Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #10 of Genesis, chapter 4 and we are going to read Genesis 4:10-12:

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; 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.

I will stop reading there. Again, God is speaking to Cain who has slain his brother and God knows he has done it, so the Lord said to Cain, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Cain had attempted to conceal his sin when God asked him where his brother was and Cain responded, “I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?” However, sin cannot be concealed from God. It is impossible, as the Bible tells us in Hebrews 4:13:

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

God knew what Cain had done. Not only did God know the outward act, but He knew the inner sin of hatred. Cain hated his brother and wherefore hated he him, the Bible asks in 1John 3, verse 12. Because God knows the inner thoughts of man, God knew it was because Cain’s own works were evil and his brother’s works were righteous.

Even though God knew all about, He questioned Abel: “What hast thou done?” Then it goes on to say in Genesis 4:10:

… the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

It is interesting that God speaks of the “voice of thy brother’s blood.” We talked about this a little bit in our last study about how it is not literally the “voice” of blood. The blood cannot speak. It is just a physical substance and it would have been lying on the ground where Abel was slain and it cannot speak, but God implies that Abel’s blood speaks in Hebrews 12:23-24:

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

Here, it says that the blood of sprinkling of the new covenant speaks “better things than” of Abel’s blood. That is the testimony that God assigned to Abel’s blood and it is as though Abel’s blood is speaking. We went to Revelation 6, verse 10 where we read of the souls under the altar that had been slain for the Word’s sake and they were “crying out” for their blood to be avenged. It is as though all the children of God that had been slain upon the earth are beseeching the Lord for justice and for vengeance. Their deaths were wrong and it was because of the transgression of the Law of God, whether it was a physical killing, as was the case with Abel, or other saints that were killed for the sake of the Gospel. Also, God’s people were killed (spiritually) by being driven out of the churches and congregations. It is as though God hears the cries of His people through their blood and we wonder why He makes reference to blood. For instance, remember what it said in Matthew 23:35:

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Notice that God speaks of Abel’s righteous blood and the blood of Zacharias. Why is their blood said to be righteous? It is because God had saved them and we know from the Book of Romans that none are righteous, but by the obedience of One many are made righteous. When we become born again, it is our soul that is made anew as we become a new creature with the new resurrected spirit that is without sin and, yet, our physical bodies are still corrupt and contaminated with sin until the resurrection at the last day. The literal blood of a child of God is part of our physical body, so it is not righteous at all. That is not our “blood type,” so to speak. If we donate blood, it is not as if the unsaved of the world have “unrighteous blood,” but when the elect donate blood, they have “righteous blood.” If you have two people and one is saved and one is unsaved and they gave blood, they may both be the same blood type “O” or blood type “A.” You cannot tell their blood apart. There is no distinction. We may have different blood types, but there is no distinction like “righteous blood” and “unrighteous blood.” Again, as it says in Matthew 23:35:

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias…

All the righteous blood from Abel to Zacharias is mentioned. Why? God says concerning the peoples of the earth, in Acts 17:26:

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

Here, God indicates that all the peoples of the earth had one blood. Going back to the example of donating blood to the blood bank, it does not mean that we all have the same blood type, but God is making of “one blood” all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth; that is, all men come from Adam. All human beings are born in the line of Adam and, therefore, we all have the same blood which is guilty. It says in Psalm 51:14:

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation…

If you were delivered from “bloodguiltiness,” you would have innocent blood. The Bible speaks of innocent blood and God has very terrible things to say about those that would slay innocent blood. This is just an example, but it says in Jeremiah 7:6:

If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

The innocent blood does not belong to those that are “bloodguilty” and all descendants of Adam are guilty until God saves us and we are all children of wrath even as others, but when God saves us the figure is that the blood now coursing through our veins is no longer guilty. We are delivered from “bloodguiltiness,” even though God’s elect are also descendants of Adam and Eve. You cannot bring a clean thing from an unclean thing, so all humans had guilty blood, but due to the cleansing work of the Lord Jesus Christ the elect become thoroughly washed from our sin in the sight of God and we now have innocent blood. If your blood is innocent, what is another way of describing that? You now have “righteous blood.” Your blood is just and righteous in God’s sight and the people of God, through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, are made righteous and their blood becomes, as it were, purified and purged of all guilt and becomes innocent in the sight of God.

