Genesis 4:15

Genesis 4:15 a

‘Then Yahweh said to him, “It shall not be so. If anyone slays Cain vengeance will be exacted on him sevenfold”.'

Note that these words are in the form of a pronouncement. Cain is mentioned in the third person and not as ‘you'. This is God's covenant, a unilateral covenant given in a theophany, that protects Cain and is the reason why the story was so vividly remembered and so carefully passed down. This is no promise made to Cain alone, but a public statement of Yahweh's intent. As such it would need to be communicated to the remainder of the family. So verse 15 is not so much the direct response of God to Cain but His final response in a theophany. Here we leave the scene of Cain's pleading before Yahweh and the theophany may well have taken place before him and important members of the family.

Notice the reference to ‘sevenfold'. In antiquity seven meant uniquely the number of divine perfection and completeness. Sevenfold vengeance was the totality of divine retribution. Thus total retribution would come on anyone who slew Cain. So in exacting His justice, God yet again shows mercy. In the end it is He who will determine the sentence on Cain, and no one else.

We are so used to the fact that man's sin brings him into conflict with God, and that it is only through God's mercy that he is able to go on, that we do not realise what different ideas there were in the ancient world. There the gods were seen as mainly not too concerned with man's behaviour, unless it affected their interests, and their ‘mercy' was purely arbitrary. Genesis is unique in constantly establishing this vital relationship between sin, judgment and mercy. (In the translations ‘It shall not be so' is per the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Vulgate. The Massoretic text has ‘therefore').

Genesis 4:15 b

‘And Yahweh put a mark upon Cain that whoever found him might not kill him.'

It is futile to discuss what kind of mark it was for we can never know. But it must have been something that was quite distinctive, possibly some distortion of the features or disease of the flesh, brought on by guilt, or possibly his hair went white or fell out through the greatness of his stress, but whatever it was, it was something that men would recognise and defer to. When they found him they would back away, for they would acknowledge the mark of God (this would suggest something very unpleasant or awe inspiring to the primitive mind).