Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Parallel Translations
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Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
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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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And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.
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Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Genesis 4:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.”
- Job 16:18 “Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.
- Genesis 3:14 Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
- Deuteronomy 28:15-20 But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed. You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out. Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.
- Genesis 4:14 Behold, you have driven me out today from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me.”
- Deuteronomy 27:16-26 ‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who removes his neighbor’s landmark.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who leads the blind astray on the road.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, fatherless, and widow.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who lies with his father’s wife, because he dishonors his father’s bed.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who lies with any kind of animal.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who lies with his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who secretly kills his neighbor.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who doesn’t uphold the words of this law by doing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ”
- Deuteronomy 29:19-21 and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry. Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky. Yahweh will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
- Job 31:38-40 If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; if I have eaten its fruits without money, or have caused its owners to lose their life, let briers grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
- Isaiah 26:21 For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.
- Revelation 12:16 The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 11. And now art thou cursed from the earth.…
11. And now art thou cursed from the earth. Cain, having been convicted of the crime, judgment is now pronounced against him. And first, God constitutes the earth the minister of his vengeance, as having been polluted by the impious and horrible parricide: as if he had said, ‘Thou didst just now deny to me the murder which thou hast committed, but the senseless earth itself will demand thy punishment.’ He does this, however, to aggravate the enormity of the crime, as if a kind of contagion flowed from it even to the earth, for which the execution of punishment was required. The imagination of some, that cruelty is here ascribed to the earth, as if God compared it to a wild beast, which had drunk up the blood of Abel, is far from the true meaning. Clemency is rather, in my judgment, by personification, imputed to it; because, in abhorrence of the pollution, it had opened its mouth to cover the blood which had been shed by a brother’s hand. Most detestable is the cruelty of this man, who does not shrink from pouring forth his neighbor’s blood, of which the bosom of the earth becomes the receptacle. Yet we must not here imagine any miracle, as if the blood had been absorbed by any unusual opening of the earth; but the speech is figurative, signifying that there was more humanity in the earth than in man himself. Moreover, they who think that, because Cain is now cursed in stronger words than Adam had previously been, God had dealt more gently with the first man, from a design to spare the human race; have some color for their opinion. Adam heard the words, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake:” but now the shaft of divine vengeance vibrates against, and transfixes the person of Cain. The opinion of others, that temporal punishment is intended, because it is said, Thou art cursed from the “earth,” rather than from “heaven,” lest the posterity of Cain, being cut off from the hope of salvation, should rush the more boldly on their own damnation, seems to me not sufficiently confirmed. I rather interpret the passage thus: Judgment was committed to the earth, in order that Cain might understand that his judge had not to be summoned from a distance; that there was no need for an angel to descend from heaven, since the earth voluntarily offered itself as the avenger.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The earth shall be a witness against thee, which…
The earth shall be a witness against thee, which mercifully received that blood which thou most cruelly sheddest.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 4:11 And now [art] thou cursed from the…
Gen 4:11 And now [art] thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;
Ver. 11. And now thou art cursed.] The Pope contrarily blesses and saints traitors to their country, and murderers of their natural sovereigns; as Ravilliac, and others his assassins, those sworn swordsmen of the devil. Aphonsus Diazius, who killed his own brother for the cause of religion, as above said, fled to Rome, and was there highly commended for his zeal, and largely rewarded, as Bucer reports {a} But, driven thereto by the terrors of his own guilty conscience, like another Judas, he afterwards hanged himself upon the neck of his own mule, for want of a better gallows.
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{a} Bucer in Praefat. ad Senarclaei Histor. de Morte Diaz. - Lonicer.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain As the earth was cursed for thy father’s sake,…
As the earth was cursed for thy father’s sake, so now art thou cursed in thy own person;
from the earth, or, in regard of the earth, which shall grudge thee both its fruits and a certain dwelling-place, and which had more humanity to thy brother than thou hadst; for it kindly received and covered that blood which thou didst cruelly and unnaturally shed upon it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain When thou tillest the ground,.... Which was the business…
When thou tillest the ground,.... Which was the business he was brought up in and followed, Gen 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, by which seed cast into it became not so fruitful, and did not increase; but instead of this, though much pains were taken to manure it, and much was sown, yet it brought forth little, at least but little to Cain, whatever it did to others; and therefore it is said, "shall not yield unto thee"; it would not turn much to his account, or yield much profit and increase to him, or bring forth much fruit; see Job 31:38.
