Bible Strands
Genesis 4:12
When you till the ground, it will no longer yield its produce to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Cain directly following the murder of Abel and the prior declaration of banishment in Genesis 4:11. The statement marks the immediate enforcement of that judicial curse.
The words — The Hebrew תַֽעֲבֹד (ta.'a.Vod) translates literally to "you will till," while the phrase לֹֽא תֹסֵף תֵּת (lo'- to.Sef tet) means "will no longer give." These terms establish the permanent termination of agricultural yield as a direct consequence of the curse.
The thread — The combined motifs of unyielding land and forced wandering recur in Leviticus 26:20, Leviticus 26:36, and Hosea 9:17. These passages apply identical agricultural and migratory consequences to covenant disobedience and national rebellion.
Why it lands — The text states that violent rebellion severs the functional relationship between human labor and earthly provision. It requires the reader to acknowledge that defying divine order replaces security with permanent displacement.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
Cross-references
- Hosea 9:17 My God will reject them because they have not obeyed Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.
- Leviticus 26:20 and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.
- Leviticus 26:36 As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.
- Deuteronomy 28:23 The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
- Genesis 3:17 And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
- Genesis 4:14 Behold, this day You have driven me from the face of the earth, and from Your face I will be hidden; I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
- Deuteronomy 28:65 Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.
- Psalms 109:10 May his children wander as beggars, seeking sustenance far from their ruined homes.
- Jeremiah 20:3 The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib.
- Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope