March 12, 2021 omanba
THOMAS SCOTT COMMENTARY
Verses 16-17. Cain seems entirely to have let the ordinances of God, the society of his worshippers, and the places especially favoured with the tokens of His presence. This might be at first by compulsion, in consequence of the curse denounced on him; but, continuing impenitent, he probably soon became openly irreligious, or perhaps an idolater. Nod signifies a vagabond, or wanderer: the land of the vagabonds.—The wife of Cain is the first woman mentioned in this history, Eve only excepted. The sons and daughters of Adam and Eve must have intermarried. It is probable that Cain had been long married, and had children before these events; and that his descendants principally helped him to build a city, and formed the majority of its inhabitants.—Thus he attempted to divert his mind from serious reflection and remorse of conscience; or to attach to himself adherents, and to get a name in one way, as he had forfeited his reputation in another.
THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY
Verses 16-18: We have here, according to the sentence, 1. Cain’s banishment. The presence of the Lord he no longer desired, but dreaded, and therefore sought to fly from it. He had done now with worship and sacrifices; and, as God had forsaken him, he renounces all profession of godliness, and commences vagabond. None sink so low, none grow so infamously vile, as those, who having made profession of godliness, return as the dog, to their vomit.
2. Whither he went. To the east of Eden the way the flaming cherub stood; insensible to God’s dreadful judgments, and defying them: such daring impiety being the last produce of the abandoned heart: but he found no rest. It was the land of Nod, or trembling to him wherever he was: he could not fly from himself. Let the guilty sinner never think of flying from God, but to God, if ever he hoped to find rest unto his soul.
3. His labors. To build a city; an expedient dictated by his fears, perhaps to secure his person; or by his impiety, in hopes of disappointing the divine sentence; or by his misery, to divert his thoughts; or by his pride, to make himself distinguished: whatever a wicked man doth, his motives, pursuits, and ends, are all wrong. Learn hence, (1.) ‘Tis a sad symptom of a sinful state, when a man cannot bear his own thoughts, but must be seeking some continual engagements in order to divert his mind. (2.) The sinner seeks a fixed abode in the earth: he would set up his name and city here. To be worldly-minded, is the sure evidence of departure from God. (3.) In vain are all the attempts of the guilty: his possessions must fail, his cities moulder into dust, his name be blotted out, and death, which brings him to the judgment-seat of God, disappoint all his labors under the sun.
4. His family. The names of them are mentioned, but no good of them; they were chips of the old block; malus corvus, malum ovum; what a curse to his family is a wicked parent!
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