Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a wanderer and fugitive on the earth; and it will come to pass, [that] every one who finds me will slay me.
Cain has just heard his sentence, and now he answers God — but not with a confession. His reply raises the questions that follow: was he grieving over his sin or his sentence, who hid him from God's face, and why does a murderer fear murder?
The Hebrew behind Cain's opening cry can be read either as "my guilt" or "my punishment," and one writer settles the question by the rest of the sentence — the very words about being driven out.
It was not his sin that overwhelmed his conscience. He complained that his punishment was too great to bear. The rest of his words shows this is what he meant. But did he care about the Lord's face at all? He had dared to come to the Lord with the fruit of the ground that was cursed for man's sin — with no victim, no confession of sin and death, and no thought of a Saviour to come.
Cain does speak of unbearable trouble, and it sounds like sorrow. But there is a sorrow squeezed out by consequences, and it is not repentance.
There is a forced mourning when tears are pumped out by God's judgments. Such was Cain's mourning: "My punishment is greater than I can bear" (Genesis 4:13). His punishment troubled him more than his sin. To mourn only from fear of hell is like a thief who weeps over the penalty instead of the crime. The prodigal son says, "I have sinned against heaven and before you." He does not say, "I am almost starved among the husks," but "I have offended my Father."
God's sentence never said Cain would be driven from the ground or hidden from His face. Cain enlarges the verdict, then complains about his own addition.
Cain's answer to God (v. 13-14) showed no repentance; it was a protest. He was not ashamed; he felt sorry for himself. The robber dying on a cross next to the Lord Jesus said the opposite: "we are receiving the due reward of our deeds" (Luke 23:41). How much better it is to submit to God's penalty rather than to resent it, for submission leaves the way open for God to show mercy. But Cain says that God has driven him out from the face of the earth. Those were not God's actual words. He adds that he would be hidden from God's face. Yet it was Cain himself who had chosen this: he had sought to hide his evil works from the Lord.
Two verses later Cain acts this out. One writer marks the difference between being sent away and walking away.
God had not said to him to leave His presence. Cain does and goes out from His presence himself, to dwell where judgment had made him a vagabond, and then comes the world — the world as God sees it in its true place before Him.
Cain repeats the two words God had used of him, and they describe a condition, not just a travel plan.
And Cain departs from God, and proves that he is one. He does not like to be called a vagabond, but that is really what man is by nature. Do you know what vagabond means? It means a man who is always on the move — a man that is never settled — never at rest. The next thing we read of Cain is that he "went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod." Do you know what "Nod" means? It means "wandering."
The last clause is the confession Cain never made out loud. He expects from others what he did to Abel — and he was wrong about what came next.
Bold as he was, his guilty conscience could not keep his fears hidden: "whoever finds me will kill me." But there he was mistaken. The Lord's patience with His enemies is amazing. Men today would feel it and admit it, if they let in enough light to see their own dark hatred of God.
This complaint is the first thing in the Bible that looks like a prayer. What Cain does with the answer is the sting.
The subject of prayer opens in Scripture with the case of Cain. There was in him no dependence on God at all. But when God had pronounced his judgment, he makes an appeal to God, and God takes care that nothing he dreaded should take place. What does Cain do with the gift he gets in answer to his appeal? He settles down quietly to make himself as happy as possible without God's presence on earth.
- Sentence — Writers read Cain's cry as a complaint about his punishment, not his guilt. The rest of the verse shows what really weighed on him.
- Self-pity — Judgment pressed his tears out; his sin never did. The dying robber beside Jesus owned his guilt, and that submission leaves room for mercy.
- Self-exile — God never said Cain would be driven from the ground or hidden from His face. Cain said it himself, then walked out of God's presence.
- Restlessness — A wanderer is always on the move, never settled, never at rest. Cain went to live in a land whose name means wandering.
- Mercy — He feared every man he met would kill him. He was wrong. God's patience answered the very fear he voiced, and Cain used that mercy to make himself comfortable without God.
And Jehovah said to him, Therefore, whoever slayeth Cain, it shall be revenged sevenfold. And Jehovah set a mark on Cain, lest any finding him should smite him.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, toward the east of Eden.
Genesis 4:16 closes God's dealing with Cain and opens the story of human life built without God. Who did the leaving, what does "Nod" mean, and what did Cain do once he was out?
Two exits stand side by side in Genesis 3 and 4. They are not the same kind of exit:
In the last verse of Genesis 3, Adam was driven out of the Garden. In verse 16 of our chapter Cain "went away from the presence of the LORD." The first was a forced judgment; the second was a deliberate walking away. To a murderer who would not repent, God's presence was something he hated.
Nothing in the record says God ordered him away from Himself. That step was Cain's own:
God had not said to him to leave His presence. Cain does and goes out from His presence himself, to dwell where judgment had made him a vagabond, and then comes the world — the world as God sees it in its true place before Him.
The name of the place matters. It names what Cain now is, and it explains what he does next.
Cain had already said he would be hidden from God's face. One writer reads "east of Eden" as a real location: the presence Cain left could be pointed to.
So even for Cain there was a "face of the Lord," and he linked it with Eden — near to paradise, though still outside it. "Behold, You have driven me today away from the ground," he says, "and from Your face I shall be hidden." Then we read that Cain "went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." This is easier to grasp because later God chose to place His presence in one location in Israel, there too with fire and figures of cherubim.
