John Calvin Commentary Genesis 4:12

"when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee its strength; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth." — Genesis 4:12 (ASV)

When thou tillest the ground. This verse is the explanation 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 labor. If anyone objects that this punishment had previously been similarly inflicted on all mortals in the person of Adam, my answer is this: I have no doubt that some of the blessing which had until now remained was now further withdrawn from the murderer, so that he might privately feel the very earth to be hostile to him.

For although, generally, God causes His sun daily to rise on the good and the evil (Matthew 5:45), yet, in the meantime (as often as He sees fit), He punished the sins—sometimes of a whole nation, and sometimes of certain individuals—with rain, hail, and clouds. This served, at least, to provide definite proof of future judgment and to admonish the world through such examples that nothing can succeed when God is angry with them and opposes them. Moreover, in the first murder, God intended to display a unique example of a curse, the memory of which should remain in all ages.

A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be. Another punishment is now also inflicted: namely, that he could never be safe, wherever he might go. Moses uses two words, differing little from each other, except that the former is derived from נוע (noa), which is to wander, and the other from נדד (nadad), which signifies to flee.

The distinction which some make—that נע (na) is one who never has a settled habitation, while נד (nad) is one who does not know which way he should turn—since it lacks proof, carries no weight with me. The genuine sense of the words, then, is that wherever Cain might go, he would be unsettled and a fugitive, as robbers usually are, who have no quiet and secure resting-place. For the face of every man strikes terror into them, and, on the other hand, they have a horror of solitude.

But this seems to some not at all a suitable punishment for a murderer, since it is, rather, the destined condition of the sons of God; for they, more than all others, feel themselves to be strangers in the world. And Paul complains that both he and his companions are without a certain dwelling-place (1 Corinthians 4:11).

To this I answer that Cain was not only condemned to personal exile but was also subjected to an even more severe punishment: namely, that he would find no region of the earth where he would not have a restless and fearful mind. For as a good conscience is properly called a brazen walls, so neither a hundred walls nor as many fortresses can free the wicked from anxiety.

The faithful are strangers on the earth, yet, nevertheless, they enjoy a tranquil temporary dwelling. Often, constrained by necessity, they wander from place to place, but wherever the tempest carries them, they carry with them a calm mind. Until finally, by perpetual change of place, they so run their course and pass through the world that they are everywhere sustained by the supporting hand of God.

Such security is denied to the wicked, whom all creatures threaten. Even if all creatures should favor them, still the mind itself is so turbulent that it does not allow them to rest. In this manner, Cain, even if he had not changed his place, could not have shaken off the fear which God had fixed in his mind; nor did the fact that he was the first man who built a city prevent him from being always restless, even in his own nest.