The Pulpit Commentaries
Genesis 4:17-26
EXPOSITION
Domiciled in Nod, whither, impelled by woman's love, his wife had accompanied him, the unhappy fugitive began to seek, if not to find, relief from the gnawing agonies of remorse in the endearments of conjugal felicity and the occupations of secular industry. And Cain knew his wife. Who must have been his sister, and married before the death of Abel, as "after that event it can scarcely be supposed, that any woman would be willing to connect herself with such a miserable fratricide" (Bush). Though afterwards forbidden, the tendency of Divine legislation on the subject of marriage being always in the direction of enlarging rather than restricting the circle of prohibited relationships, the union of brothers and sisters at the first was clearly indispensable, if the race was to multiply outwards from a common stock. "Even in much later times, and among very civilized nations, such alliances were not considered incestuous. The Athenian law made it compulsory to marry the sister if she had not found a husband at a certain age. Abraham married his half-sister, Sarah; and the legislator Moses himself was the offspring of-a matrimony which he later interdicted as unholy" (Kalisch). And she conceived. For even from the unbelieving and unthankful, the disobedient and the repro. bate, God's providential mercies are not entirely withheld (Psalms 145:9; Matthew 5:45). And bare Enoch. Chanoch, "dedicated," "initiated," from chanach, to instruct (Proverbs 22:6) and to consecrate (Deuteronomy 20:5; 1 Kings 8:63). Candlish detects in the name the impious pride of the first murderer; with more charity, Keil and Kalisch see a promise of the renovation of his life. The latter thinks that Cain called his son "Initiated" or "Instructed" to intimate that he intended to instruct him from his early years in the duties of virtue, and his city "Dedicated" to signify that he now recognized that "the firstling of his social prosperity belongs to God." If Luther's conjecture be correct, that the child received its name from its mother, it will touchingly express that young mother's hope that the child whom God had sent might be an augury of blessing for their saddened home, and her resolution both to consecrate him from his youth to God and to instruct him in God's fear and worship. And he builded. Literally, was building, i.e. began to build, "but never finished, leading still a runagate life, and so often constrained to leave the work, as the giants did who built the tower of Babel" (Willet). A city. Vater, Hartmann, and Bohlen discover in the city-building of Cain "a main proof of the mythical contents of the narrative," an advanced state of civilization "utterly unsuitable to so early a period;" but ancient tradition (Phoenician, Egyptian, and Hellenic) is unanimous in ascribing to the first men the invention of agriculture and the arts, with the discovery of metals, the origin of music, c. (vide Havernick's 'Intro.,' § 16). Of course the עִיר which Cain erected was not a city according to modern ideas, but a keep or fort, enclosed with a wall for the defense of those who dwelt within (Murphy). It was the first step in the direction of civilization, and Kalisch notes it as a deep trait in the Biblical account that the origin of cities is ascribed not to the nomad, but to the agriculturist. Impelled by the necessities of his occupation to have a fixed residence, he would likewise in course of time be constrained by the multiplication of his household to insure their protection and comfort. It is possible also that his attempt to found a city may have been dictated by a desire to bid defiance to the curse which doomed him to a wandering life; to create for his family and himself a new point of interest outside the holy circle of Eden, and to find an outlet for those energies and powers of which, as an early progenitor of the race, he must have been conscious, and in the restless activity of which oblivion for his misery could alone be found. If so, it explains the action which is next recorded of him, that he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. I.e. he consecrated it to the realization of these his sinful hopes and schemes.
