And now be thou cursed from the ground, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.
God's sentence on Cain lands with a weight Adam never felt: this time the curse is spoken over a man, not just over the ground. Why does the soil turn against him, why is he not put to death, and how does this blood point to the blood of Christ?
Here the sentence changes address. One writer traces whom God had cursed before, and whom He curses now.
God had cursed the serpent, had cursed the ground for Adam's sake, but did not pronounce a curse on him, nor on Eve. Sorrow was the lot of both man and woman. But now the first human blood has been spilled, and God curses the man, Cain. "And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." It is as if the earth itself cursed the murderer. It had drunk the blood of his brother, so it would never yield its strength to Cain when he tilled it. For Adam the ground would bring forth thorns and thistles. Yet when Adam tilled it, the earth did not hold back its strength. It gave it, though only by the sweat of his face.
Cain had brought God an offering out of the soil he worked. Now that soil is where the sentence bites.
But Abel's blood had spoken from the ground into the ear of God. A special curse came down on Cain at once, on top of the curse that had already fallen on Adam and his race, as we saw in Genesis 3. Adam was to get his food only by the sweat of his face. Cain was to find the earth barren even if he worked hard to till it. So he would become a wanderer, fleeing from the face of God.
Another writer weighs what this said about Cain's work, and what Cain could have done with it.
God would make him feel that his work was not as good as he had tried to make God believe it was in his offering. If this curse had done its proper work in Cain, he would have owned his sin honestly. Then the outcome for him in eternity could have been wonderfully different.
A murderer walks away alive. The reason lies in the point of history where this happens.
Notice that nothing like civil government was set up at the beginning. Man did not invent it either, through all the centuries before the flood. God set it up for the first time after that great event... So no man punished Cain. After God gave the sword to Noah, responsibility would have required that. From then on God required blood for blood: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."
The same writer calls the sentence Cain did receive "a very mild and merciful way of dealing with a wicked man whose hands were stained with his brother's blood. It was fitted to give him time for bitter thought, self-loathing and anguish — but sin had hardened his heart like a millstone" (The Bible Treasury).
Abel's blood soaked into the earth and cried out for vengeance. One writer sets that cry beside another death, where blood again fell on the ground with a very different result.
Finally, Christ's blood was shed on earth, as Cain shed Abel's blood. Abel's blood cried from the earth for vengeance, so that Cain became a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth — a striking picture of the Jew, guilty of the death of Christ. Christ's blood does not do that. Instead grace speaks, and the shed blood cries out to gain pardon and peace for those who shed it.
Cain did not bow to the sentence. He set out to overturn it.
Driven out from the presence of God, he sets about to establish himself. He seeks for himself a home, not with God in heaven, but on the earth, from which God had pronounced him "cursed!" He makes himself master of a city where God had made him a wanderer.
- Blood cries. Abel's blood does not lie silent in the soil; the ground that received it becomes the accuser, and God answers it.
- The curse names a man. God cursed the ground for Adam's sake. Over Cain He speaks the curse on the man himself.
- The curse touches his craft. The farmer's field will withhold its strength, so the tiller becomes a wanderer.
- Judgment restrained. No death sentence follows. God gave man the sword of civil government only after Noah. That delay left room for repentance, and Cain never used it.
- Better blood. Christ's blood also fell on the ground. But it cries for pardon on the very people who shed it.
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield thee its strength; a wanderer and fugitive shalt thou be on the earth.
Cain has just heard that his brother's blood is crying out from the ground, and God now passes sentence on him. Two questions follow: how is this curse different from the one already on Adam's race, and what does Cain do with it?
The ground was already under a curse from Genesis 3. What lands on Cain is something more. One writer compares how each man's tilling turned out.
God had cursed the serpent and the ground for Adam's sake, but He did not curse Adam or Eve... Now the first human blood is spilled, and the man, Cain, is cursed. It is as if the earth itself cursed the murderer, and, because it had drunk the blood of his brother, would never yield her strength to Cain when he tilled it. To Adam it would bring forth thorns and thistles. But when Adam tilled it, the earth did not withhold her strength; it gave its yield, though by the sweat of his face. However great Cain's toil might be, the earth would give him no proper return for his labour.
Notice what the sentence leaves out. One writer explains why, and weighs what it does lay on Cain.
The plain statement speaks of God's government of the earth, as fits a revelation given to His people Israel. So we hear nothing of heaven or of hell. The lot of the man who killed his righteous brother was heavier than before. He was cursed himself on an unwilling earth, and he would draw his food from it only with difficulty. A bad conscience and anxious fears would never stop preying on him, and everyone around him would shun him.
God let Cain live on. The same writer says what that time was for, and what wasted it.
This was a very mild and merciful way to deal with a wicked man whose hands carried his brother's blood. It was meant to give him time for bitter reflection, self-loathing and anguish — but sin had hardened his heart into a millstone.
The two words are not one idea repeated. Each describes a different motion, and one writer takes both as a picture of every unbeliever. He works from an older translation, which reads "vagabond" where the ESV has "wanderer".
This is a description of every unbeliever. As a fugitive he is in effect running away from God, never facing up to his guilt and his need of a Saviour. As a vagabond, he is a wanderer, going in every direction to seek rest or satisfaction but never finding it. So even on earth the condition of the unbeliever is sad, but how much more so in eternity!
Cain does not accept the wandering. The next verses show him settling, and one writer sets the two facts side by side.
Driven out from the presence of God, he sets about establishing himself. He seeks a home for himself, not with God in heaven, but on the earth from which God had pronounced him cursed. He makes himself master of a city where God had made him a wanderer.
Even the region he chooses carries the sentence in its name, and the city he raises there is treated as the origin of something we still live in.
Do you know what "Nod" means? It means "wandering."... He builds a city. He as good as says: I have gone out from the presence of God, but I will try to make myself as happy and comfortable as I can. I will build a city. I will forget that I am a wanderer, and I will forget that I am a sinner. That is how Cain started what you and I now call the world.
One writer sees the same sentence at work later in Israel's history: blood-guilt, exile, and a busy civilisation.
Like Cain, the Jews ended up killing Jesus Christ the Righteous, though He came from them as a man — their own Messiah, who is over all, God blessed for ever. So they too have gone out from the presence of Jehovah. They are cursed from the earth for blood-guiltiness, and they live in a land of wandering exile. For now they have lost their divine mission of blessing to all the families of the earth. So they turn to city life, to bold adventure, to the inventions of art and science, and to the comforts of the civilised world.
This sentence has a time limit, and one writer ties its end to a coming day for Israel.
The sentence pronounced on Cain — "When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength" — will be removed. For we read of the day when God will make His face shine on restored Israel: "then the earth shall yield its increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us; God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him." (Psalm 67)
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- Ground accuses — the soil drank Abel's blood, so it now holds back its strength. Adam's ground still paid him for hard work. Cain's will not.
- Ground withheld — the sentence belongs to God's government of the earth, not to the last judgment. It left Cain alive, with time to repent that he never used.
- Ground fled — as a fugitive he runs from God. As a wanderer he looks everywhere for rest and finds none. That is life away from God.
- Ground seized — Cain refuses to wander. He settles in a place named "wandering" and builds a city — the start of a world built to forget both the sentence and the sin.
- Ground restored — one writer sees the same blood-guilt and exile in Israel, and points to a day when the earth will give its increase again under God's blessing.