◄ Genesis 4:13 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Care For Our Brethren
Genesis 4:9
J.F. Montgomery
How terrible this question to the murderer! He thought, perhaps, his act was hidden, and strove to put it out of mind. Perhaps did not anticipate effect of his stroke; but now brought face to face with his sin. "Where is Abel?" He knew not. He knew where the body lay; but that was not Abel. Had sent him whence he could not call him back. "Where is thy brother?" is God's word to each of us. It expresses the great law that we are responsible for each other's welfare. "Am I my brother's keeper?" some would ask. Assuredly yes. God has knit men together so that all our life through we require each other's help; and we cannot avoid influencing each other. And has created a bond of brotherhood (cf. Acts 17:26), which follows from our calling him "Father." What doing for good of mankind? Not to do good is to do harm; not to save is to kill. Love of Christ works (Romans 10:1; 2 Corinthians 5:14).

I. WE ARE CALLED TO CARE FOR THOSE AFAR OFF. "Who is my neighbor?" We might answer, Who is not thy neighbor? Everywhere our brethren. Thousands passing away daily. Abel, a vapor, the character of human life (Psalm 103:15). Whither are they going? And we know the way of salvation. Light is given to no one for himself only (Matthew 5:13, 14). We are to hold it forth; to be as lights in the world (Philippians 2:15). It is God's will thus to spread his kingdom. Are we answering the call? Test yourselves (cf. 1 John 3:17). Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, O God. Thank God, the question speaks to us of living men. There are fields still to be reaped. The heathen, our brethren, claim a brother's help. How many varieties of Cain's answer: - You cannot reclaim savages; you just make them hypocrites; we must look at home first. And the lost masses at home are our brethren. Oh, it is in vain to help them; they will drink; they hate religion; they only think what they can get from those who visit them. Test these objections. Single out in thought one soul; compare his case with yours. You have instruction, ordinances, influences; and he the darkness of heathenism, or surroundings of vice. Yet Christ died for that soul. Can you let it depart without some effort, or even earnest prayer?

II. WE ARE CALLED TO CARE FOR THOSE AROUND US. For their sake, watchfulness and self-restraint (cf. Romans 14:15). We teach more by what we do than by what we say. The loving life teaches love; the selfish, ungodliness. Inconsistencies of Christians hinder Christ's cause. What art thou at home? Is thy life pointing heavenward? "None of us liveth to himself." "Where is thy brother?" - M.

Biblical Illustrator
My punishment is greater than I can hear.
Genesis 4:13, 14
Cain's despair
H. Bonar, D. D.
1. Behold, Thou hast cast me out this day from (or from upon) the face of the ground. Thou hast driven me! He sees it to be Jehovah's own doing. He who drove Adam out of paradise, now drives Cain out of Eden. Adam's sin brought expulsion from the inner circle, Cain's from the outer. He is to be cast out from the land where he had been born, where was his home; from the ground which he had tilled. He was now doubly banished; compelled to go forth into an unknown region, without a guide, or a promise, or a hope.

2. From Thy face I shall be hid. God's face means, doubtless, the Shekinah or manifested glory of Jehovah at the gate of Eden, where Adam and Eve and their children had worshipped, where God was seen by them, where He met them, and spake to them as from His mercy seat. From this place of Jehovah's presence Cain was to go out. And this depresses him. Not that he really cared for the favour of God, as one "in whose favour was life"; but still he could not afford to lose it, especially when others were left behind to enjoy it. And all his religious feelings, such as they were, were associated with that spot.

3. I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. Unchanged from his primeval home, he was now to drift to and fro, he knew not whither. He was to be a leaf driven to and fro, a man without a settlement and without a home. Poor, desolate sinner! And all this is thine own doing! Thy sin has found thee out. Thine own iniquities have taken thee, and thou art holden with the cords of thy sins (Proverbs 5:22).

(H. Bonar, D. D.)

