QUESTION: When Cain was “driven from the face of the earth” (Genesis 4:14), was he removed from the earth?
ANSWER: No! The phrase “from the face of the earth” is perhaps better translated as “from off the ground.” It seems that Cain was talking about the fruitful ground that he had tilled before his sin; the ground that had received his brother’s blood. It was from this land that God had driven him to become a fugitive and a vagabond.