Judgment did not fall at once. Grace gave Cain space — and here is what he did with it:
So it was Cain who "went away from the presence of the LORD" and settled in that land east of Eden, which seems to be named after his exile. The LORD was no longer in his thoughts. The world was his object… He had no fear of the LORD… "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." Grace gives space for repentance; ungodliness twists that space into time to follow its own will and indulge its lusts, in defiance of God and His word.
Verse 16 is the hinge in a chain of choices that runs from the offering to the murder to the city.
Here we see that the flesh will not be corrected. Cain goes out from the presence of the Lord claiming that his punishment is more than he can bear. Yet he builds himself a city, makes himself a name, and sets up the whole order of civilization that has gone on ever since. This is the "way of Cain," the way of the flesh. It begins with the denial of sin and a refusal of the sacrifice. It goes on to stain the earth with innocent blood, and to surround itself with comfort and pleasure away from God.
Music and comfort are not evil in themselves. The question is what they are for:
Cain went out from the presence of God, and what does he do then? He builds a city… There was no harm in the music itself. But why did they want it? It was to make them content in being away from God. Is not this "harm" enough? After Adam sinned, he heard God's voice and hid among the trees in the garden. There was no harm in the trees, but there was harm in his hiding. There is harm in man's trying to make himself comfortable away from God.
Cain never admitted where he stood. One writer says that admission is the start of the way back:
In his actual condition, man is a sinner cast out of Paradise and already out of the presence of God. He ought to be conscious that he is out, and that the only way back to God is through His Son.
- Out — Adam was driven out; Cain walked out. The verse records a choice, not a sentence.
- Wandering — "Nod" means wandering. God named Cain's condition, and Cain moved into it instead of repenting.
- Settled — Sentenced to roam, he built a city instead. He arranged comfort so he could forget the sentence.
- World — That is where the world began: life made comfortable without God.
- Back — The one thing Cain never did is the one thing needed: own that you are outside, and return through God's Son.
And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city; and he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch.
God had sentenced Cain to wander. Instead, Cain leaves God's presence, settles down, and builds the world's first city. Writers here read that city as the start of human life organised without God.
Cain settles in a land named after his exile. There he builds — the opposite of the life God had sentenced him to.
It was Cain then who "went out from the presence of Jehovah," and dwelt in that land which seems named from his exile, east of Eden. Jehovah was no longer before his mind. The world was his object... His son is the "initiated," and his father gives that name to the city he was building. This is a most striking fact for that day. It is most notable of all in the man whom Jehovah had sentenced to be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.
Cain had another road open to him. He did not take it.
Cursed from the earth because of his sin, Cain was a fugitive and a vagabond. There was no thought of repentance in his heart because of the murder of his brother. There was no desire to be reconciled to God. He sought to forget God, and to quiet the stirrings of a guilty conscience in a place of his own designing and building, where he could find his pleasure with those descended from him, away from God.
Cain would not leave his family in the state God had put him in.
Cain was not willing to remain a poor vagabond. At the very least, he did not want to leave his family in that state. He wanted them to escape his own lot. So he built a city in the land of Nod ("Nod" is the Hebrew word translated vagabond in the first instance). He wanted his family settled in the country where God had made him a vagabond. He names the city after his son, as the great people of this world do.
Cain built for comfort under the curse, and he stamped his own son's name on the result.
Once away from God, he builds a city — to be as comfortable as possible despite the curse and without God. He calls it Enoch, after the name of his own son: a memorial to self at a distance from God.
What is "the world," and where did it begin?
"The world," morally speaking, was what the devil made after man fell. The first beginning of "the world" was in Cain and his line. For what do we see in Cain? God sentenced him to be a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth, and he strives to erase that. He built a city. They are not content for one to live here and another there; they must all herd together.
The pattern did not stop with Cain:
He had built his city. He had his craftsmen in brass and iron — and so have we now. He had harp and organ — and so have we now. He pleased himself without thinking of God, shutting God out and making the world pleasant to the natural feelings apart from Him. It was then and is now alike.
Two questions come up here. Where did Cain's wife come from? And how could one man build a whole city?
His wife there bore him a son who was named Enoch (meaning "dedicated"). Of course Cain's wife would be his sister, the daughter of Adam and Eve. We are told then that Cain built a city (v. 17). That could take place only after some years, when his family had multiplied. Adam lived 930 years, long enough for his descendants to increase beyond his ability to count.
A city is not wrong in itself. God plans one too. The difference is the builder and the timing.
Now God's thought for man is a city too. Faith looks for a "city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Cain's city was not original with him, nor is God's thought copied from man's. It is itself the original; only it must wait for another scene for its fulfilment. For He cannot build in a scene as storm-tossed and shifting as the present one. To run ahead of God's time is unbelief, not faith.
(Older translations read "builder and maker"; the ESV has "designer and builder.")
- Sentence — God made Cain a wanderer; he answered by settling and building. The city is the sentence contradicted, not accepted.
- Substitute — He could have repented. He built instead, making a place where a guilty conscience could stay quiet.
- Signature — He named the city after his son: a memorial to himself, raised where God had sentenced him to wander.
- System — From this city the writers date "the world": comfort, art, and industry arranged so no one has to miss God. It has never changed shape, only scale.
- Second city — The longing for a city is not the sin; the builder is. Faith waits for the city God designs, and building ahead of His time is unbelief.