Song of Lamech

Text and Content

The song appears in Genesis 4:23–24. Lamech calls his wives, Adah and Zillah, to hear his words and tells them that he has slain a man and a young man who had wounded him. He then declares that if the one who harms Cain is to be punished sevenfold, the one who harms Lamech will be punished seventy-sevenfold. The saying takes the promise of "sevenfold" protection given to Cain (Genesis 4:15) and greatly inflates it in Lamech's own favor.

Background

This Lamech belongs to the line of Cain, which runs from Cain through Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, and Methusael to Lamech (Genesis 4:17–18). Counting from Adam, he represents the seventh generation. Lamech is the first man recorded as having two wives (Genesis 4:19). By Adah he fathered Jabal and Jubal, and by Zillah, Tubal-cain and Naamah. The three sons are presented as the founders of livestock herding, musical instruments, and metal tools, respectively (Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain). He is a different person from Lamech the father of Noah, who appears in the line of Seth (Genesis 5:28–31).

The passage is structured according to the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, in which successive lines restate the same idea. For this reason it is often cited as one of the ancient poems preserved in the Bible.

Significance in the Wider Bible

Many interpreters read the song as a portrayal of the escalation of violence and revenge following the episode of Cain and Abel. They see it as part of a narrative movement that leads to the statement in Genesis 6 that the earth was filled with violence.

In the New Testament, the song is frequently read alongside Matthew 18:21–22. When Peter asks how many times he should forgive, Jesus answers, "Until seventy times seven." The Greek expression in this passage has the same form as the "seventy-sevenfold" of Genesis 4:24 in the Septuagint. For this reason, a widely known interpretation contrasts Lamech's limitless vengeance with the limitless forgiveness taught by Jesus. Translations differ on whether to render the expression as seventy-seven times or as 490 times.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• Nature of the act: Interpreters disagree as to whether the text means that Lamech killed in self-defense after being wounded or that he retaliated excessively for a minor injury.
• Number of victims: Some hold that "a man" and "a young man" refer to a single person by way of parallelism; others hold that two people are meant.
• Tense and tone: Some read the song as a boast about, or a confession of, something already done; others interpret it as a threat of what Lamech will do in the future.
• Relationship to Tubal-cain: Some interpreters suggest that the metalworking skill of Lamech's son Tubal-cain produced weapons and that Lamech is flaunting that power. The text does not state this directly.
• Later embellishments: Later Jewish tradition is reported to preserve a story in which the blind Lamech, while hunting, accidentally killed Cain and Tubal-cain. This material is not found in the biblical text.

In Korean Churches

In Korean Protestant preaching, the passage is used chiefly as a text that contrasts revenge with forgiveness. It is commonly treated together with the teaching on forgiveness in Matthew 18 or the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. It is also presented as a text that contrasts the line of Seth with the civilization of Cain's line, which, having departed from God, drifted into pride and violence.