Let us go back and read, again, Genesis 4:10-11:

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

Concerning verse 10, it is a little surprising that God said to Cain, “And now art thou cursed from the earth.” Why is that surprising? It is because in the previous chapter we saw that Adam and Eve sinned and the curse of God came upon mankind. It came upon the serpent. It came upon Adam and Eve and all humanity when man fell into sin, but Genesis 4, verse 10 almost seems to be another curse. What curse could God give because Cain was already cursed because he came from two parents that were cursed? But now God is indicating that now Cain is cursed and when we see the word “now” it means at that particular point in time. This reminds us that this entire series of events is related to the offering that is given “in the end of days.” In the end of days God required the offering and God made known which one was accepted and which one was not accepted and, as a result, Cain rose up and killed his brother Abel. It is all taking place “in the end of days.” We have already seen how this relates to the wheat and the tares growing together in the field. It relates to what we read in Matthew 10:19-21:

But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.

The reference to the “same hour” is almost identical to the statement we find in Mark 13, verses 10 and 11 that deal with the Great Tribulation. The language of brother delivering up his brother to death relates to what took place, spiritually, during the Great Tribulation period. In the churches we had professed Christians and true Christians – there were brother and brother or wheat and the tares. You could not distinguish one from another and that is how God intended it to be throughout the church age, but at the time of the end judgment began at the house of God. Yes, we live in a cursed world and the judgment of God abides on the unsaved, as the Bible says. Throughout the history of the world the anger of God was abiding upon the sinner. There was a curse upon man from the time of Adam and Eve, but at the time of the end came the official time in which God would judge sinners and He started that official process of the final judgment at the house of God. He started the judgment process where the two brothers dwelt together; two were in the field because they were given the commission to go to the nations with the Word of God. As God opened up the Scriptures it began to lead to a schism or separation between one brother and the other until the command came from the Bible that the church age was over and the people of God were to depart out of the churches and congregations. There was the brother that was going “in the way of Cain.” He was the one God has no respect for and the one that was like Esau. God does use Esau to picture this same truth in the Book of Obadiah. God addresses Esau and He says in Obadiah 1:10-13:

For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them. But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity;

The calamity is the judgment of God upon the corporate church. It was a tumultuous time and an extremely trying time for the elect and Esau, the brother of Jacob (who represents the elect), is using the opportunity to do violence against his brother and deliver him up. He wanted to get rid of him and cast him out. Likewise, in the churches the unsaved brethren cast edicts against the true believers and they accused them of being of Satan or of being a cult. Whatever their language, it was used to try to kill the child of God spiritually. They were slaying their brothers. God is describing what would happen way back in the beginning in the Book of Genesis as He details the events of what took place with the first two brothers, Cain and Abel.

Again, it says in Genesis 4:11:

And now art thou cursed from the earth…

This is basically equivalent to God pronouncing the end of the church age. The judgment of God came down upon the “wicked brother,” the one of that wicked one. They were the tares that the enemy sowed among the wheat and God is pronouncing the judgment upon them because they have slain their brethren, the righteous ones and the ones with innocent blood. Therefore, God says in Genesis 4:11:

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

I want to read a related verse in Isaiah, chapter 26 where God speaks of hiding His people. It says in Isaiah 26:20-21:

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, JEHOVAH cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity…

Remember that Cain said that his punishment was more than he could bear, in Genesis 4:13. I remember reading of this punishment a long time ago when I had been a Christian for just a couple of years and I remember thinking, “It does not sound as if it was all that terrible,” but it is speaking of the spiritual principal of being cut off by God and being separated from God and losing the Spirit of God and the possibility of salvation. Again, it says in Isaiah 26:21:

For, behold, JEHOVAH cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

The earth has received enormous amounts of blood of those that have been slain in a wicked way. Just looking at it from an earthly standpoint, the number of murders is staggering, year, after year, after year and there are tens of millions of murders that are not even counted as murders, like abortions. That aside, looking at what the world counts as murders, there are still millions and millions of murders that have taken place over the course of history.

But, all through history God’s people have been murdered physically or spiritually. In the entire world, not a single death has been forgotten. Not one wrongful death has been overlooked. It has all been recorded by the earth itself, in a sense, and in the time of judgment against the churches and congregations God brought them to task for “innocent blood,” from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias. For the world, it is the blood of all those slain upon the earth. It is the time that the Law of God demands satisfaction for wrongdoing and the Law of God declares, “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” To satisfy the Law’s demand, God must now shed the blood of all the wicked. He must take their lives, as that is what the shedding of blood points to, ultimately. It is to give up one’s life and Judgment Day is the time when the life of the sinner is demanded by the Law of God and the Law will be satisfied once it kills the wicked ones. Then the cry for vengeance from those whose blood was shed is as though it has been appeased.