Years passed away, the family of Cain grew to manhood, and, in imitation of their parents, founded homes for themselves. And unto Enoch (whose wife probably would also be his sister, few caring at this early stage to intermarry with the accursed race) was born Irad. Townsman, citizen, urbanus civilis (Keil, Lange); fleet as a wild ass (Murphy); ornament of a city, from Ir, a city (Wordsworth). And Irad begat Mehujael. Smitten of God (Keil, Gesenius, Murphy), the purified or formed of God (Lange). And Mehujael begat Methusael. Man of God (Gesenius, Lange), man asked or man of El (Murphy), man of prayer (Keil). And Methusael begat Lamech. Strong youth (Gesenius, Lange); man of prayer, youth (Murphy); king, by metathesis for melech (Wordsworth). The resemblance between these names and those in the line of Seth has been accounted for by supposing a commingling of the two genealogies, or one common primitive legend in two forms (Ewald, Knobel). But—
1. The similarity of the names does not necessarily imply the identity of the persons. Cf. Korah in the families of Levi (Exodus 6:21) and Esau (Genesis 36:5); Hanoch in those of Reuben (eh. Genesis 46:9) and Midian (Genesis 25:4); Kenaz in those of Esau (Genesis 36:11) and Judah (Numbers 32:12).
2. The similarity of the names only proves that the two collateral branches of the same family did not keep entirely apart.
3. The paucity of names at that early period may have led to their repetition.
4. The names in the two lines are only similar, not identical (cf. with Irad, Jared, descent; with Mehujael, Mahalaleel, praise of God; with Methusael, Methuselah, man of the sword).
5. The particulars related of Enoch and Lamech in the line of Seth forbid their identification with those of the same name in the line of Cain.
And Lamech took unto him two wives. Being the first polygamist of whom mention is made, the first by whom "the ethical aspect of marriage, as ordained by God, was turned into the lust of the eye and lust of the flesh" (Keil). Though afterwards permitted because of the hardness of men's hearts, it was not so from the beginning. This was "a new evil, without even the pretext that the first wife had no children, which held its ground until Christianity restored the original law—Matt, Genesis 19:4-1" (Inglis). The names of Lamech's wives were suggestive of sensual attractions. The name of the one Adah, the Adorned (Gesenius), and the name of the other Zillah, the shady or the tinkling (Keil), the musical player (Lange), the shadow (Wordsworth). "Did Lamech choose a wife to gratify the eye with loveliness? and was he soon sated with that which is so short-lived as beauty, and then chose another wife in addition to Adah? But a second wife is hardly a wife; she is only the shadow of a wife" (ibid.).
And Adah bare Jabal. Either the Traveler or the Producer, from yabhal, to flow; poetically, to go to walk; hiphil, to produce; descriptive, in the one case, of his nomadic life, in the other of his occupation or his wealth. He was the father—av, father; used of the founder of a family or nation (Genesis 10:21), of the author or maker of anything, especially of the Creator'(Job 38:28), of the master or teacher of any art or science (Genesis 4:21)—of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. Mikneh, literally, possession, from kanah, to acquire, as in Genesis 4:1; hence cattle, as that was the primitive form of wealth (cf. pecus, pecunia); by which may be meant that Jabal was the first nomad who introduced the custom of living in tents, and pasturing and breeding not sheep merely, but larger quadrupeds as well, for the sake of wealth.
And his brother's name was Jubal. Player on an instrument, the musician. Cf. jobel, an onomatopoetic word signifying jubilum, a joyful sound. Cf. Greek, ὀλολυìζειν ἀλαλαìζειν; Latin, ululare; Swedish, iolen; Dutch, ioelen; German, juchen (Geseuius). He was the father of all such as handle the harp. The kinnor, a stringed instrument, played on by the plectrum according to Josephus ('Ant.,' 7, 12, 3), but in David's time by the hand (1 Samuel 16:23; 1 Samuel 18:10; 1 Samuel 19:9), corresponding to the modern lyre. Cf. κινυìρα κιννυìρα, cithara; German, knarren; so named either from its tremulous, stridulous sound (Gesenius), or from its bent, arched form (Furst). And the organ. 'Ugabh, from a root signifying to breathe or blow (Gesenius), or to make a lovely sound (Furst); hence generally a wind instrument—tibia, ftstula, syrinx; the shepherd's reed or bagpipe (Keil); the pipe or flute (Onkelos); the organon, i.e. an instrument composed of many pipes (Jerome). Kalisch discovers a fitness in the invention of musical instruments by the brother of a nomadic herdsman, as it is "in the happy leisure of this occupation that music is generally first exercised and appreciated." Murphy sees an indication of the easy circumstances of the line of Cain; Candlish, "an instance of the high cultivation which a people may often possess who are altogether irreligious and ungodly;" Bonar, a token of their deepening depravity—"it is to shut God out that these Cainites devise the harp and the organ."