The severity of self-inflicted punishment
J. Parker, D. D.
The punishment which a man inflicts upon himself is infinitely severer than any punishment that can be inflicted upon him. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" You remember how you ill-treated that poor child now dead; you saw the anguish of his soul, and he besought you and you would not hear; and now a great distress is come upon you, and your bread is very bitter. Who is punishing you? Not the magistrate. Who then? You are punishing yourself. You cannot forgive yourself. The child touches you at every corner, speaks to you in every dream, moans in every cold wind, and lays its thin pale hand upon you in the hour of riot and excitement. You see that ill-used child everywhere; a shadow on the fair horizon, a background to the face of every other child, a ghastly contrast to everything lovely and fair. Time cannot quench the fire. Events cannot throw into dim distance this tragic fact. It surrounds you, mocks you, defies you, and under its pressure you know the meaning of the words, which no mere grammarian can understand — "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment." All this will come the more vividly before us if we remember that a man who has done wrong has not only to be forgiven, he has to forgive himself. That is the insuperable difficulty. He feels that an external view of his sin, which even the acutest man can take, is altogether partial and incomplete; and, consequently, that any forgiveness which such a man can offer is also imperfect and superficial. That is so philosophically, but, thank God, not evangelically. God's forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord, is not mere forgiveness, however abundant and emphatic. It is not merely a royal or even a paternal edict. It is an act incomplete in itself; it is merely introductory or preparatory, as the uprooting of weeds is preliminary to a better use of the soil. It is an essential act, for in the absence of pardon the soul is absolutely without the life that can lay hold of any of the higher blessings or gifts of God. To what, then, is forgiveness preparatory? To adoption, to communion with God, to absorption into the Divine nature, to the witness of the Holy Ghost.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

Impenitent misery
A. Fuller.
There is a great change since he spoke last, but not for the better. All the difference is, instead of his high tone of insolence, we perceive him sinking into the last stage of depravity, sullen desperation. Behold here a finished picture of impenitent misery. What a contrast to the fifty-first Psalm! There the evil dwelt upon and pathetically lamented is sin; but here is only punishment. See how he expatiates upon it...Driven from the face of the earth...deprived of God's favour and blessing, and, in a sort, of the means of hope...a wanderer and an outcast from men...to all which his fears add, "Wherever I am by night or by day, my life will be in perpetual danger!" Truly it was a terrible doom, a kind of hell upon earth. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!"

(A. Fuller.)

Remorse
Tiberius felt the remorse of conscience so violent, that he protested to the senate that he suffered death daily; and Trapp tells us of Richard III that, after the murder of his two innocent nephews, he had fearful dreams and visions, would leap out of his bed, and catching his sword, would go distractedly about the chamber, everywhere seeking to find out the cause of his own occasioned disquiet. If, therefore, men more or less familiarized with crime and deeds of blood, had the fangs of the serpent ever probing their breasts, is it unreasonable to conclude that Cain knew seasons of sad regrets? If he had not, God's inquiry soon stirred up the pangs! The cruel Montassar, having assassinated his father, was one day admiring a beautiful painting of a man on horseback, with a diadem encircling his head, and a Persian inscription. Inquiring the significance of the words, he was told that they were: "I am Shiunjeh, the son of Kosru, who murdered my father, and possessed the crown only six months." Montassar turned pale, horrors of remorse at once seized on him, frightful dreams interrupted his slumbers until he died. And no sooner did God address the first fratricide, than conscience roused herself to inflict poignant pains: —Oh, the wrath of the Lord is a terrible thing!
Like the tempest that withers the blossoms of spring,
Like the thunder that bursts on the summer's domain,
It fell on the head of the homicide Cain.

Condemnation
Very little idea can be formed of the sufferings of Cain, when we read that God visited him with life-long remorse. John Randolph, in his last illness, said to his doctor: "Remorse! Remorse! Remorse! Let me see the word! show it to me in a dictionary." There being none at hand, he asked the surgeon to write it out for him; then, having looked at it carefully, he exclaimed: "Remorse! you do not know what it means." Happy are those who never know. It gives, as Dr. Thomas says, a terrible form and a horrible voice to everything beautiful and musical without. It is recorded of Bessus — a native of Polonia, in Greece — that the notes of birds were so insufferable to him, as they never ceased chirping the murder of his father — that he would tear down their nests and destroy both young and old. The music of the sweet songsters of the grove was as the shrieks of hell to a guilty conscience. And how terribly would the familiar things of life become to Cain a source of agony!The kiss of his children shall scorch him like flame,
When he thinks of the curse that hangs over his name,
And the wife of his bosom — the faithful and fair,
Can mix no sweet drop in his cup of despair:
For her tender caress, and her innocent breath,
But still in his soul the hot embers of death.

