Lamech’s Legacy: A Contrast of Sin and Hope in Genesis 4

R. Kent Hughes explores Genesis 4:17-26, examining the character of Lamech and his significance in redemptive history. Hughes contrasts Lamech’s violent and vengeful nature with the godly line of Seth, highlighting the growing division between the descendants of Cain and those who call on the name of the Lord. The sermon emphasizes the themes of human sinfulness and the hope of redemption through God’s faithful remnant.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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Our scripture reading this morning is found in Genesis 4:17, reading through to the end of the chapter.

¹⁷ Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. ¹⁸ To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. ¹⁹ And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. ²⁰ Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. ²¹ His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. ²² Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. ²³ Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. ²⁴ If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” ²⁵ And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” ²⁶ To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord . (Genesis 4:17-26, ESV)

I have always felt, since my high school years, when I heard William Henley’s poem “Invictus,” which in Latin means unconquered, that it was drenched with the Spirit of Cain.

Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced or cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Cain’s fierce anger at the rejection of his inadequate offering betrayed his self-righteous independence and smoldering disdain for God. Cain’s murder of his own brother was actually a strike at God, who had shown favor to his brother’s offering instead of him. And what Cain did was he killed his righteous brother, the one of them who most adequately represented the image of God.

It was a blow at God, of hatred and disdain for God, and he did it without the hint of slightest remorse. The only emotion that you seem to get here in the passage is one of self-pity. So when Cain went out of the Lord’s presence to live in the land of Nod, literally the land of wandering, east of Eden, his head was bloody, but it was unbowed. Though he had the gracious mark of divine protection upon his person, he had a withering disdain for God and His Word. And he was angry. He was mad.

And the taste of anger, bitter and sweet in his mouth, chemical mixed with blood, clung to his palate and energized him. And so when he went out, he said to himself, he would show God. In fact, I’ll show them all. His anger was electric and exhilarating. Molten energy shot through his veins. He was Captain Kane. It matters not how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am captain of my soul. So he went out.

Now, what do you think happened to Kane with those attitudes and that curse of God upon him with that angry defiance? What do you think happened? Tell you what happened. He prospered. One of the commentators notes that Kane’s posterity took the lead in producing cities, music, weapons, and agricultural implements.

In short, it took the lead in forming civilization. He prospered. This sinner prospered. But there was a dark side to his prosperity because, paradoxically, and this is what you see in this chapter. This is a movement of chapter is civilization descended as it ascended.

The culture fell as it rose. And what we see in this section of the book of Genesis is civilization’s grim demise in its glorious rise. Those paradoxes. But we’re also going to see a great burst of grace.

Now, Cain’s history is highly compressed.

¹⁷ Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. (Genesis 4:17, ESV)

Interestingly, after he had been cast out of the fellowship of his parents, exiled from them, he wandered for some years, perhaps decades, or perhaps more than that, before settling down. And we assume that Cain’s wife was one of Adam’s daughters or granddaughters because Genesis 5:4 in the genealogy of Seth says, “After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.” Now, what was going on here? Well, Cain’s building of a city at the time of Enoch’s birth was this.

It was a defiant, in-your-face violation of God’s revealed word to Cain that he was to be a wanderer. And it’s an act which is consonant with everything that we know about Cain and his person. And so we find right here after this, even though he had the mark of God’s grace upon him, that he had not changed at all. He was the same. And that city which Cain built probably wasn’t much because the Hebrew word for city here can be used to describe just a settlement or a group of a few buildings.

But this is what it was. It was a statement to God, to his father and mother, and probably at that time to his baby brother, Seth. Cain’s naming that city Enoch, which means dedication, or to initiate, was an attempt to perpetuate the name of his son. He was going to make a name for himself, and it was going to be perpetuated throughout history. The Psalmist talks about the futility of this among the ungodly when he says, “Their tombs will remain their houses forever. Their dwellings for endless generations, though they had named lands after themselves.”