And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain. Worker in brass or iron;related to Persian, tupal, iron dross (Gesenius, Rodiger, Delitzsch). Keil and Furst think this Persian root cannot be regarded as the proper explanation of the name. Furst suggests that the tribe may have been originally named Tubal, and known as inventors of smith-work and agricultural implements, and that Cain may have been afterwards added to them to identify them as Cainites (vide 'Lex. sub hem.'). The name Tubal, like the previous names Jabal and Jubal, is connected with the root yabal, to flow, and probably was indicative of the general prosperity of the race. Their ancestor was specially distinguished as an instructor (literally, a whetter) of every artificer (instrument, LXX. ,Vulgate, Kalisch) in brass (more correctly copper) and iron בַּרְזֶל, according to Gesenius a quadrilateral from the Genesis בְּרַן, to transfix, with ל appended; according to Furst out of בָּזֶל, from בָּזַל, to be hard, by resolving the dagesh into r. And the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah—the lovely. Considering. the general significance of names, we shall scarcely go astray if with Kalisch we find in the name of the sister of Tubal-cain, "the beautiful," as compared with that of Adam's wife, "the living," a growing symptom of the degeneracy of the times. Beauty, rather than helpfulness, was now become the chief attraction in woman. Men selected wives for their lovely forms and faces rather than for their loving and pious hearts. The reason for the introduction of Naamah's name into the narrative commentators generally are at a loss to discover. Ingiis with much ingenuity connects it with the tragedy which some see in the lines that follow.
And Lamech said unto his wives. The words have an archaic simplicity which bespeak a high antiquity, naturally fall into that peculiar form of parallelism which is a well-known characteristic of Hebrew poetry, and on this account, as welt as from the subject, have been aptly denominated The Song of the Sword.
Adah and gillah, Hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech:
For I have slain a mum to my wounding (for my wound),
And a young man to my hurt (because of my strife).
If (for) Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Truly (and) Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
Origen wrote two whole books of his commentary on Genesis on this song, and at last pronounced it inexplicable. The chief difficulty in its exegesis concerns the sense in which the words כִּי הָרַגְתִּי are to be taken.
1. If the verb be rendered as a preterit (LXX; Vulgate, Syriac, Kalisch, Murphy, Alford, Jamieson, Luther), then Lamech is represented as informing his wives that in self-defense he has slain a young man who wounded him (not two men, as some read), but that there is no reason to apprehend danger on that account; for if God had promised to avenge Cain sevenfold, should any one kill him, he, being not a willful murderer, but at worst a culpable homicide, would be avenged seventy and sevenfold.
2. If the verb be regarded as a future (Aben Ezra, Calvin, Kiel, Speaker's. "The preterit stands for the future … (4) In protestations and assurances in which the mind of the speaker views the action as already accomplished, being as good as done"—Gesenius, 'Hebrews Gram.,'§ 126), then the father of Tubal-cain is depicted as exulting in the weapons which his son's genius had invented, and with boastful arrogance threatening death to the first man that should injure him, impiously asserting that by means of these same weapons he would exact upon his adversary a vengeance ten times greater than that which had been threatened against the murderer of Cain. Considering the character of the speaker and the spirit of the times, it is probable that this is the correct interpretation.
3. A third interpretation proposes to understand the words of Lamech hypothetically, as thus:—"If I should slay a man, then," c. (Lunge, Bush); but this does not materially differ from the first, only putting the case conditionally, which the first asserts categorically.
