Brush Up Your Bible: The Land of Nod, East of Eden, and The Mark of Cain

Excerpted from
Brush Up Your Bible!
by Michael Macrone

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This is one in a series of biweekly excerpts from Brush Up Your Bible!, a guide to the most quoted words and phrases from English translations of Scripture. Famous lines are placed in their original context, along with historical background and introductions to the Bible's most important figures and stories.




		*The Land of Nod, East of Eden, and* The Mark of Cain** And the Lord said unto him [Cain], Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. -- Genesis 4: 15-16 (KJV) Facing the thankless life of a nomad for his treacherous murder of Abel, Cain declares this "greater than I can bear" (Genesis 4: 13). Not only will he be a "fugitive and a vagabond" upon the earth, but, according to him, "everyone that findeth me shall slay me" (verse 14). Where this "everyone" came from is a mystery, but in any case Yahweh accepts Cain's complaint at face value. Despite Cain's horrible crime, God extends him special protection in the form of a "mark," familiarly known as the "mark [or brand] of Cain." Though we use this phrase now to mean "the sign of a murderer," that's not what God had in mind. Cain's mark is supposed to induce fear in potential enemies, reminiscent of various tribal symbols common among the peoples of the ancient Near East. In short, anyone who slays a member of Cain's tribe can expect brutal (and divinely sanctioned) retribution. Thus shielded, Cain makes his lonely way into a region called "the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." Wherever Nod is -- the name is from the Hebrew for "wandering" -- we are meant to infer that it's a bleak place indeed, and that east is not the best direction out of Eden. English punsters ignored these dire facts, however, when they began using "the land of Nod" as a humorous metaphor for "sleep." (The first to do so was Jonathan Swift.) On the other hand, John Steinbeck's novel of family tragedy, East of Eden, is in the right spirit (and is in fact based on Genesis 4). We hear little more of Cain, except that he went on to build the first city in the world, which he would call Enoch after his eldest son. (The Bible also leaves us guessing where Cain's wife came from.) Enoch, in turn, would beget a certain personage famous for longevity -- as we shall see in the next excerpt. Index \| Next: Methuselah Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!