Living in the Land of Nod

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 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. And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah. And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." (Genesis 4:16-24)

That Cain "went out from the presence of the Lord" seems to indicate that Cain chose to leave God's presence. This shows his unrepentant heart. God's mercy is also shown in that He allows Cain space to repent by not destroying him utterly as would have been warranted by murder, although Cain views it as extreme ("more than I can bear") because of his impenitent and unhumbled heart. When God asked for an honest confession of the crime, Cain lied instead.

Now we see that Cain "knew his wife and she conceived." The Word doesn't say that Cain "took a wife," in fact, in implies that he already had one, perhaps even when he murdered Abel. This causes us to ponder where his wife came from? We have a clue about this in Cain's response to God's curse upon him:

"…and it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me." (Genesis 4:14)

Cain speaks as though there is a population on the earth other than just those the Bible narrative has so far spoken of; and obviously there are since he apparently had a wife already. Here is a classic example of how it is going to be in gathering our knowledge of Biblical facts: we are given some information, but not all…at least not all at once. We may feel as though there are only four people on earth, but then our perspective must change as we see that there are in fact more because Cain now has a wife. Further knowledge will be added to this as we learn that the ages of the people who lived at that time, shortly after sin entered in, were hundreds of years as compared to our short life-span (because of the abundance of iniquity as time goes by that leads to death-ravaged physical bodies that cannot survive for as long).

Additionally, we are not told how many children Adam and Eve had altogether. We are told of three of their children, but not possibly all of their children, some of whom most certainly could have been girls. And yes, it does appear as though Cain would have had to marry a sister, and while such an arrangement today would be considered incestual and genetically dangerous, perhaps because of the shorter period of time that sin had reigned over what were meant to be immortal bodies, the typical hindrances to such an arrangement are not to be assumed.

But what is more important to note than where Cain's wife came from is that the repercussions of his sin of murder, carry on to his descendants, so that those who are living in the land of Nod, somewhere east of Eden, come to represent, the fleshly side of mankind and will become known as the "sons of man," having been removed from the presence of God's Spirit by Cain's decision to depart rather than repent, becoming "a fugitive and a wanderer" because of the guilt of his own conscience.

So now we have an ungodly group of people on the earth, with iniquity abounding (growing worse) as seen by the crime of Lamech, Cain's descendant.

But we will see soon that there is another born to Eve who will represent the spirit of God and will be known as "the sons of God."