Wakeful conscience
J. M'Cosh.
Though in many men conscience sleeps in regard to motion, yet it never sleeps in regard to observation and notice. It may be hard and seared, it can never be blind. Like letters written with the juice of lemon, that which is written upon it, though seemingly invisible and illegible, when brought before the fire of God's judgment shall come forth clear and expressive.

(J. M'Cosh.)

Sin and punishment
Cain said, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Saul, king of Israel, had a minstrel to soothe him when the evil spirit rose within him. King Richard III of England, after he killed his two nephews, had horrible dreams. He thought all the devils in hell, in terrible shapes, were coming to pull him about; and, in his fright, he leaped out of bed, and seized the naked sword which he kept beside him, to find and punish the cause of his trouble. Charles IX, of France, had similar anguish after he had ordered the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

A ruined life
Sailing down the Thames one occasionally sees a green flag, in tatters, inscribed with the word "wreck," floating in the breeze over a piece of the mast or the funnel of a steamer which is just visible above the water. How many lives might thus be marked, and how needful that they should be so labelled, lest they prove ruinous to others!

People
Abel, Adah, Adam, Cain, Enoch, Enos, Enosh, Eve, Irad, Jabal, Jubal, Lamech, Mehujael, Methusael, Naamah, Seth, Tubal, Tubalcain, Zillah
Places
Tigris-Euphrates Region
Topics
Bear, Borne, Cain, Greater, Punishment, Strength
Outline
1. The birth, occupation, and offerings of Cain and Abel.
8. Cain murders his brother Abel.
11. The curse of Cain.
17. Has a son called Enoch, and builds a city, which he calls after his name.
18. His descendants, with Lamech and his two wives.
25. The birth of Seth,
26. and Enos.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Genesis 4:3-16

     5082   Adam, significance

Genesis 4:8-16

     5377   law, Ten Commandments
     7318   blood, symbol of guilt

Genesis 4:9-15

     1443   revelation, OT
     5548   speech, divine

Genesis 4:10-14

     9210   judgment, God's

Genesis 4:10-16

     5483   punishment

Genesis 4:11-14

     5933   restlessness

Genesis 4:13-14

     5040   murder
     6717   reconciliation, world to God

Library
What Crouches at the Door
'If thou doest not well, sin croucheth at the door: and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.'--GENESIS iv. 7 (R. V.). These early narratives clothe great moral and spiritual truths in picturesque forms, through which it is difficult for us to pierce. In the world's childhood God spoke to men as to children, because there were no words then framed which would express what we call abstract conceptions. They had to be shown by pictures. But these early men, simple and childlike …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Parental Duties Considered and Urged.
"And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed." Some general observations on the importance of education, especially parental education, were made in the preceding discourse. We are now to consider the ways and means by which parents, are to seek a godly seed. Only general directions can here be given. Much will be left to the discretion of those concerned. Some of the principal parental duties are, Dedication of their children …
Andrew Lee et al—Sermons on Various Important Subjects

The Blessings of Noah Upon Shem and Japheth. (Gen. Ix. 18-27. )
Ver. 20. "And Noah began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."--This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent account of Noah's drunkenness. By this remark, …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Cain and Abel. Gen 4:3-8
CAIN and ABEL. Gen 4:3-8 When Adam fell he quickly lost God's image, which he once possessed: See All our nature since could boast In Cain, his first-born Son, expressed! The sacrifice the Lord ordained In type of the Redeemer's blood, Self-righteous reas'ning Cain disdained, And thought his own first-fruits as good. Yet rage and envy filled his mind, When, with a fallen, downcast look, He saw his brother favor find, Who GOD's appointed method took. By Cain's own hand, good Abel died, Because …
John Newton—Olney Hymns

