brothers keeper?”[1] And the Lord said to him: “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me[2] from the earth. Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the earth, which hath opened her mouth[3] and received the blood of thy brother from thy hand. When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit. A fugitive [4] and a vagabond [5] shalt thou be upon the earth.”
And Cain, in despair, said to the Lord: “My iniquity is greater[6] than that I may deserve pardon. Behold! Thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the earth. Everyone, therefore, who findeth me, will kill me.” The Lord said to him: “No, it shall not be so; but whosoever shall kill Cain shall be punished sevenfold.”[7] And He set a mark[8] upon Cain, that whosoever found him should not kill him. And Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive[9] on the earth.
- ↑ Keeper. This was as much as to say: “Why dost thou ask me? I am not his keeper!” Being blinded by his passions, Cain believed that he could hide his crime from God, and defiantly lied to Him. After that, God reproached him for what he had done, and pronounced sentence on him.
- ↑ Crieth to me. Can blood cry out? Almighty God meant this: “Your evil deed is such that it demands punishment from heaven; in other words, it cries out to heaven for punishment and vengeance.
- ↑ Mouth, i. e. thou hast with thine own hand shed thy brother’s blood which, flowing on to the ground, has been sucked up by it.
- ↑ Fugitive, i. e. without a home.
- ↑ Vagabond, i. e. thou shalt never find rest, but shalt always wander to and fro on the earth.
- ↑ Greater. Cain’s defiance changed to despair. He believed that he could not obtain forgiveness, and despaired of God’s mercy. He would have liked to hide himself from God. Why did Cain wish to hide himself from God? Because he no longer regarded Him as a loving father, but only as a severe judge; and now the thought of the presence of that God whom he had so offended was torture and terror to him. Having no longer any hope of attaining to eternal life, he clung the more anxiously to this earthly life, and was filled with dread, lest others should kill him, as he had killed Abel. As the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise had taken place about 120 years before, there were probably a great number of people on the earth by this time.
- ↑ Sevenfold. It was God’s will to preserve the life of this murderer, in order that he might serve as a warning to other men.
- ↑ Mark. This mark was a sign on his face or brow, by which everyone might know who Cain was: that he was a man punished by the hand of God, and on account of his sins condemned to wander about on the earth, and that, being punished by God, he might not be killed by any man.
- ↑ Dwelt as a fugitive. Weighed down by the curse of God, and tormented by his evil conscience, the fratricide thenceforward led a most miserable life. Day and night the image of his murdered brother was before his eyes, and he wandered to and fro on the earth, without comfort and without joy. The punishment of Cain was threefold. In the selfishness of his envy he had believed that, if Abel were dead, he would, firstly, receive more blessings from God, secondly, that the earth would produce more under his cultivation, and, thirdly, that he himself would be happier. The exact opposite took place. Firstly, God cursed him; secondly, the earth was barren under his touch; thirdly, he was a prey to constant fear and unrest, and never knew another happy moment.
