Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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He chose his land. He went and dwelt on the east of Eden, somewhere distant from the place where Adam and his religious family resided, distinguishing himself and his accursed generation from the holy seed, his camp from the camp of the saints and the beloved city, Re 20:9. On the east of Eden, the cherubim were, with the flaming sword, Ge 3:24. There he chose his lot, as if to defy the terrors of the Lord. But his attempt to settle was in vain; for the land he dwelt in was to him the land of Nod (that is, of shaking or trembling), because of the continual restlessness and uneasiness of his own spirit.
Note, Those that depart from God cannot find rest anywhere else. After Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, he never rested. Those that shut themselves out of heaven abandon themselves to a perpetual trembling. "Return therefore to thy rest, O my soul, to thy rest in God; else thou art for ever restless."
17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he
builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
He built a city for a habitation, Ge 4:17. He was building a city, so some read it, ever building it, but, a curse being upon him and the work of his hands, he could not finish it.
Or, as we read it, he built a city, in token of a fixed separation from the church of God, to which he had no thoughts of ever returning. This city was to be the head-quarters of the apostasy. Observe here,
(1.) Thinking by this to be safe, and to have less reason to fear God's judgments against him. Cain's defiance of the divine sentence. God said he should be a fugitive and a vagabond. Had he repented and humbled himself, this curse might have been turned into a blessing, as that of the tribe of Levi was, that they should be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel; but his impenitent unhumbled heart walking contrary to God, and resolving to fix in spite of heaven, that which might have been a blessing was turned into a curse.