NOTES for Gen 4:8-15

Cain’s reaction to the sentence that may be regarded as his judgment is quite revealing. Even after God exposes his terrible sin of fratricide, he regrets nothing and repents of nothing. The only thing that troubles Cain is the fear that, now that he is to become an outcast, anyone who wishes will be able to kill him: an outcast and a wanderer was often defenseless before the first person he met. Apparently, what we see here is the typical behavior of a sinner who does not regard his sin as sin. He does not ask God for forgiveness, probably because he considers God’s sentence unjust by definition. In the same way, he evidently considers himself guilty of nothing. What troubles him, therefore, is not the sin itself—which for him is no sin—but the consequences of sin that descend upon him regardless of his attitude toward the sin itself. This is the whole history of fallen humanity: it is permeated not by awareness of sin and repentance, but by the struggle against the consequences of sin, both one’s own and that of others. Is this not why humanity proves unable to find the harmony with the world and with itself that so many have sought, and still seek, long and unsuccessfully? Meanwhile, the solution is much nearer than it may seem. But finding it requires the resolve to repent, and therefore to change the spiritual and mental paradigm of human history as a whole. Judging by the way things are going, many of us find this no easier than Cain found it to acknowledge his responsibility for the sin he had committed.