Bible Synapse
If whoever sheds man’s blood must die, why was the murderer Cain protected?
Hard question · Creation, the flood and the patriarchs · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
God threatens sevenfold vengeance on anyone who kills Cain and sets a mark on him, “lest any finding him should kill him”.
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
After the flood God says, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
The objection
Genesis 9:6 says that whoever sheds human blood must have his own blood shed by man. Yet Cain, the first murderer, was not put to death; God marked him so that no one would kill him (Genesis 4:15). Should the murderer die or not?
The answer
The two passages belong to different stages of God’s dealings with mankind. Genesis 9:6 is part of the new order God gave to Noah after the flood: for the first time he hands to human society the duty of punishing murder with death, on the ground that man is made in God’s image. Before that, no such charge had been given to anyone. When Cain killed Abel, God kept judgment in his own hands: he cursed Cain, drove him from the ground and from his presence, and forbade anyone to take private revenge on him (4:11–15). Keil and Delitzsch draw the contrast exactly: in Cain’s case God promised to avenge directly, whereas after the flood he would do it ‘indirectly by giving the command’ to men. The world before the flood, which was “filled with violence” (6:11) and boasted of Lamech’s seventy-sevenfold revenge (4:23–24), shows why God then set a public and lawful check on bloodshed.
Other answers Christians give
A long punishment
Some add that Cain’s life was itself a severe punishment, a fugitive’s life away from God’s presence. Gill thought God let him live ‘a long miserable life, that it might be a terror to others’.
From the classic commentators
God would avenge or inflict punishment for every murder, - not directly, however, as He promised to do in the case of Cain, but indirectly by giving the command, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," and thus placing in the hand of man His own judicial power.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Genesis 9
it was the will of God, that though Cain deserved to die, yet that he should not die immediately, but live a long miserable life, that it might be a terror to others not to commit the like crimeJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Genesis 4 (1746–1763)
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Genesis 9, at Bible Hub
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Genesis 4, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Genesis 4, at Bible Hub