Genesis 4:14

Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth,.... Not from being upon the earth, or had chased him out of the world as a wicked man is at death, but from a quiet settlement in

Behold, 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

Consider how severely thou usest me; thou hast driven me out, with public infamy, as the word signifies, from the face of the earth, or, this earth, my native land, and from thy face, i.e. favour and protection, as the public enemy of mankind, and as one devoted by thee to destruction. Quest. Whom did Cain fear, when it appears not that there were any but his father and mother? Answ. So ignorant people conceive; but it is a fond conceit to think that there were no more men than are expressed in this book, where God never intended to give a catalogue of all men, but only of the church, or those who had some relation to or concern with it. Nay, that there were very many thousands of men now in being, is very credible upon these rational grounds and suppositions. 1. That Adam and Eve did, according to God’ s precept and blessing, , procreate children presently after the fall, and God’ s gracious reconcilement to them; and consequently their children did so, when they came to competent age. 2. That those first men and women were endowed by God with extraordinary fruitfulness, and might have two, three, four, or more at a time, (as divers persons long after had), which was then expedient for the replenishing of the world; and the like may be judged of their children during the world’ s infancy. 3. That this murder was committed but a little before the hundred and thirtieth year of Adam’ s age, which appears by comparing and . Before which time, how vast and numerous an offspring might have come from Adam, none can be ignorant that can and shall make a rational computation.

Genesis 4:14 Behold, 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.Ver. 14. From the face of the earth.] That is, of this earth, this country, my father’ s family; which in the next words he calls God’ s face, the place of his public worship, from the which Cain was here justly excommunicated. And surely St Jude’ s woe will light heavily upon all such as, going in the way of Cain, and not willing to hear of their wicked ways, do wilfully absent themselves from the powerful preaching of the word. They that will not hear the word, shall hear the rod. Yea, a sword shall pierce through their souls, as it did Cain’ s here; in whom was fulfilled that of Eliphaz; - "A dreadful sound was in his ears, lest in his prosperity the destroyer should come upon him. He believed not that he should return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword." Every one that finds me shall slay me.] Quam male est extra legem viventibus! quicquid meruerunt semper expectant. Fat swine cry hideously, if but touched or meddled with, as knowing they owe their life to them that will take it. Tiberius felt the remorse of conscience so violent, that he protested to the senate, that he suffered death daily; whereupon Tacitus makes this good note, Tandem facinora et flagitia in supplicium vertuntur. As every body hath its shadow appertaining to it, so hath every sin its punishment. And although they escape the lash of the law, yet "vengeance will not suffer them to live," as the barbarians rashly censured St Paul, - to live quietly at least. Richard III., after the murder of his two innocent nephews, had fearful dreams and visions; insomuch that he did often leap out of his bed in the dark, and catching his sword, which, always naked, stuck by his side, he would go distractedly about the chamber, everywhere seeking to find out the cause of his own occasioned disquiet. Polidor Virgil thus writes of his dream that night before Bosworth Field, where he was slain, that he thought that all the devils in hell pulled and hailed him in most hideous and ugly shapes; and concludes of it at last, "I do not think it was so much his dream, as his evil conscience that bred those terrors." It is as proper for sin to raise fears in the soul, as for rotten flesh and wood to breed worms. That worm that never dies is bred here in the froth of filthy lusts and flagitious courses, and lies gnawing and grubbing upon men’ s inwards, many times in the ruffe of all their jollity.

