Genesis 4:15 “And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.”
God’s response, again, is really amazing. He doesn’t argue with Cain or berate him. He doesn’t even point out Cain’s irrationality. He actually listens to Cain and makes a promise that should have allayed his fears, and filled him with awe and gratitude for the grace God was showing him, in spite of his stubborn refusal to repent for his terrible sin.
Speculation abounds about the mark that Cain received, but if we stick to what the text says, there is plenty to talk about without chasing any wild theories. First of all, God Himself placed the mark, saving Cain from destruction, at least in a temporary sense. Secondly, the deterrent in the mark rests in God's threat of seven-fold vengeance on anyone who might decide to take the divine prerogative of punishing Cain into their own hands. The irony of this divine sentence should not have been lost on Cain, and should not be lost on us either: if murdering a murderer is worthy of God's seven-fold vengeance, how much vengeance will the Righteous Judge of all the earth justly pour out on the murderer of the innocent? In other words, the very promise of mercy to the offender was also a guarantee of his judgment to come. Unless Cain would choose to repent and believe in the Lamb who takes away our sin and bore the wrath that we deserve, then God’s mark upon him could only signal the certainty of his destruction.
God is also making it clear that payback is His own business. Anyone who presumes to try to do God’s job for Him will reap complete and perfect vengeance, for “vengeance belongs unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:30-31). While it is true that God may use human agents to execute His divine judgments, those agents are not at liberty to invent, assume, anticipate, modify, misdirect or redirect those judgments. In fact, at the end of time, the Bible predicts a global entity that will go so far as to fabricate its own false version of God’s saving mark, and then threaten capital punishment on all those who refuse to receive it! But God says that those who are so marked will receive a complete dose of His unmixed vengeance dispensed in seven installments known as the seven last plagues (Revelation chapters 13-18).
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