Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”“
(Genesis 4:11-12)

Part of Cain’s punishment was that the Earth wouldn’t yield its strength to him anymore. Which shows that even though humanity had been cast from the garden, the Earth was STILL giving them prosperity. They were still BLESSED. They weren’t needing to fight and struggle and wrestle in order to scrape out a living. They needed to WORK, where they hadn’t before, but they were still receiving the best of the best. This is also pointing to God’s sense of justice. Because of Cain’s refusal to offer God the best, the best was no longer on offer to Cain. It was the consequence – the harvest – of his choice of rebellion – the seed.

This shows that it matters what we do. By shedding blood and forcing the Earth to absorb it, the Earth didn’t desire to produce anymore. By feeding it death, it didn’t want to give life. While the Earth isn’t sentient, there is no ‘mother earth’ personality, it is still a living creature. And it is a principle throughout Creation that those individuals who deal in un-needed death (death not for survival) on a regular basis are avoided by other living creatures. Cain murdered and the Earth recoiled from him.

Cain would have to wander in order to get anything to live on. He would be a parasite of sorts, not able to farm a plot of land to get what he needed. It would inevitably play out and leave him with nothing useful. He would now need to be on the move all the time, hunting and gathering instead of farming. For someone who had always dealt with the ground and plants, this would be a harsh new reality. But it is a measured result of the harsh crime he committed.

Note: this is the first time a human being gets cursed.