The punishment which attended the crime admitted of no escape, scarcely of any conceivable alleviation. ** He lost the privileges of primogeniture, was deprived of the priesthood, banished from * the presence* of the divine glory between the cherubim, shut out from tiie hopes of mercy, and, with his descendants, delivered over unprotected to the assaults of the great adversa- ry" (Jarvis, Chvr<^ of Ike Redeemed^ p. 14). Cursed nrom the earth himself, the earth was doomed to s double barrenness wherever the offender should set bis foot. Physical want and hardship, therefore, were amon$c the first of the miseries heaped upon his head. Next came those of mind and conscience : " The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me ftom the ground." Nor did any retreat remain to him from the terrors d bis own soul or those of Divine vengeance : " Ytom thy face shall I be Idd,** was his agonizing and hope- less cry. The statement that ** Cain went out flvm the presence of the Lord" represents him as abiding, till thus exiled, in some fiivored spot where the Al- mighty still, by visible signs, manifested himself to hb feUen creatures. The expression of dread lest, as he wandered over the fece of the earth, he might be recognised and slain, has an awftil sound when felling from the mouth of a murderer. But he was to be pto- tected against the wrath of his fellow-men ; and of this God gave him assurance, not, says Shuokford, by set- ting a mark upon him, which is a felse translation, but by appointing a sign or token which he himself might understand as a proof that he should not perish by the hand of another, as Abel had perished by his. This
CAIN
18
CAIN
liga wia probably do otfa«r than the Divine denunda- tioB ntterad at the time against any one who BlKmld T«ntiire to do liim injury, and whicli» being well known, would prove a fofficient caveaU As such it is refened to by hU descendant Lamech (Gen. iv, 24). The paaiage may therefi>ro be lendend, " Thns Jeho- vah appointed a token for Cain, so that no one who met lum should slay him." What was the Divine purpose in affording him this protection it is difficult to determme. That it was not with the intention of pro- loogiDg his miseiy may be conjectured fh>m the fiict that it was granted in answer to his own piteous cry Cor mercy. Some writers have spoken of the possibil- i^of his becoming a true penitent, and of his having it length obtained the Divine forgiveness (Ortlob, Camu MM detperam^ Lips. 1706).— Kitto, s. v.
It may be worthy of observation tibat especial men* tioQ is made of the fact that Cain, having traveled into the land of Nod, there built a city; and fortber, that his descendants were chiefly celebrated for their skill ia the arts of social life. In both accounts may prob- ably be discovered the powerful struggles with which Cah strove to overcome the difficulties that attended Ids position as one to whom the tillage of the ground was virtually prohibited. The following points also aie noticed in Smithes Did, s. v.
(1.) The position of the " land of Nod." The name itself tells us little ; it means Jli^ or exile, in refer- ence to ver. 12, where a cognate word is used: Yon Bohlen's attempt to identify it with India, as though the Hebrew name Bind O^^) ^u^ l>««i> erroneously read im^Nod, is too far fetched ; the only indication of its position is the indefinite notice that it was ** east of Eden" (ver. IQ, which, of course, throws us back to the previous settlement of the position of Eden itself. i^Dobd (Comm. in loc.), who adopts an ethnological in- terpretation of the history of Cain^s descendants, would identify Nod with the whole of Eastern Asia, and even hints at a possible connection between the names Cain and China. It seems vain to attempt the identifica- tion of Nod with any special locality; the direction **cast of Eden** may have reference to the previous notiee m ifi, 24, and may indicate that the land was opposite to (Sept. Karivavri) the entrance, which was barred against hia return. It is not improbable that the eatt was forther used to mark the direction which the Cainttes took, as distinct ttmn the Sethites, who vonld, aoeording to Hebrew notions, be settled toward the west Similar observations must be made in regard to the dty Enoch, which has been identified with the names of the Heniochi, a tribe in Caucasus (so Basse), Aoackta, a town in Sosiana (Huetins), Chanoge, an ancient town in India (Von Bohlen), and Iconium, as the pboe where the deified King Annacos was honor- ed (Ewald) : an such attempts at identification must be sabordinated to the previous settlement of the posi- tiooofEdenandNod. See Nod.
^.) The *'mark set upon Cahi" has given rise to various speculations, many of which would never have been hroadked if ^e Hebrew text had been consulted : the words probably mean that Jehovah ffove a sign io Cafai, very much as signs were afterward given to Noah (€en. ix, IS), Moses (Exod. Ui, 2, 12), £1^ (i Kfaigs zix, 11), and Hexekiah (Isa. xxxviii, 7, 8). Whether the sign was perceptible to Cain alone, and g^ven to him once for all, in token that no man should kill him, or whether it waa one that was perceptible to others, and designed as a precaution to them, as is implied in the A. T. is uncertain ; the nature of the sign itself is still more uncertain (but see above). (See Kraft, De 3^ Cairn, in hia Obee, 8acr, i, 8.) See Mabk.