King James Bible
"And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground."
God confronts Cain with a rhetorical question that pierces through any pretense of innocence. Like His question to Adam in Eden, this divine interrogation gives the guilty party opportunity to confess while demonstrating God's complete knowledge of human actions. Blood is personified as having a voice, establishing the biblical principle that innocent blood demands justice. In Hebrew thought, blood contained life itself, making Abel's spilled blood a witness that cannot be silenced or hidden. The continuous crying action suggests ongoing accusation against the murderer, while the ground becomes both crime scene and courtroom. This imagery establishes that the earth itself participates in revealing sin, foreshadowing the ground's curse upon Cain in the following verses.