4. A fourth gives to כִּי the force of a question, and imagines Lamech to be assuring his wives, who are supposed to have been apprehensive of some evil befalling their husband through the use of Tubal-cain's dangerous weapons, that there was no cause for their anxieties and alarms, as he had not slain a man, that he should be wounded, or a young man, that he should be hurt; but this interpretation, it may be fairly urged, is too strained to be even probably correct.
The narrative now reverts to the fortunes of the doubly saddened pair. And Adam knew his wife again. Having mournfully abstained for a season a thro conjugali (Calvin); not necessarily implying that Adam and Eve had not other children who had grown to man's estate prior to the death of Abel (cf. Genesis 5:4). And she bare a son, and called his name Seth. Sheth, from shith, to put or place; hence appointed, put, compensation. For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed—semen singulars (Calvin); filium, Eve having borne daughters previously (Onkelos, Jonathon, Dathe, Rosenmüller)—instead of Abel. Her other children probably had gone in the way of Cain, leaving none to carry on the holy line, till this son was born, whom in faith she expects to be another Abel in respect of piety, but, unlike him, the head of a godly family (Calvin). Whom Cain slew. Literally, for Cain killed him (Kalisch). The A. V. follows the LXX; ὁν ἀπεìκτεινε καιÌν, and has the. Support of Gesenius, who renders כִּי=אַשֶׁר. (see 'Lax. sub nom.'); of Rosenmüller, who says, "Conjunctio enim causalis כִּי saepius pro relative pronomine usurpatur," quoting, though without much aptness, Psalms 71:15 (com. in loco); and of Sal. Glass, who supplies several so-called examples of the relative force of כִּי, every one of which is perfectly intelligible by translating the particle as quia ('Sac. Philippians, 3.2, 15.); and of Stanley Leathes ('Hebrews Gram.,' Genesis 12:16). There seems, however, no sufficient reason for departing from the ordinary casual signification of the particle. Furst does not recognize the meaning which Gesenius attaches to כִּי, And to Seth, to him also there was born a son. Thus the expectations of Eve concerning her God-given son were not disappointed, but realized in the commencement and continuance of a godly line. The pious father of this succeeding child, however, had either begun to realize the feebleness and weakness of human life, or perhaps to be conscious of the sickly and infirm state in which religion then was. And he called his (son's) name Enos. Enosh, "man" (Gesenius); "mortal, decaying man" (Furst); "man, sickly" (Murphy). Then began men. Literally, it was begun. Huchal third preterite hophal of chalal (Greek, χαλαìω λυìω), to open a way. Hence "the literal sense of the word is, a way was now opened up, and an access afforded, to the worship of God, in the particular manner here described" (Wordsworth). To call upon the name of the The Lord. Either
(1) to invoke by prayer the name of Jehovah, i.e. Jehovah himself as he had been pleased to discover his attributes and character to men, referring to the formal institution of public worship. "The expression is elsewhere used to denote all the appropriate acts and exercises of the stated worship of God—Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:4; Genesis 21:33; 1 Chronicles 16:8; Psalms 105:1" (Bush). Or
(2) to call themselves by the name of Jehovah—cf. Numbers 32:42; Judges 18:29; Psalms 49:12; Isaiah 44:5 (margin). Other renderings need only be mentioned to be set aside.
(a) Then began men profanely to call upon the name of God (Onkelos, Jonathan, Josephus), referring to the institution of idolatry.
(b) Then men became so profane as to cease to call (Chaldee Targum).
(c) Then he hoped to call upon the name of the Lord; ου}toj h!lpisen e)pikalei=sqai to_ o!noma Kuri on tou= qeou= (LXX).
(d) Then the name Jehovah was for the first time invoked (Cajetan), which is disproved by Genesis 4:3.
HOMILETICS
The progress of the race.
