Note: this study is limited to the meaning of the sign God gave. People have fantasized much about its form and its content: as an encouraging sign Cain might have heard a thunderclap or seen a very special sunrise; as a deterrent mark God would have given him a frighteningly threatening facial expression, or made him leprous, or given him a tattoo with God’s name on his forehead, or he could have received a dangerously barking dog as a companion. But all of this is mere guesswork, for the Bible says nothing about such things.
Interpretation 1: A visual deterrent
Summary: The mark was a visual deterrent, meant for anyone who might want to kill Cain.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The purpose of the mark was to prevent other people from killing Cain. Therefore, those other people must have been able to see this mark. And so, it would have been a permanently visible mark.
2. We read more often in God’s Word that God gave people a mark to spare their lives (see Ezekiel 9:4–5, Revelation 7:2–3, Revelation 9:4–5).
3. Godless powers can also mark people, on their right hand and forehead, to be able to boycott or even kill anyone who does not wear this mark (Revelation 13:16–17).
4. The blood that the Israelites had to apply to their doorposts is also called a sign that is visible to all (Exodus 12:13), which was to prevent all the firstborn from among the Israelites to also be killed.
Arguments against this view:
1. The mark could also be an underscoring of God’s promise to Cain that whoever kills him would be avenged sevenfold. This would imply that potential murderers would not have to see that sign permanently. There is also an exegete who thinks that a visible mark on Cain might even have attracted rather than repelled potential murderers and might have been seen as a challenge to still kill him somehow!
2. When God’s Word tells of God providing people with a visible sign to spare their lives, it is almost always in a vision. And then the sign was intended to let the executioners, whom he had brought in, know which people to leave alone.
3. What is told in Revelation 13:1–18 is also a vision. And the mark on the hand and the forehead is there to be understood symbolically: all the actions and thoughts of people are made subordinate to serve anti-Christian powers.
4. The blood on the doorposts of the Israelites in the night of the Passover was not meant as a sign for a passing executioner. God himself would come and strike all the firstborn in Egypt (Exodus 12:12). And he does not need special signs. God says that the blood on the doorposts is meant as a sign for his people (Exodus 12:13), as a guarantee that God would spare their firstborn.
Interpretation 2: An encouragement
Summary: The sign is meant as an encouraging guarantee in God’s promise that the man who would dare to kill Cain would himself be avenged sevenfold. The translation the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him
is therefore incorrect. Instead it should read: the LORD gave a sign (or: a guarantee) to Cain that any who found him should not attack him.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The translation the LORD put a mark on Cain
is an interpretive translation of the Hebrew. The original text says nothing more than, the LORD gave a sign to Cain.
2. The word used in Hebrew for sign
has a more comprehensive meaning than just a mark.
In the many places where it is used in God’s Word it always has the meaning of an underlining and guaranteeing of what God promised: Genesis 9:13, Genesis 17:11, Exodus 3:12, Judges 6:17, 1 Samuel 10:7, 1 Samuel 10:9, 2 Kings 19:29, 2 Kings 20:8–9, Isaiah 7:11, Isaiah 38:7 and Isaiah 38:22; Jeremiah 44:29.
3. In Genesis 4 the LORD also makes a promise (Genesis 4:15a) and then gives a mark (Genesis 14:15b). This could have been anything, perhaps even a tattoo, but it was not intended as a deterrent sign for Cain’s potential murderers, but as an encouraging assurance of God’s promise to Cain himself.
4. When God gives a sign, he always asks for faith. The sign underscores his promise, but his promise requires faith. In this way the sign even makes a final appeal to Cain who is guilty of fratricide to believe God at his Word.
15 Then the LORD said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.