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a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth; being obliged to quit his former habitation, and remove to a place at some distance from the house of his father Adam, which was near the garden of Eden, as Aben Ezra observes; and to wander about from place to place, having no quiet settlement in anyone place: the Septuagint render it "groaning and trembling"; the guilt of his sin lay heavy on his conscience, and filled him with such horror and terror that he was continually sighing and groaning, and was seized with such a tremor that he shook in all his limbs; so the Arabic writers (t) say, that he was trembling and quivering, and had a shaking in his head all the days of his life; and Aben Ezra observes, that there are some that say that the first of these words signifies to moan and lament; but it may be, it was not so much his sin, at least the evil of it, that he lamented, as the mischief that came by it, or the calamities and misfortunes it brought upon him.
(t) Patricides, apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 223.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And now art thou cursed from the earth -
And now art thou cursed from the earth -
1. He is cursed, separated to all evil, laid under the wrath of God, as it is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
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2. He is cursed from the earth. Thence the cry came up to God, thence the curse came up to Cain. God could have taken vengeance by an immediate stroke from heaven: but he chose to make the earth the avenger of blood; to continue him upon the earth, and not presently to cut him off; and yet to make even that his curse. That part of it which fell to his share, and which he had the occupation of, was made unfruitful, by the blood of Abel. Besides, A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. By this he was here condemned, to perpetual disgrace and reproach, and to perpetual disquietment and horror in his own mind. His own guilty conscience should haunt him where ever he went. Now to justify his complaint, Observe his descants upon the sentence.
1. He sees himself excluded by it from the favour of his God; and concludes, that being cursed, he was hid from God's face, and that is indeed the true nature of God's curse; damned sinners find it so, to whom it is said, Depart from me ye cursed. Those are cursed indeed that are forever shut out from God's love and care, and from all hopes of his grace.
2. He sees himself expelled from all the comforts of this life; and concludes, ver. 14. Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth - As good have no place on earth as not have a settled place. Better rest in the grave than not rest at all. And from thy face shall I be hid - Shut out of the church, not admitted to come with the sons of God to present himself before the Lord. And it shall come to pass that every one that finds me shall slay me - Wherever he wanders he goes in peril of his life. There were none alive but his near relations, yet even of them he is justly afraid, who had himself been so barbarous to his own brother.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 4:11. And now art thou cursed — 1st,…
Gen 4:11. And now art thou cursed — 1st, Separated to all evil, laid under the wrath of God, as it is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. 2d, He is cursed from the earth. Thence the cry came up to God, thence the curse came up to Cain. God could have taken vengeance by an immediate stroke from heaven: but he chose to make the earth the avenger of blood; to continue him upon the earth, and not presently to cut him off; and yet to make even that his curse. That part of it which fell to his share, and which he had the occupation of, was made unfruitful, by the blood of Abel. Besides, 3d, A fugitive and a vagabond (says God) shalt thou be in the earth — By this he was condemned to perpetual disgrace and reproach, and to perpetual disquiet and horror in his own mind. His own guilty conscience would haunt him wherever he went.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain now art thou cursed from the earth--a curse superadded…
now art thou cursed from the earth--a curse superadded to the general one denounced on the ground for Adam's sin.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 11. Cursed from the earth — The curse shall…
11. Cursed from the earth — The curse shall seem to come forth out of the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood. As the next verse further explains, the ground, which so readily drank the innocent blood, will not be fruitful to the murderer’s tilling. The earth, cursed by reason of Adam’s sin, (iii, 17,) will seem to pour forth special judgments upon Cain. Others explain, less in keeping with the natural meaning of the words and the context: Thou art cursed away from the land; that is, banished out of this land, or district, where thy father and brothers dwell.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 11. from the ground] The meaning is not quite…
11. from the ground] The meaning is not quite obvious. Probably, we should not understand, that the curse is to come from the ground upon Cain, but that Cain is driven by Jehovah’s curse from the ground. The emphasis is on “the ground” (hâ-adâmâh). It is the ground which Cain tilled, the ground whose fruits he offered, and the ground which he has caused to drink human blood. From this ground he is now driven by a curse. For pollution of the land by bloodshed cf. Num_35:33, “So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood, it polluteth the land: and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.”