I. ITS INCREASE IN POPULATION. Starting from a single pair in Eden, in the course of seven generations the human family must have attained to very considerable dimensions. At the birth of Seth, Adam was 130 years old, and in all probability had other sons and daughters- besides Cain and his wife. If Lamech, the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain, was contemporaneous with Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the line of Seth, at least 600 years had passed away since the race began to multiply; and "if Abraham's stock in lease than 400 years amounted to 600,000, Cain's posterity in the like time might arise to the like multitude" (Wilier). If to these the descendants of Seth be added, it will at once appear that the earth's population in the time of Lamech was considerably over 1,000,000 of inhabitants. Let it remind us of the reality and power of God's blessing (Genesis 1:28).
II. ITS ADVANCEMENT IN INTELLIGENCE, "It is a curious fact that while all modern writers admit the great antiquity of man, most of them maintain the very recent development of his intellect, and will hardly contemplate the possibility of men equal in mental capacity to ourselves having existed in prehistoric (?) times". For prehistoric write antediluvian, and the sentiment is exactly true. The circumstance that we have no remains of antediluvian civilization is no sufficient evidence that such did not exist. Speaking of certain earthworks of great antiquity that have been discovered in the Mississippi valley, camps, or works of defense, sacred enclosures, with their connected groups of circles, octagons, squares, ellipses, polished and ornamented pottery, c.,—the same distinguished writer says. "The important thing for us is, that when North America was first settled by Europeans, the Indian tribes inhabiting it had no knowledge or tradition of any races preceding themselves of higher civilization. Yet we find that such races existed; that they must have been populous, and have lived under some established government; while there are signs that they practiced agriculture greatly, as indeed they must have done to have supported a population capable of executing such gigantic works in such vast profusion." The exhumation by Dr. Schliemann on the plains of Troy of three successive civilizations, of which two were not known to have previously existed, and the third (the Ilium of Homer) had been almost regarded by archeologists as fabulous, is conclusive demonstration that the absence of all traces of primeval civilization is no more a proof that such civilization did not exist, than is the absence of all traces of the third day's vegetation a proof that it did not exist. The passage under consideration unmistakably reveals that the human intellect in those early times was not asleep. Within the compass of ten verses we read of the building of cities, of the laying out of farms and the acquisition of property, of the beginning of the mechanical arts and the manufacture of metallic weapons, of the rise of music and the cultivation of poetry. It may strike one as peculiar that this great intellectual development is represented as taking place exclusively in the line of Cain. From this some have inferred that the Bible means to throw disparagement upon human industry, commercial and agricultural enterprise, and all kinds of mechanical and inventive genius, and even sanctions the idea that religion is incompatible with business talent, poetical genius, and intellectual greatness. There is however, no reason to suppose that this advancement in intelligence was confined to the Cainitic branch of the Adamic race. The prophecy of Enoch (vide Expos.) and the incidental allusion to metallic weapons in the name of Methuselah (man of the dart) suggest that the Sethitic line kept pace with their ungodly contemporaries in the onward march of civilization, though that was not their chief distinction. Let us learn—
1. That there is no essential antagonism between intelligence and piety.
2. That in God's estimation righteousness is of much higher value than material prosperity.
3. That where, as in the Cainitic line, there is no true godliness-there is apt to be too intense devotion to culture or business.
III. ITS DECLENSION IN WICKEDNESS.
1. We can trace it in their names. Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Lamech being suggestive of qualities, principles, characteristics such as are approved by the spirit of worldliness; and Adah and Zillah (vide Expos.) being indicative of sensual attractions.
