Genesis 4:16 “And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”
What sad words! Instead of staying in the presence of the only One who could restore and save him, Cain choose a greater punishment for himself than any of the judgments God had declared upon him. He had lost his garden’s prolific production by divine mandate, and was sentenced to be “a fugitive and wanderer in the earth”, but God never barred Cain from returning to His presence. The cherubim and the flaming sword were still at Eden’s gate. Had he so desired, he could have returned to repent and express faith in the Lamb of God, the Savior to come. But Cain, in his self deception, surely felt that fleeing the divine presence was the only way to stay alive, because standing before a Holy God with the load of guilt he chose to hang onto felt like torture. But as Cain went out from God’s presence, any sense of relief was only a deadening of his spiritual nerves. Like a leper or diabetic, the pain ebbed because of his loss of sensitivity. He convinced himself that everything was fine, yet he was nonetheless dying inside.
And so Cain went to live in the land of Nod. The name Nod comes from the Hebrew root nûd, which means to waver, to wander, to flee, or disappear. Such is the destiny of all who choose to take the path out from the presence of the Lord. “Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain […]; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).
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