Genesis 4:10-12 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

THOMAS SCOTT COMMENTARY

Verses 10-12. Thus god called upon Cain to reflect on the horrid nature and aggravated circumstances of his crime, and the vengeance due to him, in order to awaken his remorse and alarm his fears.—Understand hatred, and proud revenge, producing premeditated murder, while men were comparatively few in number, and probably none had yet died; the murder of a brother, in cruel disregard to their common parents, for no other cause than the excellency of his character, and envy excited by the favour which God had shown him; a malignant hatred of holiness, daring contempt of the Lord himself, and determined enmity to Him; were united in this one crime.—The justice and holiness of the great Governor of the universe render it so proper for Him to punish offenders, that they, who suffer flagrant wrong, are often spoken of in Scripture, as loudly calling upon Him to execute vengeance on their injurers. And as He witnesses the secret crimes which elude human justice, so those  crimes themselves are represented as demanding the punishment of the offenders from the Judge of all, “to whom vengeance belongs.” Thus Abel’s blood called, as with a loud voice, to the Lord to punish the murderer: and Cain’s enormous crime exposed him to so awful and deserved a curse, that the very elements were ready to rise up in arms against him, as the Creator’s instruments of vengeance; and the earth would withhold her wonted increase, because he had forced her to drink the blood of righteous Abel.—There is vast majesty and energy in thus personifying the inanimate creatures, and representing them as uniting against Cain.—In consequence of his crime, he would also be dreaded and detested, and the sight of him compelled to leave their society,. And to wander as a vagabond in distant parts, filled with anguish, and made a terror to himself. 

(Groaning and trembling.—Sept.)

THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY

Verses 10-12: We have here, 1. God’s reply, pointed with conviction, covering him with confusion,  What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. Blood hath a voice to reach the skies; murder will call for vengeance, blood for blood.

(1.) Shall murdered bodies thus cry out, and murdered souls be silent? Hear, ye careless sinners, whose lips and lives cast abroad firebrands and death. Tremble, ye negligent pastors: how many immortal souls are laying their blood at your door! (2.) Where shall man flee, whose sin hath testified to his face, whose guilt is evident? To the blood of Jesus. This crieth louder for mercy, than Abel’s did for vengeance: happy the soul whose cries of sin are drowned in deeper cries of the blood of the Savior. Even a murderer need not despair.

2. God’s judgment against him: now thou art cursed. No judgment so heavy as the wrath of God, and how much more when without hope of mercy. He is spared to live upon the earth, not in prospect of repentance, but as a warning against sin; a reprobate sinner is a damned one in this world. How should we be afraid of sin, lest we provoke God to give us up to a reprobate mind, and then we are as desperate as if already shut up in the belly of hell! Two things shall make his abode here as miserable, as his prospects hereafter are terrible.

(1.) The earth shall withhold her sustenance: though tilled, it shall not yield her increase. Adam received it barren, but by sweat it brought forth fruit. Cain shall not only sweat to till, but shall find it barren still. Note, A wicked man hath the curse of God on whatever he hath and doth; and this, like the gall in the cup, embitters all.

(2.) It shall refuse him a settlement; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be. He shall be cast out from the society of men, and left to wander up and down, as much a terror to himself, as an abhorrence to others. Note, This fugitive and vagabond is every sinner; he seeks to fly from himself, but guilt, like a fiend of hell, haunts him; and conscience, with a scorpion’s whip, continually scourges him.

  

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Genesis 4:9 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

THOMAS SCOTT COMMENTARY

Verse 9. The Lord soon called the murderer to account for his conduct (as he had formerly done Adam and Eve); inquiring of him, “Where his  brother Abel was?” and his answer accorded to the idea before suggested of his pride and unbelief. He denied that he knew where Abel was, as if he could conceal his crime from God himself; and he insolently demanded, whether he was his brother’s keeper!—I know not whether we are to consider this as a denial of the omniscience, or a rejection of the authority, or a defiance of the omnipotence of God; but it plainly shows that sin had hardened his heart, and blinded his understanding.

THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY

Verse 9: The murder was secret, and no doubt, carefully concealed. But there is a great eye, from which nothing is hid, nothing is secret: and he in this world orders his providence often in ways almost miraculous, to bring the blood that is covered to light. God here, 1. Maketh inquisition for it by an alarming question, suited to cover him with confusion, perhaps designed to humble him to repentance. 2. His answer; false and insolent.

(1.) False, I know not. A direct and willful lie. He would fain conceal it; what folly! Can omniscience be imposed upon? One sin never comes alone; he who dared to commit murder, hesitates not to cover it with a lie. They have both the same father: thus sin ever blinds the eyes and hardens the heart.

(2.) Insolent. Am I my brother’s keeper? Who else should have been? Who so proper? Who so bound in love and duty?  Note, God justly expects of us a kind concern for our brethren; if they receive damage to body or soul, through our neglect, much more through our means, he will require it at our hands.

  

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Genesis 4:8 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

THOMAS SCOTT COMMENTARY

Verse 8. Cain concealed his murderous hatred under the mask of cordial affection, and entered into familiar converse with his brother, till he had drawn him into a place of privacy, where he took the opportunity of slaying him.

THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY

Verse 8: Anger in the heart, is murder at the door: nothing is wanting but opportunity and impunity, to make every passionate man another Cain. Many were the aggravations of this foul crime. It was his brother; a brother to him ever dutiful and submissive, a person distinguished with God’s favor, and one who, unsuspicious of danger, talked with him as a friend. But what can stand before malicious envy? No doubt the time was, when Cain had started at the horrid deed; but, when once a man gives place to the devil, there is no conceiving to what a pitch of daring wickedness he may arrive.  Obsta principiis. If we would not commit murder, let us refrain from anger. Death thus began its ravages, it wages now appeared. But though his parents’ aching hearts beheld the reeking gore, I doubt not, they felt acuter pangs for living Cain, than for departed Abel. He died in faith; and from a sinner on earth, became a saint in heaven. He died a martyr; and first of that noble army received the crown: while we bewail his end, we should rejoice in his deliverance. Note, The saints of God are mortal; death must bring them down to the grave; but blessed be God for a hope, full of immortality; when they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, they will be in joy and felicity, inconceivable as eternal. What an argument to courage, if called to seal the truth with our blood, striving against sin.

  

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Genesis 4:13-14 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

THOMAS SCOTT COMMENTARY

Verses 13-15. Either Cain proudly complained of the severity with which he was to be punished, or, as some understand the words, he stated that his crime was too great to be pardoned. Thus he still manifested an unhumbled, impenitent, unbelieving heart. He considered himself as an outlaw, about to be left destitute of God’s providential protection, and driven to a distance from his worshippers and ordinances, to spend his days in  groans and terrors, till some person should meet with him and kill him. ‘Behold here a finished picture of impenitent misery; what a contrast to the fifty-first Psalm!’—Fuller. But the Lord determined that Cain should live monument and evidence of his abhorrence of murder, so that He would severely punish any one who should slay him.—Adam and Eve had very many more children than are mentioned in this brief narrative; which was principally intended to record a few important particulars, and to trace the history, from the beginning, to the time of Moses. And if, as it is generally thought, Abel was murdered but a short time before the birth of Seth, the human race might be exceedingly increased in the space of a hundred and thirty years.

THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY

Verses 13-14: Cain’s punishment was less than his iniquity deserved; yet he murmurs against it, as cruel and more than he can bear. The hardened heart of man is thus ever disposed to charge God foolishly. Doth a living man dare to complain of any present burden? Let him rather stand astonished that he is out of hell.  Note, They who quarrel with the punishments of sin, as too severe, will feel them to their cost by and by; and be made to own the justice of them too. Four sore judgments were upon him; rejection from God’s face and favor, as a reprobate; expulsion from the comforts of society and the church of God; a restless and tormented conscience; and the continual and terrible fears of death. Learn, 1. The soul who departs from God, is the prey of constant disquiet: though he seeks rest, he finds none. (2.) Guilt is the source of ceaseless horror, and every prospect of death, to such an one, is big with terror and dismay.

  

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Genesis 4:15 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY

Verse 15: We have here God’s protection of Cain, and the mark set upon him. First, to confirm the sentence passed upon him, he is not to be executed, lest he be forgotten, but lives a standing monument of God’s vengeance against sin. We need not wonder that God does not immediately cut off daring and presumptuous sinners: he has wise ends to answer in them. Secondly, the mark was to point him out; not more to save him harmless, than to brand him infamous. This is the murderer! The mark of sin is upon every guilty soul: though secret now, the day is near when the brand of the beast will appear in the forehead, and the impenitent sinner be pointed out as the object of scorn and abhorrence to saints and angels; and be doomed to live for ever as an outcast from God, with devils in hell.

  

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Genesis 4:16-18 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

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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Genesis 4:25-26 Commentary

  March 12, 2021    

THOMAS SCOTT COMMENTARY

Verse 25. Perhaps Eve had some intimation, that this son was to be the progenitor of the promised Seed. The mention of Abel, in this connexion, was an indication of her piety, as valuing pious Abel above all her children.

THOMAS HAWEIS COMMENTARY

Verses 25-26: Great, no doubt, was Adam’s grief for his lost Abel, and greater for his rebellious Cain; but he shall not have all sorrow, and no comfort. God will, in some sort, make up the breach; though he shall have enough to awaken the remembrance of his sin and his sorrow, he shall not be left utterly destitute. 1. God gives him another son, to be the establishment of his family, and in whose house the worship of God will should be perpetuated in the room of Abel. God will never want a holy seed. Though the church be never so persecuted,  sanguis martyrum semen ecclesia: there shall still be a generation to serve him. 2. The name given him; Seth, placed or settled: and another seed, typifying that emphatical seed the Messiah; who should be placed as an ensign on a hill, and to whom should the gathering of the people be. 3. The farther increase of his family in Seth’s son, Enos, or miserable; so called, to remind us that the best of men are but miserable sinners. And now, in their seed’s seed, the beheld a comfortable prospect of the perpetuity of the true religion. For, 4. They were distinguished for their regard to God’s name and worship: they were of a different character from the irreligious offspring of Cain; they continued in prayer and public sacrifices: no doubt Adam’s children had done so from the beginning, but they now began to be more marked for it. The more the wickedness of men appears, the more should the people of God be quickened: 
‘tis high time to be zealous for God’s glory, when iniquity abounds: The margin reads, They began to be called by the name of the Lord. Perhaps a name of reproach given by the wicked sons of Cain; the godly, the precise. The people of God ever bore his name; a name of infamy on the earth, but a name of honor in heaven; the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.

  

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