Oh, if only Cain had listened and made better choices! Now God has to tell Cain the consequences of his terrible actions—and Cain is going decide to reject God entirely. Will God abandon Cain or continue to care for him?
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
(Parents, all scripture is from the ESV unless I say otherwise) We have a lot of verses today. So, we had better just get started:
8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. 16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Last week, we talked about Cain murdering his brother Abel. We don’t know how exactly what happened or why, but this week it seems to be pretty clear that Cain isn’t really feeling sorry about anything. He is sure feeling sorry for himself, though! All he can think about is himself and how hard it will be for him and that if people find him they will kill him! Not one, “Oh gosh I shouldn’t have done that,” or “I did a terrible thing, please forgive me,” or “Poor Abel! Poor mom and dad!” Nope, it’s all me, me, me. And we can guess that’s been Cain’s problem since the very beginning. He hasn’t cared one bit about being wrong and doing wrong. He’s been determined to do what he wants whether or not anyone else likes it–but then he sure gets angry when God doesn’t like it! And that’s super messed up. Imagine if everyone was like that.
What is happening here? Is God punishing Cain? Is that how this is worded? Maybe, but it actually sounds like the ground is angry at Cain. So, we’re going to talk about that first. “10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength.”
Does that sound strange? That Abel’s blood is crying out from the ground? Do you think that anyone can hear blood screaming? Well, maybe God can but this is an idiom we find a lot in the bible. Remember that an idiom is a saying that might not mean what we would think it means. In this case, the drops of blood don’t have tiny little mouths screaming, “Cain killed me! Avenge me!” That would be creepy and like no one would ever kill anyone again if that happened. *shudder* But this is actually an idiom, a saying, that means that someone has been terribly wronged. In the Bible, we call this injustice. It’s the opposite of justice, which is when everyone gets exactly what they deserve. Abel didn’t deserve to die—Cain just hauled off and killed him anyway, so the Bible says that it was such a terrible crime that even death can’t keep Abel quiet. God is saying that Abel deserved better than that, that he deserved to live but now, because of Cain’s anger and selfishness, someone has to step in and make sure that there are consequences–which is a word we have been hearing a lot since the Garden. Cain didn’t like the consequences of making a bad offering, even though it was just a stern talking to from God, and he is going to like the consequences of killing his brother a whole lot less. God is going to do that through what it seems as though Cain loves the most—farming.
In the Bible, we will often see that the ground rebels against people who have sinned. Adam was the first—when he rebelled against God, the land rebelled against him and gave him thorns and thistles instead of the crops they would need to survive, which meant he had to work even harder to just get by. Adam wasn’t cursed, of course, and neither was Eve, but the Bible says that the ground itself was cursed. We see that curse will be taken away after the flood when God says He will never curse the ground again. And now, with Cain, God tells him that he is “cursed from the ground” just like the serpent “was cursed above all animals.” It meant that the serpent was not going to be able to find any peace around the other animals—they would all either run or try to kill it. In the same way, Cain won’t be able to rely on the earth anymore to feed him. The ground isn’t going to cooperate and bless Cain anymore. So, whatever struggles Adam had in farming, they would look like blessings compared to Cain’s punishment. If you know any farmers, I mean real farmers who love to farm, it’s like torture of them not to be able to do it anymore. They love to grow things. Same with ranchers, people who like to care for animals. Same for sailors. Same for me with my writing—if God told me one day that words wouldn’t cooperate with me anymore, I would feel very lost. That’s how Cain is feeling right now but for him it is even worse because this is how he eats! There are no grocery stores—if he doesn’t grow it, then he will starve.
God says, “When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength.” So, that means that Cain won’t be able to just ignore God and keep on farming. God didn’t tell Cain that he isn’t allowed to be a farmer anymore, God told Cain that if he even tried to farm, that the ground wouldn’t grow anything for him anymore. There’s a big difference. This is much worse, in some ways, from Adam and Eve being booted from the Garden (yes, the Bible says that only Adam was booted but I don’t think she was welcome anymore either!). They were exiled, if you remember that word, which means that they were forced to leave their home by someone more powerful who could keep them from being able to ever come back, but they could live wherever they wanted on the outside and they could still grow things. They weren’t gardeners anymore, taking care of what God planted, but they could plant things themselves. But Cain can’t even do that. And there’s even worse than that.
