Genesis 4:23 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Adah and Zillah, observing his fierceness and cruelty, feared that the vengeance of God or men would fall upon him, and upon them for his sake. Be it so that I have slain a man, and that a young man, why do you concern yourselves in it? It is to my own wounding and hurt, not to yours; I must suffer for it, not you. Some take this to be a sorrowful confession of his bloody crime: q.d. I have murdered a man, to my wounding, &c. i.e. to my utter ruin, or to the wounding and grief of my heart and conscience. But this seems not to agree either with the quality of Cain's family, or with the temper of Lamech's person, or with the scope of the Holy Ghost in this place; which is to describe, not the virtues, but the crimes of that wicked race. According to the marginal translation, the sense may be this, Fear not for me; for if any man, though in his youth and strength, should assault me, and give me the first wound, he should pay dearly for it; and though I were wounded and weakened, the remainders of my strength would be sufficient to give him his death's wound. The words also may be otherwise rendered; the particle chi being taken interrogatively, as it is Isaiah 29:6, Isaiah 36:19, and elsewhere: Have I slain a man to my wounding, and or, or a young man to my hurt? i.e. that thereby I should deserve such a mortal wound or hurt to be inflicted upon me by way of retaliation? You have therefore no cause of fear, either for my sake or for your own.