Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #12 of Genesis, chapter 4 and we are going to read Genesis 4:11-15:

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. And Cain said unto JEHOVAH, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And JEHOVAH said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And JEHOVAH set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

There are some very curious statements that the Lord makes concerning Cain. When we just look at this historically and we examine it as just an incident where one brother kills the other brother, we are left in the dark when we try to understand the things God says. We saw that to be the case back in verse 7 where it said, “And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” We also do not understand why the curse pronounced upon Cain for murder was that the ground would no longer yield her strength. And we do not understand why God is protecting Cain and instead of God saying there would be vengeance upon Cain, God says that for anyone that slays Cain vengeance will be taken sevenfold against that person.

These things do not make sense until we see Cain as a figure picturing the corporate body of the unsaved or those that have identification with the kingdom of God corporately. In the Old Testament that would be the Jews. They had relationship with the prophets, the oracles of God and the sacrifices and the ceremonies God ordained, but they lacked salvation. With few exceptions, they never became born again. It is the same with the New Testament corporate church. The vast majority of church goers down through the centuries have been like the people of Israel – they were mostly unsaved. They had identification with God through the name “Christian,” and through partaking of the Lord’s Table, baptism and through being the caretakers of His Word, the Bible, and, yet, they lacked salvation. Cain represents them, but Abel is a picture of the elect that also had outward identification with God. They were in Israel of old or they were in the New Testament churches, but they stood in a vastly different situation, spiritually. They had a personal relationship with God because their sins were forgiven and Christ was their Saviour. He bore their iniquity and paid the punishment for sin, which is death: “The wages of sin is death.”

And now we are coming to a strange verse in Genesis 4:13:

And Cain said unto JEHOVAH, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Here, we have a very interesting translation of the word that is translated as “punishment.” It is actually a word that is most often translated as “iniquity.” Again, and again, and again, this word is translated as “iniquity” and iniquity is sin. So, literally, Cain is saying to JEHOVAH, “My iniquity is greater than I can bear.” The translators struggled with this; they knew that God was cursing him because Cain had committed murder, so it just made sense in the context to say, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” They are correct in a way and I would not say this is a wrong translation, but there is more to it once we understand that “iniquity” is involved. Let me show you what I mean. If we go to Psalm 51, we will find this same Hebrew word, Strong’s #5771. It is found in Psalm 51 three times. It says in Psalm 51:2:

Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

It says in Psalm 51:5:

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

It also says in Psalm 51:9:

Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

There are a number of other verses we could go to that are very similar and are saying the same thing. David had sinned and slew Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the enemy. He murdered him. David is crying out to God concerning his iniquity or sin, so this word “iniquity” refers to wrongdoing and transgression against the commandments of God.

Cain also committed iniquity. When he says, “Mine iniquity is greater than I can bear,” we could understand that the weight or guilt of his sin is pressing down upon him, but that does not fit the mind set of Cain that we saw when God came to him and said, “Where is Abel thy brother?” Cain responded, “I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” There seemed to be a lack of guilt and a lack of sorrow over his sin, unlike David who was lamenting over his sin. But that was not the case with Cain. Cain was concerned about himself and Cain is worried about what God said about him tilling the ground and it not yielding its strength. He was very self-centered and he felt no remorse (as far as we can tell) about slaying his brother. It was all about his concern for himself.

This same Hebrew word, Strong’s #5771, is also translated as “iniquity” in Isaiah, chapter 53, a Messianic passage that speaks of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid for sin at the foundation of the world and would later enter into the world. It says in Isaiah 53:5-6:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and JEHOVAH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This is the perspective of the child of God. It is true of the entire company of the elect, perhaps as many as 200 million. Our iniquity was laid upon Him. It says in Isaiah 53:11:

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

The word “bear” is the same word used in Genesis 4:15, where it says, “My punishment (or iniquity) is greater than I can bear.” Do you see what the Bible is telling us concerning the Messiah? It says, “JEHOVAH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He did bear our iniquities. Jesus was bearing the sins of all the elect, but what about all the rest of the people? There are billions of people in this world. Jesus did not die for the sins of every human being in the world, like some believe. No, the Bible is clear that many will perish in their own sins. Who will bear their sins? The answer is that each one of them will bear their own sins.

Cain is speaking a truth. He is declaring a very important thing:_ “My iniquity is greater than I can bear.”_ He is laden with his own iniquity. All of his sins remained upon him because he had no Saviour and he had no one to take his sin. There was no imputed righteousness for him because no one died for his sins to cleanse him and wash him. He is not cleansed. He is not washed. He is heavy laden with his iniquities. And since this is the “end of days,” it is the time when God would come to bring His wrath upon sinners that bear their own sins. God sees their sins.