“You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”
God is telling Cain, “No matter how far you go, no matter where you try, you will never be able to grow anything anywhere.” That’s what being a wanderer means, he will wander around and never be able to find what he is looking for. But what about the word fugitive? That is translated from a word meaning to be disturbed or shaken—it means that Cain will never be able to rest or relax. It means that he can’t be with his family anymore because of what he did to his brother. He won’t be welcome. They won’t be able to trust him anymore. Even if they forgive him, they will always be wondering if anyone is safe around Cain. No one had ever died before and he figured out a way to kill his brother. Maybe he didn’t know that what he was doing would kill him but it sure seems like he doesn’t care very much. That’s the saddest thing of all.
13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Oh my gosh, really, Cain? Your punishment is too great for you to bear. You’ve just torn everyone else’s lives apart and you’re like flipping out that you can’t be a farmer and you are going to have to leave because, oh, well I dunno, you just destroyed your family.
14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden.
So, this temper tantrum continues. “You’re driving me away from the ground so I can’t grow food? Fine. I am going to hide myself from you.” Of course, this is kind of silly—as if there is anywhere he can go to hide from God but maybe he thinks that God lives in this place. Maybe the family never strayed far from the borders of the Garden. Maybe he thinks, because they built an altar there, God is tied to that space. But you know what? No matter where you go or what you do, you can’t hide from God. In Psalm 139:7-12, we see this:
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
WOW! Do you even know what this means? You are never ever alone. God is always there. Always listening. Always caring. Always waiting to hear from you. Cain didn’t understand this about God—he thought he could run away from home and run away from God too. But, you know, he didn’t have a Bible to tell him all the cool stuff that we get to know about God. But this is what Cain always does. When he does wrong, he never just admits it and chooses to do better. He is a sulker. Instead of getting angry at himself, he gets angry at everyone else. He got angry at God and then he got angry at his brother Abel, and now he is telling God that he’s going to run away from home and that God will never see him again. He thinks God is very small. Just imagine a god who could make an entire universe but couldn’t find Cain on the only planet he could possibly be on. Not like he even has a spaceship. And when he is probably travelling on foot. Finding him would not be challenging. But now that Cain has made his threat to hide, he’s going to start complaining again.
“I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
Oh, poor Cain. Now, he’s repeating his punishment and looking for pity. People might treat him the exact same way he treated his brother. After all, if he will kill his own brother, why wouldn’t a stranger kill him? And you might have noticed that there are more people other than his mother and father. Where did they come from? Next week, we will read a verse that says Cain has a wife, who is she? And that he starts a city, but a city needs more than just a few people. What the heck? I already hinted back when we started Genesis 2, what the answer to that is but we will talk about it next week. For the time being, Cain has a problem. He is a hunted man—a man who is known for killing his own brother won’t be trusted or welcomed anywhere else. He’s right to be worried. Will God say, “Tough cookies, you should have thought of that before you killed your brother. What goes around comes around! What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!”
15 Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.”
Say what? Cain doesn’t deserve to be defended, does he? Isn’t it right that he should be hunted down and killed? Well, evidently God doesn’t agree. And even though Cain is acting like a total goober head, and insulting God and behaving badly, God is still going to show Cain mercy. What does this mean, that if anyone kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold?” It means that whatever anyone does to Cain, they will get it a whole lot worse—from God Himself. Wow, God is going to protect Cain from anyone who wants revenge. Why? When Cain is being so awful, why is God going to protect him? We just don’t know. Maybe Cain didn’t understand that his actions would kill Abel and that he would die forever. No one had ever done that before. That could be it. Maybe God is just so merciful that we don’t understand. In any event, God has decided to be Cain’s defender. No one will get away with murdering Cain.
And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.
Boy howdy, if you want to talk about things that people wonder and argue about from the Bible, this is one of them. What is the mark that God put on Cain? We have no idea. I can tell you what we do know—it was a good mark. I can tell you that because it protected Cain from being hurt by other people, just like the clothes that God made from animal skins protected Adam and Eve once they left the Garden. Cain’s mark is not a punishment. His punishment was that the land would not longer support him, he wouldn’t be able to grow crops. That means that Cain’s mark is a sign of God’s protection and grace—even after everything Cain has done. That’s amazing. I hope you remember that if you are ever feeling like God has abandoned you. He never abandoned Cain. But as to what it looked like or how people knew what it means? We have no clue. I can tell you some silly things people have thought over the years.
One guy thought that God gave Cain leprosy, which was a terrible skin disease that would have covered his entire body. Today, what we call leprosy can be cured but the Bible describes something far more terrible that only God can cure. But then, Cain is going to build a city and no one would have lived in a city with someone with the kind of leprosy they had in the Bible. People were scared to death of that! Or how about a horn growing out of his head? Someone said that too. Another possibility was that God gave Cain a dog to protect him but that dog would have had to live an awful long time to do that! A few hundred years ago, someone started the rumor that God changed the color of Cain’s skin because they wanted to hurt people with that skin color, but that doesn’t make any sense either. In any event, only Cain was cursed and not his children or grandchildren. Whatever Cain’s mark was, it was on Cain and only on Cain! And what do I always say when the Bible doesn’t tell us something? It means we don’t need to know it and we need to pay attention to what actually is written. And what is written? God was protecting Cain! What could be more important than that?
16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
We’ve talked about exile before and whenever anyone in the bible is driven from their home, they go east. And this is what Cain does, he turns his back on God and goes to the land of Nod and we have no idea where on earth that is. In fact, Nod comes from the same word as “wanderer” so it probably isn’t even a place name at all. You know, for that matter, we have no idea where Eden is either because the description of Genesis two doesn’t match up with anyplace on earth. Next week, we will talk about what happens to Cain after he leaves but this week, I want to talk to you about God’s faithfulness.
Sometimes, we think that God has given up on us because we are ashamed of ourselves. Or maybe we just think He should give up on us because we have done something so terrible that we can’t imagine anyone ever loving us again. I know I have. It’s a terrible feeling. Sometimes we don’t even want God to love us anymore because we are just so angry at ourselves. The story of Cain and God—I don’t call it the story of Cain and Abel because Abel barely is mentioned at all. This is the story of Cain and God. What does Cain do and what does God do? Cain does something wrong, God reaches out to him and talks to him and tells him to do what is right. Can gets angry and kills his brother. God reaches out to Cain and gives him a chance to be honest about what he did. Cain responds disrespectfully and lies to God. God confronts Cain with what he did and tells him the consequences. Cain complains and threatens to hide from God forever. And then he complains that people are going to try and kill him. God responds by protecting Cain.
I imagine that you have probably never done that much wrong. I hope you never will. Your brothers and sisters especially hope you never do that much wrong! One terrible mistake I never want you to make—I mean, besides not killing anyone—is to take God’s love for granted. There is a big difference between what Cain did, getting angry and sinning, and knowing that God is forgiving and sinning on purpose just because you think He will forgive you. Do you remember when I talked about the three kinds of sins in the Bible? There is the chattat, that’s an “oopsie” sin where you didn’t know you were doing anything wrong. We all do that. In the Bible, that is just called a sin. Then there is avon, that’s more serious. Avon is what Cain did, it’s on purpose but maybe we were angry and did something wrong, or we were tempted and gave in. The Bible translates that as iniquity. But pesha is sin we commit on purpose. Pesha is very, very serious. Pesha is called transgression in English and we commit those kinds of sins because we hate God and want to hurt Him.
My friend Ryan White tells a funny fictional (totally made up) story about three sons to explain the different kinds of sins (he had three when he told this story but now he has five). In the story, the mom bakes a big yummy batch of chocolate chip cookies. Then she has to leave the room. The youngest boy comes in and sees the cookies and takes one and eats it because he didn’t know they weren’t supposed to eat cookies without permission. He was just a tiny little guy. He did something wrong, but he didn’t know. He was too young to understand. That’s a chattat sin. The next oldest son, he knew that he wasn’t allowed to have cookies without permission because he had learned it before. But they were hot and mom was nowhere around and they smelled so good and he tried to resist and finally he couldn’t stand it anymore and took the cookie and ran to his room to hide it and eat it because he was so ashamed or himself. That’s avon, or iniquity. But then the oldest son came in, just as his mom was counting the cookies and wondering who made off with two of them. The oldest knew not to take any cookies, and he saw his mother right there. But he didn’t love his mother very much. He wanted a cookie and didn’t care about hurting her. So, while she was right there, he took a cookie while she was watching and ate it while she was telling him not to. He had a nasty smirk on his face and even though she was upset that he wasn’t obeying her, he took another one too. That’s pesha, transgression. That’s rebellion. That’s an evil thing to do to your parents or to anyone, really. Cain might have committed all three types in his story. Maybe he really didn’t know at first what was wrong with his offering—if he didn’t, that was chattat sin. When God confronted him, and told him to do right next time, he learned what was right. If Cain got angry and lost control of himself and killed his brother, that is avon, iniquity. But when God confronted Cain and he was disrespectful and lied and mouthed off to God, that was pesha. Do you see how easy it is to start out with small sins and go all the way to hating and rebelling against God when we aren’t careful? It’s important to always stop sinning as soon as we can before we go too far and our hearts are too hardened to turn back—like Cain and like Pharaoh. And for the love of Pete, don’t kill your brothers and sisters.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I pray you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you.