The Mark of Cain

After Cain kills Abel, Genesis 4:9–15 tells us that God confronts Cain with his murder, brushes aside Cain’s “feigning ignorance” lie, and says that the ground itself has testified of Cain’s heinous sin. God then pronounces a curse on Cain, perhaps adding an even stronger enforcement to the curse on the ground from Genesis 3:17–19 for the rest of Cain’s lifelong agricultural endeavors (Genesis 4:12). God also tells Cain that he will be “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

What the Mark Was: Mercy and Warning

Cain is suddenly aware that he is now an outlaw and that he will be a hunted man, crying that his punishment is too great. Even his response here is extremely hypocritical. He bemoans his new lot in life. He worries first about his ability to feed himself, then that he will be hidden from the face of God, and lastly that he will constantly fear for his life. Yet just a little while earlier, Cain did not fear to take his brother’s life, and had sought to hide his actions from God, brazenly asking God if he was his brother’s keeper.

But even while punishing Cain, God extends mercy and tells Cain that he will offer protection in the form of a mark.

But even while punishing Cain, God extends mercy and tells Cain that he will offer protection in the form of a mark. This mark will serve as a perpetual reminder that if someone seeks to kill Cain, he will suffer “sevenfold” vengeance. What and where this mark on Cain’s body was goes unmentioned, so any hypothesis is simply that—an educated guess. Likely, though, it was something visible and physical since people would recognize it and be aware of the consequences of seeking to take vengeance on Cain for murdering Abel.

What the Mark Was Not: A Change in Cain’s Skin Tone

There have been many attempts throughout history to label the mark of Cain (as well as the supposed “curse of Ham”) with darker skin color.1 But to think through the subject biblically and logically, let’s consider what AiG has always maintained—that the original couple, Adam and Eve, almost certainly had a middle-brown skin tone. For all of humanity to be one race (all being descendants of Adam and Eve, per Genesis 3:20, Acts 17:26, and 1 Corinthians 15:22, 47–49) and to exhibit the variation in skin tone we see today, that is the most logical deduction. When we consider that Cain was the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, it is also logical to assume he closely resembled them. As an example of middle-brown skin tone, let’s use a modern-day Polynesian male (see Fig. 1 below) as a stand-in for Cain. Now, how would making the skin shade either slightly lighter or darker constitute a visible “mark” which would make people know that Cain was not to be executed for the murder of his brother? Let’s keep in mind that Cain was fearful of being killed (Genesis 4:14), likely by a sibling (bearing in mind that Adam and Eve had other children per Genesis 5:4), and that if there was any variation in skin tone between Adam’s sons and daughters, there would have been some with slightly lighter and darker tones, as in Fig. 2 below. Do these visuals help point out the folly of such a conclusion? Would the men in Fig. 2 see the different skin tone of the man in Fig. 1 as having a “cursed” mark set on him? Or would the man in Fig. 1 view the men in Fig. 2 as substantially different from himself? The obvious answer to that question is no.

Fig. 1. Man with “middle-brown” pigment. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Fig. 2. Slightly more and less pigment. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

We don’t know how many children Adam and Eve had (biblically the minimum would be five sons and two daughters, based on Genesis 5:4) but rabbinic sources typically state between 23 and 50. If those numbers are close to accurate, then simple genetics would mean that there was likely moderate variation in the skin tones of Adam’s children, and even more so in the second generation. In a spectrum of 1–10 (very light shaded to very dark shaded) then it’s likely that Adam’s children varied from 3–8 (or perhaps even 2–9) on that scale. In other words, those siblings would have been used to people of many different skin shades, so a change in skin tone could not have been construed as a curse or mark.

What Does It Mean to Be a Marked Man?

Down through the years both Jewish and Christian scholars have put forth hypotheses for Cain’s mark.

Down through the years both Jewish and Christian scholars have put forth hypotheses for Cain’s mark. Some have suggested an uncontrollable trembling of his body, some facial disfiguration, or a wild ferocity of aspect in his eyes or on his face that rendered him an object of horror or avoidance. Some have suggested leprosy or a sigil of some kind which God engraved on Cain’s forehead (one such suggestion was the Hebrew letter “tav,” since it was mentioned as the very mark put on people whom God was exempting from judgement in Ezekiel 9:4–6).2 One of the most radical explanations was that God made Cain impervious to anything at that time which could kill him: "A sword could not pierce him; fire could not burn him; water could not drown him; the air could not blast him; nor could thunder or lightning strike him.”3

Other scholars have suggested that there was no mark put on Cain, but rather that the text can be translated as God gave Cain a sign or token that what he had said about Cain not fearing retribution was true, much like when Gideon asked for a sign from the Angel of the Lord in Judges 6:17 that God would be with him in defeating the Midianites. The Hebrew word used in both Genesis 4:15 and Judges 6:17 is אות (‘owth). But this particular explanation is somewhat weaker, as God’s stated intention for the mark was that nobody who found Cain would attack or kill him in retribution. That purpose seems to imply a physical mark or attribute upon Cain’s body, which would serve as a warning to others. Again though, we are not given specifics in Scripture, and any pet theory we may entertain must remain tentative.

The Only Marks That Should Concern Christians

Trying to rationalize the mark of Cain as a (spurious) biblical excuse for justifying racism is not only unsupportable, but also erroneous and reprehensible. All humans have Adam and Eve as our original parents, meaning that we are all one blood and one human race.

Trying to rationalize the mark of Cain as a (spurious) biblical excuse for justifying racism is not only unsupportable, but also erroneous and reprehensible.

And rather than endless speculation on what the mark of Cain was, Christians would be better served to contemplate another set of marks: those which Christ in his resurrected body still bears. For those who lived contemporaneously with Cain, seeing was believing. Those who saw Cain knew he was marked and feared him in some way. However the marks Jesus bears should not bring fear but cause us to cry out our love and devotion for our Savior as believing Thomas did in John 20:28. We are not to be as “doubting Thomas” who demanded visual, physical, and tactile proof in John 20:25 but as the ones Jesus mentioned “who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).

The mark of Cain was a one-time act of mercy for a rebellious sinner, but the marks Christ bears were from a once-for-all sacrifice given for the sins of rebellious mankind. And as the Prophet Isaiah and the Apostle Peter wrote, it is good to contemplate and meditate on those marks which Christ bore for our healing and salvation.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned —every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5–6)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)