When Jesus was laden with the sins of His people, God smote Him, as we read earlier. God wounded Him for our transgressions. God punished Him. Christ died and shed his blood: “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” Christ shed His blood for His people at the foundation of the world. That is the only way Abel could have become saved. If Christ did not shed His blood until 33AD, then there was no blood shed for Abel. Without the death of the Testator, you cannot have the inheritance and you cannot grant the heirs salvation. The Testator (Christ) first had to die and then the will could be put into effect, which would involve, first, the resurrection of the soul and, later, the resurrection of the body, but first you need the death of the Testator. The blood must first be shed and that is why it is absolutely essential to the true Gospel of the Bible that we understand that Christ died first – He was the firstborn from the dead and that death occurred at the foundation of the world. It had to happen then. There is no way to rightly understand the Old Testament saints finding grace in the sight of the Lord, like Noah or Abraham or any other saint of old. They could not have been saved without the death of the Testator and without the shedding blood and without Jesus being the firstborn from the dead, declared to be the Son of God, and so on. There is just an enormous amount of Biblical evidence that confirms this teaching and anyone fighting against it is fighting against the Word of God, the Bible.

Anyway, because Jesus died and bore the iniquity of His people now Abel bears no iniquity and all the saints of God bear no iniquity, but for the rest of the people, they will bear their own iniquity. Cain was bearing his own iniquity and we see an interesting parallelism with a Law of God that otherwise would just seem kind of strange and unusual. That is actually how it is with many things in the Bible – we read it and it seems awkward, strange or unusual until we understand the spiritual meaning. And this is the way it is with the events God laid out for the Day of Atonement. God commanded something strange to take place on the Day of Atonement. There were to be two goats selected and one of the goats was the Lord’s goat and it was to be killed and sacrificed, but the other goat was to be laden with the sins of Israel and then released into the wilderness. It says in Leviticus 16:8-10:

And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for JEHOVAH, and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the JEHOVAH'S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before JEHOVAH, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

Then later it says in Leviticus 16:20-22:

And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

Is this not unusual? The one goat that became the sin offering is something we can understand because the Bible is full of sacrifices and each sacrifice was a picture of the sacrificial Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the picture of the goat as the sin offering, we see Christ as He was revealed in Isaiah, chapter 53 as He bore the iniquity of His people and died for His elect. That goat clearly pictures Jesus bearing the sins of His people and, therefore, the elect are identified with the goat offered for a sin offering.

The other goat is bearing the iniquities of “the children of Israel,” and this goat is not slain. It is not offered up as a burnt sacrifice and its blood is not shed. The blood of the other goat was shed because it pointed to Jesus and “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission.” The live goat’s blood was not shed. He was not killed and because of that, he was a picture of the unsaved that must bear their own iniquities. They did not have Jesus that died for their sins and they must bear their own sins and they are brought to the wilderness and released. This seems strange and odd. Why release a goat that, like Cain, represents the unsaved? What happened to Cain? He was driven out “from the face of the earth.” What better picture of this than a wilderness or a desolate land and a land not inhabited?

The word “goat” is found in a couple of very interesting places and I never recognized it before, but it is mentioned in regard to the burning of Babylon, it says in Isaiah 13:9-11:

Behold, the day of JEHOVAH cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

Clearly, Judgment Day is in view and it goes on to say in Isaiah 13:19-21:

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.

What are “satyrs”? They are “goats.” It is the same word translated as “goat” in Leviticus, chapter 16 where the goat was released into the wilderness. Where will that goat be found when God punishes the world for their iniquity and when God darkens the sun and the day of the Lord comes? That is when Babylon is turned into a desolate place and goats will be in the wilderness. Do you see the picture? It starts with Cain and it ties into the unsaved that must bear their own iniquities. That is what the goat is doing in the wilderness. He was released into desolation. You see, the judgment of God is not suffering in a place called Hell for ever and ever to experience the wrath of God eternally. We understand it is a spiritual judgment that God has brought.

Is it not interesting that the Lord Jesus spoke a parable regarding the separation of the sheep and the goats? The sheep are on His right hand and the goats are on his left. Let us read about this in Matthew chapter 25 when the curse was placed upon the unsaved, just as Cain was cursed. It says of the goats, in Matthew 25:41:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

Then it goes on to say in Matthew 25:46:

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

This is speaking of the time of Judgment Day and all of a sudden we have “goats” that are in view. Why? They are goats that are sent away from Christ. He had said earlier, “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” He is telling them to go into the wilderness where they will bear their own iniquity. In Isaiah 13 we saw the word “satyrs” and in Isaiah 34, verse 8, it says, “For it is the day of the JEHOVAH'S vengeance” and the chapter is speaking of the end of the world and Judgment Day. Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 34:10:

It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

Again, there are no inhabitants. It is a desolate place. We do not have time to read it all, but in this context it says in Isaiah 34:13-14:

And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.

Again, the “satyr” or the “goat” is in view in the day of the Lord’s wrath. The scapegoat that was released bearing its own iniquity is in view. And, Cain, too, was driven out into the earth and no wonder he exclaims, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.”

Now we have something else interesting in regard to the concern God has that no one slay Cain. Lord willing, we will discuss that in our next Bible study.