The futility of it all. But as it was, Cain’s desire to settle down, establish his own line of descent indicates that he was determined to go his own way regardless of the word of God. That is the heart of Cain. Nothing else is said of Cainite culture except the list of the names of five generations, which take you to his infamous descendant Lamech and his two wives, verses 18 and 19. To Enoch was born Erad, and Erad was the father of Muhugiel, and Muhugiel was the father of Muthuziel, and Muthuziel was the father of Lamech.

Lamech married two women, one named Ada and the other Zillah. What you see here is in the rise of civilization, the mark of degeneration with the establishment of the institution of polygamy. Right here, you start to see the demise in the rise of civilization because God’s word had been given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24:

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24, ESV)

That is the ideal. That is the sacred covenant of marriage.

But what happened is polygamous departures from the divine norm. From almost day one, dominated Cainite culture, they would go into Sethite culture, and if you want to read the miserableness of the whole thing, just read the book of Genesis. The whole rat’s nest of infestation which came from polygamy and how it degraded everyone who was involved. They’re everywhere to see. Jesus himself, when he’s talking about the ideal of marriage, points back to Genesis 2:24 that we just quoted, and says, “It was not that way from the beginning.”

In other words, you need to go back there. So note well that as civilization advanced, as you see it rise here in this chapter, its rebellion against the Word of God advanced. But as you read it, the note that you have is one of prosperity. Verses 19-22, Lamech married two women, one named Ada, the other Zillah. Ada gave birth to Jabal, and Jabal was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all who play the harp and flute.

Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain’s sister was named Naamah. Now, a biased account of what took place early on here would have nothing to say positive about the achievements of Cain’s descendants. But truth is more complex. God was to make much of Cainite techniques among his people. And so you see it among the people. you’re talking about, say, husbandry. The greatest of God’s people in the Old Testament tended sheep, Abraham. Moses, King David, and the gift of music that came from Jubal.

Just read the book of Psalms and the technology. Craftsmen are described variously as people to whom the Lord has given skill and ability. So godless, Cainite civilization birthed massive cultural advances which have enriched all of life in food production, in the arts, in music, in technology. Now, when you think of this, you need to understand that Sethite culture, all it does is say it would be developing the same things at the same time, but what is emphasized here is that Cain’s offspring distinguished themselves in these areas.

So Ada’s two sons by Cain excelled one in the pastoral life and the other in the music arts. Jubal’s name bears a connection with Israel’s delightful conception of Jubilee, the year of Jubilee. Those words Jubal indicate joy and happiness, all their cognates in those words. And in fact Jubal’s name also corresponds with the melodic ram’s horn, the yobel, which later Israel used when they blew it to announce the year of Jubilee. So Jabal and Jubal made quite a pair. I mean between them you had all the lamb chops and all the music that you’d want.

Jubal’s son, Tubal Cain, the half-brother of Jabal and Jubal, is described, we saw, as one who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Now, Tubal Cain is the ancestor of technology and industry, and however primitive his work would have been at that point, because his name literally means, Tubal means hammer or sharpen. His work no doubt included the making of weapons along with the implements of agriculture. And that side of the technology is suggested by the fact that his name is not just Tubal.

You were trying to put together some family names, it would be great, Jabal, Jubal and Tubal. It would all go together, and that’s a natural thing to do. But he gets a hyphenated name, Tubal Cain. And with the appendage of Cain, the grim side of his craft comes first to mind, because it anticipates the terrifying song that’s going to follow.

So these cultural skills which deal with production of food and with arts and technology should be, and you know that they can be, devoted to the interests of humanity and civilization and welfare and to the glory of God. But here’s what this chapter is about, and it’s this. Civilizations’ advances apart from God have untold potential for evil. All of these things that we’re talking about, technology.

Nuclear technology is a double-edged sword, and when I think about it, I think about today how thousands of lives have been saved by the diagnostic procedures that come along with nuclear medicine. I mean, it’s absolutely fantastic. I can think of people that owe their lives to that technology, and it’s going to get better. The potential for good is staggering. But you also have to realize that in a flash, an H-bomb could kill more people than nuclear medicine could save in a generation and maim generations to come.

