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.
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, 1Sa 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 (Lev 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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 14. Behold, thou hast driven me out] In Ge 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 Ge 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, 2Th 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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 Gods precept and blessing, Gen 1:26, procreate children presently after the fall, and Gods 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 worlds infancy.
3. That this murder was committed but a little before the hundred and thirtieth year of Adams age, which appears by comparing Gen 4:25 and Gen 5:3. 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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. every one that findeth me shallslay meThis shows that the population of the world was nowconsiderably increased.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 it, and from society and converse with the inhabitants of it; and especially he was driven from that part of it, where he was born and brought up, and which he had been employed in manuring; where his parents dwelt, and other relations, friends, and acquaintance: and to be banished into a strange country, uninhabited, and at a distance from those he had familiarly lived with, was a sore punishment of him:
and from, thy face shall I be hid; not from his omniscience and omnipresence, for there is no such thing as being hid from the all seeing eye of God, or flying from his presence, which is everywhere; but from his favour and good will, and the outward tokens of it, as well as from the place where his Shechinah or divine Majesty was; and which was the place of public worship, and where good men met and worshipped God, and offered sacrifice to him: and from the place of divine worship and the ordinances of it, and the church of God and communion with it, an hypocrite does not choose to be debarred:
and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; as was threatened him, [See comments on Ge 4:12]:
and it shall come to pass, that everyone that findeth me shall slay me; that is, some one, the first that should meet him, for he could be slain but by one; so odious he knew he should be to everyone, being under such marks of the divine displeasure, that his life would be in danger by whomsoever he should be found: and this being near an hundred and thirty years after the creation of man, see Ge 4:25 Ge 5:3 there might in this time be a large number of men on earth; Adam and Eve procreating children immediately after the fall, and very probably many more besides Cain and Abel, and those very fruitful, bringing many at a birth and often, and few or none dying, the increase must be very great; and we read quickly after this of a city being built, Gen 4:17. Cain seems to be more afraid of a corporeal death than to have any concern about his soul, and the eternal welfare of it, or to be in dread and fear of an eternal death, or wrath to come; though some think the words should be rendered in a prayer x, “let it be that anyone that findeth me may kill me”; being weary of life under the horrors of a guilty conscience.
x Lightfoot, vol. 1. p. 3,
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
14. Every one that findeth me. Since he is no longer covered by the protection of God, he concludes that he shall be exposed to injury and violence from all men. And he reasons justly; for the hand of God alone marvelously preserves us amid so many dangers. And they have spoken prudently who have said, not only that our life hangs on a thread, but also that we have been received into this fleeting life, out of the womb, from a hundred deaths. Cain, however, in this place, not only considers himself as deprived of God’s protection, but also supposes all creatures to be divinely armed to take vengeance of his impious murder. This is the reason why he so greatly fears for his life from any one who may meet him; for as man is a social animal, and all naturally desire mutual intercourse, this is certainly to be regarded as a portentous fact, that the meeting with any man was formidable to the murderer.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
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 Gen 4:16. His sentence to be a vagabond and a fugitive involved this separation from Eden.
From thy face From that hallowed spot on the east of the garden of Eden where the symbols of the divine Presence were set, (Gen 3:24,) and where, probably, all sacrifices to Jehovah had hitherto been offered. Comp. Gen 4:16.
Every one shall slay me Thus in that first age we note how the guilty conscience fears the avenger of blood. It has been plausibly supposed that the murder of Abel occurred not long before the birth of Seth, (see Gen 4:25,) when Adam was one hundred and thirty years old, (Gen 5:3😉 at which time there was probably a considerable population in man’s primeval seat . “By every one we are not to understand every creature, as though Cain had excited the hostility of all creatures, but every man . Cain is evidently afraid of revenge on the part of relatives of the slain, who were either already in existence or yet to be born . ” Keil .
“See, this day you have driven me away from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me.”
He has lost his two most treasured possessions. The ‘face of the ground’ on which he has laboured, which has been his interest and has mainly looked kindly on him, and the face of God which has meant protection. Now his food has gone and his protection has gone. God will not look when men seek him out and kill him. He must for ever avoid the places where men dwell for fear of what they will do, for God will not watch over him or take account of his death.