Letter xxiv (Circa A. D. 1126) to Oger, Regular Canon
To Oger, Regular Canon [34] Bernard blames him for his resignation of his pastoral charge, although made from the love of a calm and pious life. None the less, he instructs him how, after becoming a private person, he ought to live in community. To Brother Oger, the Canon, Brother Bernard, monk but sinner, wishes that he may walk worthily of God even to the end, and embraces him with the fullest affection. 1. If I seem to have been too slow in replying to your letter, ascribe it to my not having …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Letter xxxv. From Pope Damasus.
Damasus addresses five questions to Jerome with a request for information concerning them. They are: 1. What is the meaning of the words "Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold"? (Gen. iv. 5.) 2. If God has made all things good, how comes it that He gives charge to Noah concerning unclean animals, and says to Peter, "What God hath cleansed that call not thou common"? (Acts x. 15.) 3. How is Gen. xv. 16, "in the fourth generation they shall come hither again," to be reconciled …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

Letter xxxvi. To Pope Damasus.
Jerome's reply to the foregoing. For the second and fourth questions he refers Damasus to the writings of Tertullian, Novatian, and Origen. The remaining three he deals with in detail. Gen. iv. 15, he understands to mean "the slayer of Cain shall complete the sevenfold vengeance which is to be wreaked upon him." Exodus xiii. 18, he proposes to reconcile with Gen. xv. 16, by supposing that in the one place the tribe of Levi is referred to, in the other the tribe of Judah. He suggests, however, that …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

How the Kindly-Disposed and the Envious are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 11.) Differently to be admonished are the kindly-disposed and the envious. For the kindly-disposed are to be admonished so to rejoice in what is good in others as to desire to have the like as their own; so to praise with affection the deeds of their neighbours as also to multiply them by imitation, lest in this stadium of the present life they assist at the contest of others as eager backers, but inert spectators, and remain without a prize after the contest, in that they toiled not …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Epistle cxxii. To Rechared, King of the visigoths .
To Rechared, King of the Visigoths [82] . Gregory to Rechared, &c. I cannot express in words, most excellent son, how much I am delighted with thy work and thy life. For on hearing of the power of a new miracle in our days, to wit that the whole nation of the Goths has through thy Excellency been brought over from the error of Arian heresy to the firmness of a right faith, one is disposed to exclaim with the prophet, This is the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High (Ps. lxxvi. 11 [83] …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

The Growth of the Old Testament Prophetic Histories
[Sidenote: Analogies between the influences that produced the two Testaments] Very similar influences were at work in producing and shaping both the Old and the New Testaments; only in the history of the older Scriptures still other forces can be distinguished. Moreover, the Old Testament contains a much greater variety of literature. It is also significant that, while some of the New Testament books began to be canonized less than a century after they were written, there is clear evidence that …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

Second Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Brotherly Love.
Text: 1 John 3, 13-18. 13 Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 16 Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Extracts No. vii.
[In this number the objector gives the whole ground of his objections, and the reasons for his doubts: which he states as follows, viz. "1. Mankind, in all ages of the world, have been, and still are prone to superstition. "2. It cannot be denied, but that a part of mankind at least, have believed, and still are believing in miracles and revelation, which are spurious. "3. The facts on which religion is predicated are unlike every thing of which we have any positive knowledge." Under the first …
Hosea Ballou—A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation

The Faith of Abraham.
"By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. By faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was past age, since she …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

