Genesis 4:11

You have killed your younger brother, and the ground has soaked up his blood. So now I will expel you from this land and curse your efforts to produce crops.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

In Context

10Yahweh said, “You have done a terrible thing [RHQ]! So now it is as though your younger brother’s voice is crying to me from the ground, demanding that his death must be avenged.

12You will till the ground to plant crops, but the ground will produce very few [HYP] crops. And you will continually wander around the earth, and not have any place to live permanently.”

Read all of Genesis 4

Cross References

Genesis 3:14Then Yahweh God said to the snake, “Because you did this, of all the livestock and the wild animals, I will curse/punish you alone. As a result, you and all other snakes will scurry across the ground on your bellies, and so what you eat will have dirt on it as long as you live.

Deuteronomy 27:16‘Yahweh will curse anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.’ And all the people must reply, ‘◄Amen/We want that to happen►.’

Deuteronomy 29:19“Be sure that no one here today who hears this agreement thinks, ‘Everything will go well with me, even if I stubbornly do what I want to.’ If you are stubborn like that, the result will be that Yahweh will eventually get rid of all of you, both good people and evil people [MET].

Job 31:38If it were true that I have stolen land, with the result that it was as though its furrows cried out to accuse me of stealing;

Galatians 3:10That is, God will eternally punish all those who mistakenly think that God will erase the record of their sins as a result of their obeying the laws that God gave to Moses. What is written in the Scriptures is that God will eternally punish everyone who does not continuously and completely obey all the laws that Moses wrote.

Matthew Henry on Genesis 4:10-13

Cain's Punishment. ( b. c. 3875.) 9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? 10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. 11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; 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. We have here a… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Genesis 4:11