Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face
of
the earth
Not from being upon the earth, or had chased him out of the world
as a wicked man is at death, but from a quiet settlement in it,
and from society and converse with the inhabitants of it; and
especially he was driven from that part of it, where he was born
and brought up, and which he had been employed in manuring; where
his parents dwelt, and other relations, friends, and
acquaintance: and to be banished into a strange country,
uninhabited, and at a distance from those he had familiarly lived
with, was a sore punishment of him: and from, thy face
shall I be hid;
not from his omniscience and omnipresence, for there is no such
thing as being hid from the all seeing eye of God, or flying from
his presence, which is everywhere; but from his favour and good
will, and the outward tokens of it, as well as from the place
where his Shechinah or divine Majesty was; and which was the
place of public worship, and where good men met and worshipped
God, and offered sacrifice to him: and from the place of divine
worship and the ordinances of it, and the church of God and
communion with it, an hypocrite does not choose to be debarred:
and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the
earth;
as was threatened him, (See Gill on Genesis
4:12): and it shall come to pass, that everyone
that findeth me shall
slay me;
that is, some one, the first that should meet him, for he could
be slain but by one; so odious he knew he should be to everyone,
being under such marks of the divine displeasure, that his life
would be in danger by whomsoever he should be found: and this
being near an hundred and thirty years after the creation of man,
see ( Genesis
4:25 ) ( Genesis 5:3 ) there
might in this time be a large number of men on earth; Adam and
Eve procreating children immediately after the fall, and very
probably many more besides Cain and Abel, and those very
fruitful, bringing many at a birth and often, and few or none
dying, the increase must be very great; and we read quickly after
this of a city being built, ( 4:17 ) . Cain
seems to be more afraid of a corporeal death than to have any
concern about his soul, and the eternal welfare of it, or to be
in dread and fear of an eternal death, or wrath to come; though
some think the words should be rendered in a prayer F24, "let
it be that anyone that findeth me may kill me"; being weary of
life under the horrors of a guilty conscience.
F24 Lightfoot, vol. 1. p. 3,