Cain was going to live a long time – a long time. And people would be born, they would grow, and they would have children. And they would all know about Cain, the killer of Abel, because they were all relatives.

However, the Lord replied saying that anyone who killed Cain would meet with divine vengeance seven times over, or sevenfold; then the Lord put a mark upon Cain so that no one who found him would kill him (verse 15).

Henry says that God wishes for some evil men to stay alive and protected according to His plan:

Observe, 1. How Cain is protected in wrath by this declaration, notified, we may suppose, to all that little world which was then in being: Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold, because thereby the sentence he was under (that he should be a fugitive and a vagabond) would be defeated. Condemned prisoners are under the special protection of the law; those that are appointed sacrifices to public justice must not be sacrificed to private revenge. God having said in Cain’s case, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, it would have been a daring usurpation for any man to take the sword out of God’s hand, a contempt put upon an express declaration of God’s mind, and therefore avenged seven-fold. Note, God has wise and holy ends in protecting and prolonging the lives even of very wicked men. God deals with some according to that prayer, Slay them not, lest my people forget; scatter them by thy power, Ps 59 11. Had Cain been slain immediately, he would have been forgotten (Eccl 8 10); but now he lives a more fearful and lasting monument of God’s justice, hanged in chains, as it were. 2. How he is marked in wrath: The Lord set a mark upon Cain, to distinguish him from the rest of mankind and to notify that he was the man that murdered his brother, whom nobody must hurt, but everybody must hoot at. God stigmatized him (as some malefactors are burnt in the cheek), and put upon him such a visible and indelible mark of infamy and disgrace as would make all wise people shun him, so that he could not be otherwise than a fugitive and a vagabond, and the off-scouring of all things.

MacArthur discusses the severity of the curse for Cain. At this point in creation, humans lived to be over 900 years old. A normal lifespan did not come into being until after the Flood in Noah’s time:

Can you imagine how tough it would be to live? You’re the only – there’s only a few people. You’re thrown out, you go out on your own. Where are you going to go to get food? You can’t grow anything, you don’t have any animals. You’re going to have to try to kill something here or there, try to grab something that’s growing off a tree, try to eke out some kind of survival. As the years develop and as people populate the world, they’re all going to know the story about you. They’re going to hate you. And because of what you did, they’re going to seek to kill you.

So he’s saying, “I’m not only going to have to hide from you, I’m going to have to hide from everybody else.”

MacArthur says that God’s curse upon Cain in pronouncing sevenfold vengeance is an example of common grace:

And that opens us up to another mark of an apostate, a mark of a doomed man. The doomed fail to appreciate common grace. Look at this in verse 15. “So the Lord said to him,” okay? This is common grace. “‘Therefore whoever kills Cain’” – or whoever would kill Cain – “‘vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.’” Seven is sort of the number of completion. Complete vengeance. Perfect vengeance in a perfect measure.

God says, “‘Whoever kills Cain, vengeance is going to be taken on him sevenfold.’ And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him.”

Now, people always ask, What is that sign? And the answer is, “Who knows?” Have absolutely no idea what it is. I don’t know what it is. I’ve read paragraph after paragraph about what it is, page after page, nobody knows what it is. But God says, “I’m going to bring the full strength of divine law on anybody who acts in personal retribution on Cain.” God did not want to establish personal retribution – personal vengeance – as a means of dealing with criminals.

Throughout the Bible, you read about that, too. Deuteronomy 3, Psalm 94, Romans 12, Hebrews 10, God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” God is the avenger. God places that vengeance in the hands of a duly constituted government, a court, but no personal vengeance. He doesn’t allow blood revenge. In fact, He becomes the protector of the killer, becomes the protector of Cain. This, I call common grace. This is the providential common grace of God. God doesn’t have to do this, He could have killed him. He let him live.

Not only let him live, He protects him by marking him with a sign, sort of like blood on the doorposts in Egypt that made the death angel pass over. He put some mark, some visible mark on Cain, so that everybody would know that’s the mark of God, and if you kill him, you will receive the vengeance of God. There’s no other way to understand this than common grace. This is God being gracious to a wicked, reprobate man. And why does God do that? Why is God gracious to the sinner? The answer in Romans 2:4 and 5, “The patience and forbearance of God is intended to lead you to” – what? –“repentance.”

So Cain went out of the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden (verse 16).

Reading that, right away I thought of East of Eden starring James Dean, who played a young vagabond. Also, some Britons refer to ‘the land of Nod’ as in going to bed at night to sleep.

The NSVUK says that Nod means ‘wandering’, but Henry says it means ‘trembling’. Both are correct.

Henry explains:

… the land he dwelt in was to him the land of Nod (that is, of shaking or trembling), because of the continual restlessness and uneasiness of his own spirit. Note, those that depart from God cannot find rest any where else. After Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, he never rested. Those that shut themselves out of heaven abandon themselves to a perpetual trembling. “Return therefore to thy rest, O my soul, to thy rest in God; else thou art for ever restless.”

MacArthur says:

“And he settles” – I like that word, he settles – “in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” Where is that? I don’t know. East of Eden somewhere. Doesn’t matter where the land of Nod is, it only matters that it was out of the presence of the Lord. He settled in the world. He loved the world, so the love of God was not in him, 1 John 2. Nod is an unknown place, but it symbolizes the place where God is not considered. It’s out of His presence.

MacArthur sums up what we should learn from this passage and last week’s:

God had already pled with him to make a right choice. God had given him a curse and yet protected him from death, which would have given him an opportunity to say, “I’m sorry. I repent. If you’re going to let me live, then I repent.” He doesn’t do that. So now God says, “I’m going to make sure nobody takes your life. I myself am going to put a mar