In real life today, when a person commits a crime, the common punishment is to put the person who committed the crime into a jail cell for a certain time period. This goes for murder as well, however, there are cases where the murderer is sentenced to death as well. Cain was not given this luxury by God. The curse that was put upon Cain was that of complete exile. He was to be a fugitive on the earth, which in most cases, would make a person go mad. The curse does not only affect him, but anyone who tries to kill him as well, whereas they would face even greater punishment than Cain. Therefore, the significance of this punishment is that solitude trumps eye for an eye, according to God. It also shows the significance of humans not having the right to end a human life since that is only in the hands of God.
To die would be to get away with the crime that has been committed. In this case, Cain was the first murderer on the face of the earth. Additionally, the person he murdered was his very own sibling. While Adam and Eve were supposed to multiply, here Cain was cutting off what was being made as the order of God. Therefore, it was seen as more reasonable to have Cain live his life in solitude and abandonment, since that is what he did to his very own brother. If he died, then he would not be able to feel the pain of being all alone and how it feel not to be able to enjoy what God has given him.
As far as the murder of Cain goes, the punishment is supposed to increase seven-fold if anyone dared to kill Cain because then that would mean they are taking him out of his misery. However, that is not the only reason that they would be getting punished. They too would be killing a human being and after the curse being put upon Cain, these people would have to know better. Cain received this curse because he killed a man, so the people who kill Cain should receive a punishment as well. This goes to show that only God has the right to kill off a human and that if a human were to do that in His place, then there would be consequences for those actions.
This story made me think if God taught humans enough about good and evil? It seems like God is simply running a test on the human nature, or maybe God’s own nature since humans are suppose to mirror Him.