Scripture Daily

Context No. 2587 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 4:9-14: in context

9The LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10The LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground. 11Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 13Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14Behold, you have driven me out today from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me.”

After Cain kills his brother Abel, God asks him, where is your brother? Cain's answer is one of the oldest evasions in the world: I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? God does not accept the dodge. What have you done? he says. The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. The murder Cain tried to hide is heard in heaven, and he is called to account for the brother he claimed was not his concern.

Am I my brother's keeper? Cain means it as a refusal, a way of shrugging off any responsibility for the one whose blood is on his hands. And God's response answers the question without answering it directly: your brother's blood cries out, so yes, you were answerable for him. We are, in fact, our brother's keepers, bound to one another in ways we would often rather deny. And the crying blood says something more: God hears the wronged even when we shrug them off. The cry we ignore does not go unheard; it rises to the One who asks us where our brother is.

Whose keeping have I shrugged off with a quiet not my problem, and do I believe God hears the cry I am ignoring?

Sources