“And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 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.” Genesis 4:5-8
Cain killed Abel. In doing so he felt he was removing what made his life miserable. Now he learns from God that Abel “though dead, still speaks”. (Hebrews 11:4)
What he thought would make his life better will now make it much,
much worse. God asked Cain. “What have you done?” Cain refuses that chance to repent and now he faces the punishment of God for his sin. As believers know from God’s word, there are earthly consequences for sin and eternal consequences for rejecting God‘s free gift of salvation.
Now you are cursed from the ground In Genesis 3 the serpent was
cursed and the ground was cursed but not Adam and Eve. Here Cain learns that he will bear the same curse as the snake and the earth.
Which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood God is just. Cain spilled the blood of his brother into the ground. That blood was considered worthless to Cain but God’s word tells us that “precious on the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints”. Because Cain spilled the blood of his brother on the ground that will be what God uses for Cain’s punishment.
From your hand God makes it clear He knows who is responsible. There will be no passing the buck to others. “The soul that sins shall surely die” is individual and the judgment will be individual as well. Keep that in mind when you think of the Great White Throne Judgment. It will be an individual by individual judgment. Each punishment decreed by the Judge of the Universe will be tailored to the life and deeds of the individual person who has rejected God’s one way of salvation – through Jesus Christ.
When you work the ground God describes the curse on Cain. Remember that Cain is a tiller of the ground. He had brought to God what he had been proud of – what he grew with his own hands. Again we are reminded of what an eternal separation from God in hell will be like. What people love and were good at on earth, they will crave; what gave them satisfaction from will be removed completely.
It shall no longer yield to you its strength No matter how hard Cain tries he will not be able to achieve what he once did. The ground had
been cursed in Genesis 3 so that it would no longer produce its fruit the way God designed it before the fall. With that curse thorns and thistles grew up along with the fruitful trees and bushes. Now, in addition, Cain’s attempts to work the land will be cursed.. Wherever he goes and no matter how hard he labors he will barely be able to make a living from what he was once an expert at. Thus Cain will learn where the true source of power and fruitfulness lies. Rather than boast in pride of what he can produce, Cain will learn that “without me, you can do nothing”. Cain refused to recognize thee authority of creator God who gave him the increase of his labors, now he will depend on a cursed earth to do so.
You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth With the inability to make a living Cain will live with a lack of confidence. He will live in fear and trembling. God says he will be a fugitive. The word means to quiver, wave, waver, tremble, totter. Cain will live looking over his shoulder in fear of others who know what he has done. Then God says Cain will be a wanderer. The word means to flutter, show grief and lament for the dead. This indicates a man who is constantly in grief over his sin, a man who will lament over what he has done but
will never be able to escape from that grief. One who rejects God’s way of forgiveness can find no other.
What can we learn? Why would God render such a punishment on Cain? There are many reasons given but the best way to
understand it is to think about the character of God. God provides a just punishment but he also does so in mercy and while calling a person to Himself. God allows Cain to live a barren, unfruitful, aimless even unsafe life. He will see what life without the God He rejects is like. In mercy God allows him to taste the bitterness of life without
God. Unforgiven sin and guilt – a punishment designed to humble Cain, and to cause him to repent and turn to God so that eternity without Him does not become reality.