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Gen_4:12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
Ver. 12. A fugitive and a vagabond, &c.] The patriarchs were pilgrims, and stayed not long in a place. The apostles also were hurried about, {Rom_15:19} and had "no certain dwellingplace." {2Co_4:11} But first, God numbered their wanderings. {Psa_56:8} He kept just reckoning of therein his count-book. Secondly, Their hearts were fixed, trusting in the Lord. {Psa_112:7} They could call their souls to rest, when they had no rest in their bones; and fly up to heaven with the wings of a dove, when hunted on earth as so many partridges. So could not Cain the prisoner. He was not more a fugitive in the earth, than in his own conscience; {a} fain he would have fled from the terrors of it, but could not; he was prisoner to it, and must abide by it. Hence the Greek translates this text, Sighing and trembling shall you be on the earth; and so the word here used is applied elsewhere to the trembling of the heart, {Isa_7:2} to the walking of the lips, {1Sa_1:13} to the shaking of the forest by a violent wind, {Isa_7:2} to the leaping of the lintel at the presence of the Lord {Isa_6:4-8} And this, in all probability, was that mark that God set upon him. {Gen_4:15} Not a horn in his forehead, as the Jews feign, but a hornet in his conscience, such as God vexed the Hivites with, {Exo_23:28} stinging them with unquestionable conviction and horror. For assuredly a body is not so tormented with stings, or torn with stripes, as a mind with remembrance of wicked actions. {b}
{a} Facti sunt a corde suo fugitivi. - Tertul.
{b} Cicer. Orat. pro Ros. Amer.