On blood-revenge, cf. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage, pp. 25–27.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (11, 12) And now (because of thy crime) art…
(11, 12) And now (because of thy crime) art thou cursed from the earth.—Heb., from the adâmâh, or cultivated ground. Cain was the first human being on whom a curse was inflicted, and it was to rise up from the ground, the portion of the earth won and subdued by man, to punish him. He had polluted man’s habitation, and now, when he tilled the soil, it would resist him as an enemy, by refusing “to yield unto him her strength.” He had been an unsuccessful man before, and outstripped in the race of life by the younger son; for the future his struggle with the conditions of life will be still harder. The reason for this follows: “a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” Restless and uneasy, and haunted by the remembrance of his crime, he shall become a wanderer, not merely in the adâmâh, his native soil, but in the earth. Poverty must necessarily be the lot of one thus roaming, not in search of a better lot, but under the compulsion of an evil conscience. Finally, however, we find that Cain’s feelings grew more calm, and being comforted by the presence of a wife and children, “he builded a city,” and had at last a home.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 11, 12. Convicted, if not humbled, the culprit…
Vers. 11, 12. Convicted, if not humbled, the culprit is speechless, and can only listen in consternation to the threefold judgment which pronounced him cursed in his soul, vagabond in his body, and unprosperous in his labors" (Willet). And now either at this time, already (cf. Jos_14:11; Hos_2:10) or for this cause, because thou hast done this (Gen_3:14; cf. Gen_19:9; Exo_18:19) art thou cursed. The first curse pronounced against a human being. Adam and Eve were not cursed, though the serpent and the devil were. If we may not conclude that Cain was thereby for ever excluded from the hope of salvation if he should repent, still less must we explain the Divine judgment down to a simple sentence of banishment from Eden. The fratricide was henceforth to bear the displeasure and indignation of his Maker, whose image in Abel he had slain; of which indignation and displeasure his expatriation was to be a symbol. Different explanations have been offered of the clause, from the earth, or ground, Ad-hamah, which, however, cannot mean more than the ground, which already had been cursed, (Gen_3:17; Lunge) since "the curse of the soil and the misery of man cannot well be compared with each other" (Kalisch); or simply away from the district, the scene of his crime (Kalisch, Speaker"s, Rosenm Tuch, Gerlach, Delitzsch), as if all that the sentence implied was banishment from Eden; but must involve in addition the idea that the curse was to leap upon him from the earth, or ground, in general (Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Knobel, Alford, Murphy). Which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother"s blood from thy hand. The terrible significance of this curse is further opened in the words which follow. The earth was to be against him
1. In refusing him its substance. When thou tillest (literally, shalt till) the ground, it shall not henceforth yield (literally, add to give) unto thee her strength. Neither a double curse upon the entire earth for man"s sake (Alford), nor a doom of sterility inflicted only on the district of Eden (Kalisch); but a judgment on Cain and his descendants with respect to their labors. Their tillage of the ground was not to prosper, which ultimately, Bonar thinks, drove the Cainites to city-building and mechanical invention.
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2. In denying him a home. A fugitive and a vagabond literally, moving and wandering; groan ing and trembling" (LXX, erroneously), banished and homeless" (Keil)shalt thou be in the earth. "As robbers are wont to be who have no quiet and secure resting-place" (Calvin); driven on by the agonizing tortures of a remorseful and alarmed conscience, and not simply by the earth denying to him the expected fruits of his labor" (Delitzsch). The ban of wandering, which David pronounced upon his enemies, (Psa_59:12 Psa_109:10) in later years fell upon the Jews, who "for shedding the blood of Christ, the most innocent Lamb of God, are vagabonds to this day over the face of the earth" (Willet). Thus the earth was made the minister of God"s curse, not a partaker of it, as some have strangely imagined, as if by drinking up the blood of Abel it had become a participant of Cain"s crime (Delitzsch).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be
Gen_4:11-12
A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be
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Cain cursed by God
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 (36:12-14), and elsewhere of the land spewing out (Lev_18:28; Lev_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.)
The fruits of envy
Such are the fruits of envy. Burden upon burden, stroke upon stroke, sorrow upon sorrow! From above, from beneath, and from around, the torment, and the terror, and the bitterness pour in. There is no peace to the wicked, no rest, no settlement. How sin uproots and unsettles, making a man to flee hither and thither, in order to get away from himself! How vain! O SIN, sin! what horrid things are all wrapt up even in its smallest indulgence! An unkind thought, a harsh word, an envious feeling,--then sullenness, anger, murder--a brothers murder!
How little do we know sin, or reckon on its results, or calculate the fruits that come from its womb! (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The bitter curse which sin brings on an individual life
I. THAT IT RENDERS A MAN SUBJECT TO THE SOLEMN AND CONVINCING ENQUIRIES OF GOD.
II. THAT IT SENDS A MAN ON THROUGH LIFE WITH THE MOST TERRIBLE MEMORIES OF WRONG-DOING WITHIN HIS SOUL.
III. THAT IT OFTEN RUINS THE TEMPORAL PROSPERITY OF A MAN.
1. It destroys reputation.
2. Wastes earnings.
3. Enfeebles agencies.
IV. THAT IT COMMITS A MAN TO A WANDERING AND RESTLESS LIFE.
V. THAT IT CRUSHES MAN WITH A HEAVY BURDEN AND ALMOST RENDERS HIM DESPAIRING. Lessons--
1. That sin is the greatest curse of human life.
2. That God is the avenger of the good.
3. That the sinner is the greatest sufferer in the end.
4. That good men go from their worship into heaven. (J. S.Exell, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:11-12 As with his father (cp. 3:9-12, 17-19), Cain’s…
4:11-12 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.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.