“The face of the ground” clearly refers to cultivable ground, in contrast with the barren ground on which he must now live. It may well be a technical term for that land to which God had assigned man after his expulsion from the Eden (compare ‘the place of Yahweh’ – Gen 4:16).
Cain has slain a kinsman and knows that the family will not rest until he too is dead. Even at this stage ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’, man’s natural sense of what is just and right, applies. But notice how he blames God. It is as though God is to blame for all that he faces, when it is mainly the consequence of his own wrongdoing. He shows not a jot of regret or sorrow for what he has done, he only regrets what it will mean for his future. How typical of the natural man in his approach to God.
Gen 4:14. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth that is, of this part of the earth, or country: and from thy face shall I be hid; an expression which must be restricted, as well as the former; for how could he be hid from the face of God, if we understand it of his all-seeing eye? May it not, therefore, refer to that presence of God, which was appropriated to some certain place? And therefore may we not reasonably conclude, that the same Shechinah, or Divine Presence, mentioned before, and placed at the garden of Eden, is here referred to? And indeed the word peni, face, here used, is generally referred to God’s presence in the tabernacle, &c. It is the opinion of many, that Cain came to worship at the place appointed, when the Lord thus convicted him of his crime; an opinion the more probable, from Gen 4:16 where it is said, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord; that is, “from the place of his peculiar presence and worship.” All which, it must be observed, tends to shew the consistency of the sacred scripture, and to confirm our general plan of interpretation.
Every one that findeth me, shall slay me By this expression, Cain demonstrates the dreadful effects of vice on the mind, which it terrifies with continual alarms, creating fear where no fear is. Hence it evidently follows, that there were many persons on the earth at this time. Now according to the computation of the best chronologers, it was in the hundred and twenty-ninth year of Adam’s age that Abel was slain: for the scripture says expressly, that Seth (who was given in the lieu of Abel) was born in the hundred and thirtieth year, (very likely the year after the murder was committed,) to be a comfort to his disconsolate parents. So that Cain must have been a hundred and twenty-nine years old, when he abdicated his own country: at which time there must have been a great quantity of mankind upon the face of the earth; it may be, to the number of a hundred thousand souls:* for if the children of Israel, from seventy persons, in the space of four hundred and thirty years, became six hundred thousand fighting men, (though vast numbers must have died during this increase,) we may very well suppose, that the children of Adam, whose lives were so very long, might amount to a hundred thousand in a hundred and thirty years, which are above four generations.
* It has been shewn, that, supposing Adam and Eve to have had no other sons than Cain and Abel, in the year of the world 128; yet, as they had daughters married with these sons, their descendants would make a considerable figure on the earth. For, supposing them to have been married in the nineteenth year of the world, they might have had each of them eight children, some males and some females, in the twenty-fifth year. In the fiftieth year there might have proceeded from them, in a direct line, 64 persons; in the seventy-fourth year there would be 572; in the ninety-eighth 4096; in the hundred and twenty-second, they would amount to 32,768. If to these we add the other children descended from Cain and Abel, their children, and the children of their children, we shall have, in the aforesaid hundred and twenty-eighth year, 421,164 men above the age of seventeen, without reckoning the women, both old and young, or the males under seventeen.
Gen 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. Mic 6:9 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.” Job 15:21-22
Every one that finds me shall slay me. a Petron.
b Daniel’s Chron. continued by Trussel , 249.
c Thuan. lib. lvii.
d M. Ward’s Sermon.
earth. Hebrew ground.
hid. Compare note on Gen 3:8. every one = any one.
Gen 4:12
driven: Job 15:20-24, Pro 14:32, Pro 28:1, Isa 8:22, Hos 13:3
from thy: Gen 4:16, Job 21:14, Job 21:15, Psa 51:11-14, Psa 143:7, Mat 25:41, Mat 25:46, 2Th 1:9
fugitive: Deu 28:65, Psa 109:10
that: Gen 4:15, Gen 9:5, Gen 9:6, Lev 26:17, Lev 26:36, Num 17:12, Num 17:13, Num 35:19, Num 35:21, Num 35:27, 2Sa 14:7, Job 15:20-24, Pro 28:1
Reciprocal: Gen 4:11 – General Gen 17:18 – before Deu 30:1 – whither Lam 3:39 – a man Act 19:13 – vagabond
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge