Genesis 4:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 4:13

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Cain still does not repent; there is no notion of that. His sorrow is not for what he has done, but for himself. He is filled with self-pity. He understood that his life was not going to be taken from him immediately, but he feared that death would result anyway because of the punishment imposed on him. He complains that his punishment is unreasonable. ‘My judgment is unjust, too severe’, he effectively says. ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear.’ So God is criticised even in that. ‘Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from they face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.’ He would be a vagabond, unsettled and always on the move. This would result from the turmoil and torment of his own heart. He would be afraid of other human beings, knowing that he deserved death for what he had done, and unable to look any man straight in the face, and as he wandered he would not find any place of refuge. Wherever he went, the earth would have been commanded in advance by God to deny this man but it would still give in a measure to all others, and he would be the enemy of every man and the object of hatred of all men. It is likely for this reason that Cain was already married, for how could any woman have taken him as wife or been given to him after this event?

Application

Questions

Why was he troubled that he was being driven out from the face of God? Even Cain felt a need for God, and need to worship God. He had been engaged in an act of worship when these events had started. Unbelievers and not unaware of their need of God. Cain was right to say that he would be shut out of God’s presence, for God would not receive him when mankind and even the soil itself rejected him.

Well, where do the ‘everyone’ people come from? Plainly, you see there has been time before this event for other children of Adam and Eve to grow up, and for the region to begin to be populated, with few or many.

Why should they want to slay him? Well, because those first people had the law of God in their hearts, and there was an abhorrence for murder, and there would be a natural rejection on their part of any murderer. Cain realised this – murder is abominated. Everybody agrees, it seems, that the worst thing you could do is take a life. So he fears for his own survival, and he fears that he is going to be killed by anyone and everyone. His fear may not be entirely realistic, but it does show that it was in the heart of man to be appalled at murder from the very beginning. So he complains.

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Genesis 4:13 Commentary and Bible Study