(13, 14) My punishment (or my iniquity) is greater than I can bear.—Literally, than can be borne, or “forgiven.” It is in accordance with the manner of the Hebrew language to have only one word for an act and its result. Thus work and wages are expressed by the same word in Isaiah 62:11. The full meaning, therefore, is, “My sin is past forgiveness, and its result is an intolerable punishment.” This latter idea seems foremost in Cain’s mind, and is dwelt upon in Genesis 4:14. He there complains that he is driven, not “from the face of the earth,” which was impossible, but from the adβmβh, his dear native soil, banished from which, he must go into the silence and solitude of an earth unknown and untracked. And next, “from thy face shall I be hid.” Naturally, Cain had no idea of an omnipresent God, and away from the adβmβh he supposed that it would be impossible to enjoy the Divine favour and protection. Without this there would be no safety for him anywhere, so that he must rove about perpetually, and “every one that findeth me shall slay me.” In the adβmβh Jehovah would protect him; away from it, men, unseen by Jehovah, might do as they liked. But who were these men? Some commentators answer, Adam’s other sons, especially those who had attached themselves to Abel. Others say that Adam’s creation was not identical with that of Gen 1:27, but was that of the highest type of the human race, and had been preceded by the production of inferior races, of whose existence there are widespread proofs. But others, with more probability, think that Cain’s was a vain apprehension. How could he know that Adam and his family were the sole inhabitants of the earth? Naturally he expected to find farther on what he had left behind; a man and woman with stalwart sons: and that these, regarding him as an interloper come to rob them, and seeing in his ways proof of guilt, would at once attack and slay him.

Verse 14. Behold, thou hast driven me out] In Genesis 4:11-12, God states two parts of Cain's punishment: 1. The ground was cursed, so that it was not to yield any adequate recompense for his most careful tillage. 2. He was to be a fugitive and a vagabond having no place in which he could dwell with comfort or security. To these Cain himself adds others. 1. His being hidden from the face of God; which appears to signify his being expelled from that particular place where God had manifested his presence. in or contiguous to Paradise, whither our first parents resorted as to an oracle, and where they offered their daily adorations. So in Genesis 4:16, it is said, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and was not permitted any more to associate with the family in acts of religious worship. 2. The continual apprehension of being slain, as all the inhabitants of the earth were at that time of the same family, the parents themselves still alive, and each having a right to kill this murderer of his relative. Add to all this, 3. The terrors of a guilty conscience; his awful apprehension of God's judgments, and of being everlastingly banished from the beatific vision. To this part of the punishment of Cain St. Paul probably alludes, 2 Thessalonians 1:9: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. The words are so similar that we can scarcely doubt of the allusion.

14. Behold, thou hast, &c.] Cain accepts Jehovah’s sentence as a banishment from the cultivated ground. “And from thy face shall I be hid,” Cain recognizes that banishment from the land, in which Jehovah’s presence was manifested, implied expulsion from Jehovah’s presence. In the desert to which he was to flee, Jehovah would not be found: Cain would be hidden from His face. The early Israelites believed that, if a man was driven from the land in which Jehovah was worshipped, he was no longer in the presence of Jehovah, but of other gods. Thus David says, 1 Samuel 26:19, “they have driven me out this day that I should not cleave unto the inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other gods.” The desert to which Cain would be driven was a region believed to be haunted by the demon Azazel (Leviticus 16:8) and dangerous spirits. whosoever findeth me, &c.] Of whom was Cain afraid? Different answers have been given. 1. The wild beasts (Josephus). 2. A pre-Adamite race of Man 1:3. Other sons of Adam. 4. It has been suggested that the present story formed part of a tradition originally referring to a later time, when the earth was numerously inhabited, and has been adapted, on account of its moral significance, to the story of the first family. But it is unreasonable to expect from the detached narratives of early folk-lore the logical completeness of history. Cain’s words are rightly understood as a reference to the custom of blood-revenge, which went back to the remotest prehistoric age. The cultivated land was regarded as the region in which there prevailed social order and regard for life; but in the desert there would be none of the restrictions which regulated the existence of settled communities. In the desert Cain, as the murderer, would be destitute of the protection of Jehovah. He would have no rights of kinship: anyone might slay him with impunity. He would find no friendly tribe; he would be an outlaw.

14. Thou hast driven — Cain seems to charge all his curse on God, as if ignoring that he himself was the guilty cause. From the face of the earth — Special reference to the district of Eden. Compare Genesis 4:16.