2. Their works proclaim it. It would be wrong to say that cities are necessarily evil things. On the contrary, they are magnificent monuments of man's constructive genius, and immensely productive of man's comfort. A city too is a type of heaven's gathering of redeemed humanity. Still it cannot be doubted that the need for cities was a proof of sin, as the building of the first city was an act of sin. The acquisition of property, and the uprise of such ideas as the rights of property, are likewise indications of a state of life that is not purely innocent (cf. Acts 4:32). And though certainly it cannot be sinful either to make or to handle a harp, or to cultivate poetry, yet when we put all these things together—beautiful wives, iron weapons, musical instruments, and warlike ballads, if not bacchanalian songs—it is not difficult to perceive a deepening of that devotion to the things of this life which invariably proclaims a departure from the life of God.
3. Their immoral lives attest it. A growing disregard for the marriage law is evinced by the polygamy of Lamech; in the manufacture and use of offensive weapons we see the rising of a turbulent and lawless spirit; and these two things, licentiousness and lawlessness, always mark the downward progress of an age or people.
IV. ITS PROGRESS IN RELIGION; at least in a section of its population, the godly line of Seth, in whom the piety of Abel was revived. Yet the narrative would seem to indicate that even they were not entirely free from the prevailing wickedness of the times. In the third generation the pressure of the worldly spirit upon the company of the faithful was so great that they felt obliged, as it were, in self-defense, to buttress their piety by a double wall of protection; viz; separation from their ungodly associates in the world by the formation of a distinct religious community, and by the institution of stated social worship (Genesis 4:26). And without these declension in true religion is as certain as with them advancement is secure. They are the New Testament rules for the cultivation of piety (2 Corinthians 6:14; Ephesians 4:11; Hebrews 10:25).
Lessons:—
1. The downward progress of sin.
2. The danger of intellect and civilization when divorced from piety.
3. The only right use of earth and earthly things is to make all subservient to the life of grace.
4. The danger of conformity to the world.
5. The only safety for the people of God, and especially in these times of great intellectual activity and mechanical and scientific skill, is to make deep and wide the line of distinction between them and the world, and steadfastly to maintain the public as well as private ordinances of religion.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
The kingdom of God contrasted with the kingdom of this world.
Society without the Lord. The banished Cain and his descendants.
I. MULTIPLICATION apart from Divine order is no blessing.
II. CIVILIZATION without religion is a chaos of conflicting forces, producing violence, bloodshed, working out its own ruin. Compare France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Arts of life may grow from a mere natural root. Music, mechanical skill, scientific discovery, and invention, in themselves contain no moral life. Luxury turns to corruption, and so to misery.
III. RELIGION IS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL PROSPERITY. It is the true defense against the "inhumanity of man." Lamech, with his artificial protection against violent revenge, suggests the true safety in the presence of the Lord and observance of his commandments.—R.
Revelation in history.
The reappearance of the redeeming purpose. The consecrated family of Adam. The Divinely blessed line of descent preserved leading onward to the fulfillment of the first promise. "Then begat, men to call upon the name of Jehovah."
I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF REGULAR WORSHIP, possibly of distinct Church life.
1. The name of the Lord is the true center of fellowship—including revelation, redemption, promise.
2. The pressure of outward calamity and danger, the multiplication of the unbelievers, the necessary separation from an evil world, motives to call upon God.
II. RENOVATION AND RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGIOUS LIFE WORKS OUT GOD'S BLESSING ON THE RACE. The separated seed bears the promise of the future. See the repetition of the message of grace in the names of the descendants of Seth, "the appointed."
II. The worship which was maintained by men was ENCOURAGED AND DEVELOPED BY REVELATIONS and special communications from Jehovah. Probably there were prophets sent. Methuselah, taking up the ministry of Enoch, and himself delivering the message to Noah, the preacher of righteousness. It is the method of God throughout all the dispensations to meet men's call upon his name with gracious manifestations to them.
IV. THE PERIOD OF AWAKENED RELIGIOUS LIFE and of special messengers, culminating in the long testimony and warning of Noah~ preceded the period of outpoured judgment. So it is universally. There is no manifestation of wrath which does not vindicate righteousness. He is long-suffering, and waits. He sends the spirit of life first. Then the angel of death.—R.