Cain's Exile

Exiit ergo Cain a facie Domini, et habitavit in terra Naid. Quod LXX Naid transtulerunt, in Hebraeo נוֹד dicitur, et interpretatur σαλευόμενος, id est, instabilis et fluctans, et sedis incertae. Non est igitur Naid terra, ut vulgus nostrorum putat, sed expletur sententia Dei, quod huc atque illuc vagus et profugus oberravit. Contra quod malum Dominus rogatur in Psalmo: Ne dederis in motu pedes meos, et manus peccatorum non moveant me. Nune ergo Judaei, et omnes diviersis erroribus contumaces sunt, resistendo veritati exeunt a facie Dei, id est, a misericordia dilectionis ejus, vel a participatione lucis ejus, et habitant profugi in terra commotionis, id est, in perturbatione carnali, contra jucunditatem Dei, hoc et contra Eden, quod interpretatur epulatio, id est, plantatus paradisus. Rabanus Maurus, In Genesim Libri Quatour, Liber II, Cap I Source: Migne PL 107.507a-b

Therefore Cain went away from the face of God and dwelt in the land of Naid.' 1   What the Septuagint translates as 'Naid', in Hebrew is written נוֹד, that is Nod, and is interpreted as σαλευόμενος that is unstable and fluxing, and an uncertain seat. Therefore Naid is not a land, as the common ones among us may think, but a dismissal from the knowledge of God, because of which he wandered here and there as a fugitive and vagrant. Against which evil the Lord in the Psalm says, 'Do not give my feet to wandering and let not the hands of sinners move me.' 2 Now therefore the Jews and those who persist in varied errors, by their opposition to truth, go out from the face of God, that is, from the mercy of His love, or from participation in His light, and they dwell outcasts in an unstable land, that is, in the clamour of the flesh, against the joy of God, that is, against Eden, which interpreted is 'feast,' that is, a paradise firmly planted. Rabanus Maurus, from the Commentary On Genesis, Book 2, Chapter 1 1 Gen 4.16 2 Ps 35.12