Gallery: Cain

Broken, bereft, Cain staggers away from his brother’s corpse. Blood has been spilled. Abel is dead, and Cain has been told to go. In Genesis, God reprimands Cain, “What have you done? Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:10–12).

Cain complains that the penalty is too harsh. “My punishment is greater that I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me” (Genesis 4:13–14). Then the Lord said to him, “Not so!” And he put “a mark” on Cain “so that no one who came upon him would kill him” (Genesis 4:15).