John Calvin Commentary Genesis 4:9

"And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother`s keeper?" — Genesis 4:9 (ASV)

Where is Abel? Those who suppose that the father made this inquiry of Cain respecting his son Abel weaken the whole force of the instruction which Moses here intended to deliver; namely, that God, both by secret inspiration and by some extraordinary method, summoned the fratricide to His tribunal, as if He had thundered from heaven.

For, what I have said before must be firmly maintained that as God now speaks to us through the Scriptures, so He formerly manifested Himself to the Fathers through oracles; and also in the same manner, revealed His judgements to the reprobate sons of the saints. So the angel spoke to Hagar in the wood, after she had fallen away from the Church, as we shall see in the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter: Genesis 16:8.

It is indeed possible that God may have interrogated Cain by the silent examinations of his conscience; and that he, in return, may have answered, inwardly fretting and murmuring. We must, however, conclude that he was examined, not merely by the external voice of man, but by a Divine voice, so that he felt that he had to deal directly with God.

As often, then, as the secret compunctions of conscience invite us to reflect upon our sins, let us remember that God Himself is speaking with us. For that interior sense by which we are convicted of sin is the unique judgement-seat of God, where He exercises His jurisdiction. Let those, therefore, whose consciences accuse them, beware lest, after the example of Cain, they confirm themselves in obstinacy.

For this is truly to kick against God and to resist His Spirit; when we repel those thoughts, which are nothing other than incentives to repentance. But it is a fault too common to eventually add to former sins such perverseness that one who is compelled, whether he wills it or not, to feel sin in his mind, will yet refuse to yield to God.

Hence it appears how great is the depravity of the human mind; since, when convicted and condemned by our own conscience, we still do not cease either to mock or to rage against our Judge. Prodigious was the stupor of Cain, who, having committed a crime so great, ferociously rejected the reproof of God, from Whose hand he was nevertheless unable to escape.

But the same thing daily happens to all the wicked; every one of whom desires to be considered ingenious in grasping at excuses. For the human heart is so entangled in winding labyrinths that it is easy for the wicked to add obstinate contempt of God to their crimes; not because their defiance is sufficiently firm to withstand the judgment of God (for, although they hide themselves in the deep recesses of which I have spoken, they are, nevertheless, always secretly burned, as with a hot iron), but because by a blind obstinacy they render themselves callous.

Hence, the force of the Divine judgment is clearly perceived; for It so pierces into the iron hearts of the wicked that they are inwardly compelled to be their own judges; nor does It allow them so to obliterate the sense of guilt which It has extorted, as not to leave the trace or scar of the searing.

Cain, in denying that he was the keeper of his brother’s life, although, with ferocious rebellion, he attempts violently to repel the judgment of God, yet thinks to escape by this quibble: that he was not required to give an account of his murdered brother because he had received no express command to take care of him.