Genesis 4:11-12 And now are you cursed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand;… "Cursed art THOU." Fearful words, coming straight from the lips of God into the very ear of man, standing in the presence of God. No lightning bursting on him from the clouds could be half so terrible. The blessing is revoked, and the curse goes forth. It is a curse because of innocent blood, as if foreshowing the curses which the shedding of innocent blood was yet to bring upon men. This curse is represented as coming up from the ground, as if the ground which had been moistened with the blood were to be the instrument of inflicting the curse. In Ezekiel we read of the "mountains devouring men" (Ezekiel 36:12-14), and elsewhere of the land "spewing out" (Leviticus 18:28; Leviticus 20:22); so here the very ground is impregnated with evil to Cain, and sends up its curses on him. The soil is to cast him off; the earth is to loathe him! inanimate nature, more tender-hearted than he (inasmuch as it drank in the blood), is to set its face against him. It had received the innocent blood into its bosom, and it was to send up unceasingly on the murderer an endless curse. (H. Bonar, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; |
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