The Earliest Chapters in Divine Revelation
[Sidenote: The nature of inspiration] Since the days of the Greek philosophers the subject of inspiration and revelation has been fertile theme for discussion and dispute among scholars and theologians. Many different theories have been advanced, and ultimately abandoned as untenable. In its simplest meaning and use, inspiration describes the personal influence of one individual upon the mind and spirit of another. Thus we often say, "That man inspired me." What we are or do under the influence …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the thousands of Judah
"And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall come forth unto Me (one) [Pg 480] to be Ruler in Israel; and His goings forth are the times of old, the days of eternity." The close connection of this verse with what immediately precedes (Caspari is wrong in considering iv. 9-14 as an episode) is evident, not only from the [Hebrew: v] copulative, and from the analogy of the near relation of the announcement of salvation to the prophecy of disaster …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Sixth Commandment
Thou shalt not kill.' Exod 20: 13. In this commandment is a sin forbidden, which is murder, Thou shalt not kill,' and a duty implied, which is, to preserve our own life, and the life of others. The sin forbidden is murder: Thou shalt not kill.' Here two things are to be understood, the not injuring another, nor ourselves. I. The not injuring another. [1] We must not injure another in his name. A good name is a precious balsam.' It is a great cruelty to murder a man in his name. We injure others in …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Third Sunday Before Lent
Text: First Corinthians 9, 24-27; 10, 1-5. 24 Know ye not that they that run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? Even so run; that ye may attain. 25 And every man that striveth in the games exerciseth self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 26 I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating the air: 27 but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

Li. Dining with a Pharisee, Jesus Denounces that Sect.
^C Luke XI. 37-54. ^c 37 Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. [The repast to which Jesus was invited was a morning meal, usually eaten between ten and eleven o'clock. The principal meal of the day was eaten in the evening. Jesus dined with all classes, with publicans and Pharisees, with friends and enemies.] 38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed himself before dinner. [The Pharisee marveled at this because …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Epistle xxxix. To Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria.
To Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria. Gregory to Eulogius, &c. As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country (Prov. xxv. 25). But what can be good news to me, so far as concerns the behoof of holy Church, but to hear of the health and safety of your to me most sweet Holiness, who, from your perception of the light of truth, both illuminate the same Church with the word of preaching, and mould it to a better way by the example of your manners? As often, too, as I recall in …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Adam's Sin
Q-15: WHAT WAS THE SIN WHEREBY OUR FIRST PARENTS FELL FROM THE ESTATE WHEREIN THEY WERE CREATED? A: That sin was eating the forbidden fruit. 'She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband.' Gen 3:3. Here is implied, 1. That our first parents fell from their estate of innocence. 2. The sin by which they fell, was eating the forbidden fruit. I. Our first parents fell from their glorious state of innocence. God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.' Eccl …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Blessed are they that Mourn
Blessed are they that mourn. Matthew 5:4 Here are eight steps leading to true blessedness. They may be compared to Jacob's Ladder, the top whereof reached to heaven. We have already gone over one step, and now let us proceed to the second: Blessed are they that mourn'. We must go through the valley of tears to paradise. Mourning were a sad and unpleasant subject to treat on, were it not that it has blessedness going before, and comfort coming after. Mourning is put here for repentance. It implies …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

The Unity of God
Q-5: ARE THERE MORE GODS THAN ONE? A: There is but one only, the living and true God. That there is a God has been proved; and those that will not believe the verity of his essence, shall feel the severity of his wrath. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' Deut 6:6. He is the only God.' Deut 4:49. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there is none else.' A just God and a Saviour; there is none beside …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Tiglath-Pileser iii. And the Organisation of the Assyrian Empire from 745 to 722 B. C.
TIGLATH-PILESER III. AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE FROM 745 to 722 B.C. FAILURE OF URARTU AND RE-CONQUEST Of SYRIA--EGYPT AGAIN UNITED UNDER ETHIOPIAN AUSPICES--PIONKHI--THE DOWNFALL OF DAMASCUS, OF BABYLON, AND OF ISRAEL. Assyria and its neighbours at the accession of Tiglath-pileser III.: progress of the Aramaeans in the basin of the Middle Tigris--Urartu and its expansion into the north of Syria--Damascus and Israel--Vengeance of Israel on Damascus--Jeroboam II.--Civilisation …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

Genesis
The Old Testament opens very impressively. In measured and dignified language it introduces the story of Israel's origin and settlement upon the land of Canaan (Gen.--Josh.) by the story of creation, i.-ii. 4a, and thus suggests, at the very beginning, the far-reaching purpose and the world-wide significance of the people and religion of Israel. The narrative has not travelled far till it becomes apparent that its dominant interests are to be religious and moral; for, after a pictorial sketch of …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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