(by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunc… · particle
tillest
תַֽעֲבֹד֙ta.'a.Vod
H5647
to work (in any sense) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
ground
הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔הha.'a.da.Mah
H127
soil (from its general redness) · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
henceforth
תֹסֵ֥ףto.Sef
H3254
to add or augment (often adverbial · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
yield
תֵּתtet-
H5414
to give · verb, qal infinitive construct
strength
כֹּחָ֖הּko.Chah
H3581
vigor · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
fugitive
נָ֥עna'
H5128
to waver · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
vagabond
וָנָ֖דva.Nad
H5110
to nod · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
earth
בָאָֽרֶץva.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Hosea 9:17 My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.
Leviticus 26:20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits…
Leviticus 26:36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken…
Deuteronomy 28:23-24 And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.
Genesis 3:17-18 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying…
Genesis 4:14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagab…
Deuteronomy 28:65-66 And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a tremblin…
Psalms 109:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 4:9-12
We have here a full account of the trial and condemnation of the first murderer. Civil courts of judicature not being yet erected for this purpose, as they were afterwards (Gen 9:6), God himself sits Judge; for he is the God to whom vengeance belongs, and who will be sure to make inquisition for blood, especially the blood of saints. Observe,
I. The arraignment of Cain: The Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? Some think Cain was thus examined the next sabbath after the murder was committed, when the sons of God came, as usual, to present themselves before the Lord, in a religious assembly, and Abel was missing, whose place did not use to be empty; for the God of heaven takes noti…
a fugitive--condemned to perpetual exile; a degraded outcast; the miserable victim of an accusing conscience.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 4:12
A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be - Thou shalt be expelled from the presence of God, and from thy family connections, and shalt have no fixed secure residence in any place. The Septuagint render this στενων και τρεμων εση, thou shalt be groaning and trembling upon the earth - the horror of thy crime shall ever haunt thee, and thou shalt never have any well-grounded hope that God will remit the punishment thou deservest. No state out of endless perdition can be considered more awful than this.
John Gill on Genesis 4:12
When thou tillest the ground,.... Which was the business he was brought up in and followed, Genesis 4:2.
it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; the earth had been cursed for Adam's sin, and was not so fruitful as in its original state; and now it was cursed again for Cain's sin; not the whole earth, but that part which belonged to Cain, and was cultivated by him; and so it must be supposed to be cursed, not only in the spot where he had been settled, but in every other place where he should come and occupy, and which through this additional curse became so barren that it did not yield such good fruits, and such an increase of it as before; it lost its native and vital juice,…
The Church Fathers
Do you, who have but lately come to the catechesis, wish to see the loving kindness of God? Would you want to behold the loving kindness of God and the extent of his forbearance? Listen to the story of [Cain].… Cain, the firstborn man, became a fratricide, from whose wicked designings first stemmed murder and envy. Yet consider his sentence for slaying his brother. "Groaning and trembling shall you be upon the earth." Though the sin was great, the sentence was light.
Over Cain, who did not fear God of his own freewill, did fear rule of necessity, and he became a vagabond and a wanderer in the earth; for because he did not fear the One Who was worthy to be feared, he was filled with fears at everything which appeared unto him. And by reason of the torture of fear he entreated God and besought Him that whosoever found him might kill him, so that he might flee from a life filled with fear and dread. And God also gave the law by the hand of Moses, which was filled with many and divers commandments, and to all the commandments He linked fear, for without fear the commandments would not be kept.
The punishment of which God spoke seems to be excessively harsh, but rightly understood it gives us a glimpse of his great solicitude. God wanted men of later times to exercise self-control. Therefore, he designed the kind of punishment that was capable of setting Cain free from his sin. If God had immediately destroyed him, Cain would have disappeared, his sin would have stayed concealed, and he would have remained unknown to men of later times. But as it is, God let him live a long time with that bodily tremor of his. The sight of Cain's palsied limbs was a lesson for all he met. It served to teach all men and exhort them never to dare do what he had done, so that they might not suffer the same punishment. And Cain himself became a better man again. His trembling, his fear, the mental torment that never left him, his physical paralysis kept him, as it were, shackled. They kept him from leaping again to any other like deed of bold folly. They constantly reminded him of his former crime. Through them he achieved greater self-control in his soul.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Abel — (Heb. Hebhel), a breath, or vanity, the second son of Adam and Eve. He was put to death by his brother Cain (Gen. 4:1-16). Guided by the instruction of their father, the two brothers were trained in…
Agriculture — Tilling the ground (Gen. 2:15; 4:2, 3, 12) and rearing cattle were the chief employments in ancient times. The Egyptians excelled in agriculture. And after the Israelites entered into the possession…
Cain — A possession; a spear. (1.) The first-born son of Adam and Eve (Gen. 4). He became a tiller of the ground, as his brother Abel followed the pursuits of pastoral life. He was “a sullen, self-willed,…
Deep — Used to denote (1) the grave or the abyss (Rom. 10:7; Luke 8:31); (2) the deepest part of the sea (Ps. 69:15); (3) the chaos mentioned in Gen. 1:2; (4) the bottomless pit, hell (Rev. 9:1, 2; 11:7;…
Fugitive — Gen. 4:12, 14, a rover or wanderer (Heb. n’a); Judg. 12:4, a refugee, one who has escaped (Heb. palit); 2 Kings 25:11, a deserter, one who has fallen away to the enemy (Heb. nophel); Ezek. 17:21, one…
Naamah — The beautiful. (1.) The daughter of Lamech and Zillah (Gen. 4: 22). (2.) The daughter of the king of Ammon, one of the wives of Solomon, the only one who appears to have borne him a son, viz.,…
Vagabond — From Lat. vagabundus, “a wanderer,” “a fugitive;” not used opprobriously (Gen. 4:12, R.V., “wanderer;” Ps. 109:10; Acts 19:13, R.V., “strolling”).
Abel · 1. — 1.
Cain · .Jealousy and crime of — .Jealousy and crime of
When thou tillest the ground. This verse is the exposition of the former; for it expresses more clearly what is meant by being cursed from the earth, namely, that the earth defrauds its cultivators of the fruit of their toil. Should any one object that this punishment had before been alike inflicted on all mortals, in the person of Adam; my answer is, I have no doubt that something of the benediction which had hitherto remained, was now further withdrawn with respect to the murderer, in order that he might privately feel the very earth to be hostile to him. For although, generally, God causes his sun daily to rise upon the good and the evil, (Matthew 5:45,) yet, in the meantime, (as often as…
"And now (sc., because thou hast done this) be cursed from the earth." From: i.e., either away from the earth, driven forth so that it shall no longer afford a quiet resting-place (Gerlach, Delitzsch, etc.), or out of the earth, through its withdrawing its strength, and thus securing the fulfilment of perpetual wandering (Baumgarten, etc.). It is difficult to choose between the two; but the clause, "which hath opened her mouth," etc. seems rather to favour the latter. Because the earth has been compelled to drink innocent blood, it rebels against the murderer, and when he tills it, withdraws its strength, so that the soil yields no produce; just as the land of Canaan is said to have spued ou…
As with his father (cp. 3:9-12, 17-19), Cain’s interrogation (4:9-10) was followed by God’s verdict. Adam’s sin had already caused the ground to be cursed. Now Cain was cursed and banished from the land he farmed because he had contaminated it with innocent blood. • homeless wanderer: Cain was condemned to ceaseless roving in a land that would provide neither sustenance nor security. The effects of sin were escalating.
Rashi on Genesis 4:12
נע ונד A VAGABOND AND A WANDERER — You shall not be permitted to dwell in one place.
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
