Soon afterwards the Lord apprehended Cain and inquired of him: "Where is A'bel thy brother?" Cain sought to evade the question by asking , "Am I my brother's keeper?" Then the Lord declared that A'bel's blood was like crying to Him out of the ground. For this evil deed Cain was cursed as a vagabond to wander over the earth, a continual exile without a home.
God placed a mark upon Cain, and sent him away with the announcement that anyone who harmed him should be punished. Cain and his wife went into a distant land, and there his children were born. He built a city which he named after his first son, whom he called E'noch. Included in the curse of God against him was that the land should no longer yield its fruit to his efforts, and he was therefore obliged to turn to industrial occupations for a livelihood. Bitterest of all his sufferings must have been the constant image of his murdered brother in his conscience, and the hours of remorse and anguish as the blood of his own mother's son clung to his hands.
Not one item of moral goodness is recorded of Cain's descendants. They became leaders in arts and crafts, advanced in worldly wisdom and material prosperity, and spread abroad in the land. Seven successive generations are mentioned in the Bible, but there is no indication that any of them ever worshipped God or performed any religious or moral deed worthy of record. La'mech, the fifth in the line of Cain's descendants, was the first polygamist, also a murderer. In the remorse of conscience he said:
"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice!
Ye wives of Le'mech, hearken unto my speech:
For I have slain a man to my wounding,
And a young man to my hurt.
If Cain hath been avenged sevenfold,
Truly Le'mech, seventy-and-sevenfold."
In the sixth generation they introduced refinements into the system of society. Ja'bel stabilized the occupations of the shepherd and the herdsman. Tu'bal Cain promoted the use of scientific tools, and Ja'bal excelled in music and poetry. The Cainite line excelled in worldly ambition, in wealth and luxury, and in material knowledge. Their moral and spiritual decline, however, led to their complete extinction in the deluge which soon came upon the world.
