And Jehovah said to Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not am I my brother's keeper?
Cain has murdered Abel, and God comes to him with a question, not a sentence. The reply is one of the coldest in Scripture: a flat denial, then a sneer that shrugs off any duty to his dead brother.
God's opening question is not a search for information. Commentators read it as a door held open for a guilty man to walk through.
The LORD was not ignorant, and He was not careless either. But He would bring home secret sin, and give even the guiltiest room and reason to repent. Yet here religious show without reality had hardened Cain's conscience. God's acceptance of the man who stood only in the faith of divine grace made it bitter.
The question put to Cain is not the one God put to Adam. That change of wording shows how far sin has gone.
The questions of the LORD were searching: not, as before to Adam, Where are you? but Where is Abel your brother? and What have you done? Adam went away from God, self-convicted, before God pronounced on his sin and made known the resource of His mercy in Christ. Cain added to his sin against the LORD a sin against man — not a neighbour only, but his brother.
Cain answers a God who watched the whole thing. The lie says as much about his view of God as about his crime.
Though God spoke to Cain directly, Cain showed no faith in God's omniscience. How pointless and foolish it is to lie to God! On top of lying, he asks in irritation, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God did not have to answer this. Cain knew well enough that he was responsible to give his brother some honest care. He had not only neglected that duty: he had been guilty of the total opposite.
The sneer sounds like a question, but the word Cain picks gives him away. A keeper is someone trusted with what belongs to another.
As soon as there was a man to sin against, the trespass happened. The startled earth drank the blood of the first man killed — not by a demon from below, nor by a wild beast from the forest, but by his own mother's son. In the murder of Abel, Cain had trespassed in that "which was delivered him to keep," and he had "taken away by violence" his brother's life. His sullen reply to God's question about his brother, "Am I my brother's keeper?" made it plain that he knew he was.
There is a second edge to the reply. It turns the blame around and aims it at God.
This is the language of Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" By these words Cain was laying the burden of Abel's blood on the Lord. He was hinting that the Lord should have been Abel's keeper, since He had shown such respect to Abel and his offering.
Cain's boldness holds while God only questions him. It breaks the moment God speaks as God.
When God said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" he replied, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" — a flippant answer to God. But then God showed Himself as God: "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground." At that moment despair came in. Wherever there is pride of heart before God, and God shows Himself, there is despair.
One writer traces God's question forward. God now puts it to the whole world about His own Son.
It is not only sin's testimony against us now, asking what we have done as sinners. We also hear God ask, "Where is Christ?" The Holy Spirit has come, and convicts the world of sin, but more than this. He comes and says to the whole world, on God's part, "Where is my Son?" There is pride too in Cain's reply, "Am I my brother's keeper?" It is as though he said, why should God ask?
- Question, not accusation. God asks where Abel is, though He already knows. The question drags hidden sin into the open and gives even the guiltiest room to repent.
- Question deepened. God asked Adam, "Where are you?" He asks Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" Sin against God has become sin against man — and not a neighbour only, but a brother.
- Question dodged. "I do not know" is a lie told to the God who sees everything, and the word "keeper" proves Cain knew the care he owed and refused.
- Question thrown back. The sneer shifts the blame upward. Cain hints that God, who had respected Abel's offering, should have been Abel's keeper.
- Question answered by God. When God names the blood crying from the ground, the bold man breaks. The same question still presses on the world: "Where is my Son?"
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
Cain has just answered God with a lie and a sneer, and God replies with a fact: the murdered man's blood is already speaking. What does that blood say to God, and is there any blood that says something better?
Cain's reply pretended he owed his brother nothing.
Though God spoke to Cain directly, Cain showed no faith in God's all-knowing character. How pointless and foolish it is to lie to God! As well as lying, he asks with irritation, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God did not have to answer that. Cain knew well enough that he owed his brother some honest care. He had not only failed to give it — he had been guilty of the very opposite. God then speaks with solemn words to the criminal's conscience.
One writer hears a second question behind this one, put now to the whole world.
Now it is not only sin that testifies against us, asking what we have done as sinners. We also hear God ask, "Where is Christ?" The Holy Spirit has come, and He convinces the world of sin — but there is more. On God's part He comes and says to the whole world, "Where is My Son?"
Abel himself says nothing. His blood does the speaking, and it is not the only cry God hears.
It is a solemn truth, reader, that sin has a voice, which cries to heaven for God's righteous repayment. The word of God, in both the Old Testament and the New, confirms it. … To Abraham the Lord said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to Me." Further, in the New Testament: "Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts" (James 5:4).
Adam's sin brought a curse on the ground. This time the curse lands elsewhere, and one writer links it back to the offering Cain had brought.
The ground had fallen under curse because of Adam's sin. Cain gave no thought to sin or to God's sentence. He brought some of the fruit of that ground, grown by his own work, as an offering to the Lord. This might have been acceptable, had man not sinned. To ignore sin is to show neither repentance nor faith. Without these no sinner can find the way to God… Now the unbeliever's evil was in plain sight: violence, lying and irreverence. And God justly cursed him — not the ground now, but the man who tilled it.
God alone sentences Cain. No human court tries him, and the same writer explains why.
Notice that nothing matching civil government existed at the beginning. Man did not invent it either, through all the centuries before the flood… This is why no man punished Cain. Human punishment became a duty only after God committed the sword to Noah. From then on God solemnly 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."
Abel's is not the only such cry. One writer sets this verse beside the last book of the Bible, where the altar itself cries out.
For about six thousand years it might have seemed as if God slept. He seemed indifferent to the cruel, heartless treatment of His people in every age. But no! The long, lingering patience of our God has now come to an end… In the first book of Scripture (Gen. 4:10) we hear the cry of the blood of the first of the martyrs. In the last book (Rev. 16:7) we hear the cry of the altar. That altar had testified to the killing of God's saints from Abel onwards.
Another murder took place on this same earth, and its blood also speaks — but not the same word.
The blood of Christ was shed on earth, as Abel's was by Cain. Abel's blood cried from the earth for vengeance, and Cain became a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth — a striking picture of the Jewish people, guilty of the death of Christ. The blood of Christ does not cry that way. Grace speaks, and the shed blood cries to win pardon and peace for those who shed it.
- Question. God's "What have you done?" searches the conscience, not the facts. The same voice now asks the world, "Where is My Son?"
- Voice. Sin is never silent before God. Abel's blood, Sodom, and withheld wages all cry to heaven for righteous repayment.
- Curse. God cursed the ground for Adam's sin. Here He curses the man himself — the man who had offered Him fruit from that cursed ground.
- Reach. No human court touched Cain, since God gave government to man only after the flood. Yet the cry that starts here runs to the last book of the Bible.
- Better. Abel's blood asked for vengeance on the man who shed it; the blood of Christ asks pardon for the very people who shed it.
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.