Sentence Pronounced On Cain Series

September 27, 2013

Commentary on the Book of Genesis

By: Tom Lowe

Lesson I.C.2: Sentence Pronounced on Cain

Gen. 4.9-15 (KJV)

9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

14Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

15 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Commentary

9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

And the Lord said unto Cain, where is Abel thy brother?

The question asked here reminds us of the question put to Adam when he was hiding from God, "Where art thou?" It is calculated to assault the conscience. The reply is different from that of Adam. Sin has now advanced from hasty, impetuous yielding to the tempter, to repeated and deliberate disobedience.

Perhaps (though it is only speculation) the Lord brought this up soon after the event and the next time Cain came with his offering to make a sacrifice to God, since Able was not with him. Whether these words were spoken by Adam (Luther), or whispered within his breast by the still small voice of conscience, or, as is most probable, uttered from between the cherubim, Cain felt that he was being examined by a Divine voice (Calvin). He asks this question, not because He needed to learn from him why Able was not with him, but in order to stir his conscience with it, and fill him with remorse for murdering his brother, to convict him of the awfulness of it, and bring him to confess his sin.

“and he said, I know not:

This was a “bald-faced” lie; because he must know where he had left him, or hid the body. This shows he was under the influence of Satan, who was a liar, and the father of lies, as well as a murderer from the beginning; and that he was so blinded by him that he must have forgotten to whom he was speaking; that he was the all-knowing God, and He knew every disgusting detail of the horrible deed he had done, and He knew that what he had just said was a lie, and He was capable of confronting him with both infractions, and of inflicting the appropriate punishment on him.

There is, as usual, a grain of truth mingled with the amazing falsehood of this surly response. No man is the absolute keeper of his brother, to the extent he is responsible for his safety when he is not present. This is what Cain means to insinuate. But every man is his brother's keeper in that he is not himself to lay the hand of violence on him, or permit another to do so if he can prevent it. The Almighty has a right to demand this sort of keeping from everyone. But Cain's reply betrays a desperate recourse to falsehood, a total cessation of feeling, a quenching of brotherly love, a predominance of that selfishness which freezes affection and kindles hatred. This is the way of Cain (Jude 1:11).

How futile it was for Cain to lie to God! It was madness for him to think God didn’t know where Abel was, or that he could actually hide his sin from God.

“Am I my brother's keeper?”

His reply is impertinent and spoken in a “smart-alecky” manner; perhaps he wagged his head at the same time. He may be desperate because he felt himself closely tracked by avenging justice and about to be convicted of his crime. "He showed himself a liar in saying, 'I know not; wicked and profane in thinking he could hide his sin from God; unjust in denying himself to be his brother's keeper; obstinate and desperate in not confessing his sin" (Willet). He sounds like he is appalled that the Lord would ask him such a ridiculous question, since he knew he was not in charge of his brother, and that his brother was old enough to take care of himself; and if he could not, it was up to God and his providence to take care of him, and not to him. His heart had become so hard through sin that he was able to hate and kill his brother, and now he thinks he can do or say anything he wants, and get away with it, and that included lying to God.