And what comes to mind when I think about that dark side is Oppenheimer’s quote at the Sands of Alamogordo, those years ago, when he quoted from the Bhagavad Gita these words as he saw that brilliant flash, the radius of a thousand suns, “I am become as death, the destroyer of worlds.” What evil? A microchip can help you find your lost dog, but it can also take a smart bomb right into the bedroom of a home. Can we imagine a life without drugs today? I mean, a life without painkillers, a life without antibiotics?

At the same time it’s impossible to imagine life without city blocks under the control of cocaine, heroin and the bodies of people wrapped in greasy newspaper like fish and chips. What a gift music is, what a gift the arts are, but what power for evil they have if they’re misused. Stage and screen regularly portray evil as exciting. I mean that’s the regular thing and goodness as boring. And do you know the absolute opposite is true? There is nothing more boring, more gray, more brain dead than evil.

And nothing more exhilarating and exciting and multicolored than good. We all understand, we need to make the distinctions here that there are some types of music which are degenerating by virtue of what they are, the combination of their lyrics. lyrics and the melody makes them degenerating. But we also have to understand that high culture like Bach and Beethoven can be used to romanticize adultery. The ode to joy can be used to romanticize adultery. It can be used to romanticize a homosexual relationship.

That virtually any evil can be made to appear morally compelling by the skillful use of script and music and cinematography. Oh, the power for evil. And I think when you say this, you also want to say culture used or abused offers no redemption. Neither low culture nor pop culture nor high culture apart from God can redeem. No combination of agricultural abundance of the arts and technology can save society. No matter what advances we make in those things, it will not save society.

I think of Nazi Germany in its day, it considered itself a repository of culture, high art. They considered themselves to be the leaders of technology. They considered themselves to be the masters of abundance. All the while they enslaved helpless people and performed unspeakable barbarisms while they were the gatekeepers of high culture. So I think what happens here when you look at this story of civilization given to us by God, it saves us from overvaluing culture. The descendants of Cain through Lamech could manage their surroundings so as to prosper.

This is a prosperous culture, but they could not manage their lives. So how relevant to today are technology, our abundance? Our arts, all around us, those things come into our lives, but they do not help us manage our lives. you’ve got quite a thing going here in this passage. Here’s how I see it. I see Lamech naked, or in a loincloth, sword in his hand, strutting before his wives and thumping his bare chest as he shouts his savage, barbaric song. You say, why do you have that picture?

There’s no sword mentioned in the poem, but that dark double name of Tubal-Cain implies that his craft had made weapons with escalated violence. And here, Lamech sees himself as invincible, and I believe it’s because of his technology. And traditionally, Lamech’s poem has been called, in biblical literature, the Song of the Sword.

²³ Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. ²⁴ If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:23-24, ESV)

His dark soul indulged in a black ecstasy.

Now, if that song were to be sung today, I would imagine a man, again naked, or in his designer briefs, tattooed barbed wire bandoliers across his chest, gripping an Uzi, as he intones the sword song, rap style. Lamech said to his wives, said to his wives, said to his wives, listen to me.

I wrote that baby in about 10 seconds. There are millions to be made here. But you get the picture. And I have to say, as I look at this, that lament song has to be a woman’s worst dream. This male is an abomination.

The reference to his wives in this violent context points to the worst outworking of the judgment oracle of 3:16 to Eve: “your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Ada and Zilla suffered the humiliation of polygamy in the context of a brutal, remorseless, bloodthirsty, abusive male. So, you want to understand where it started? Right there. And this miserable song glories in violence: “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me.” The savage disposition of killing a mere lad, the Hebrew word, Yeleth, is child.

For a mere wound is the whole point of his boast. “I killed a child for wounding me.” Rather than shame, it’s his mark of pride. This is a remorseless, carnivorous man. And if you want to see the cultural relevance, you see right then that just as marriage was debased early on in the rise of civilization, so in the rise of civilization, life is devalued.

And I think about us, and I ask these questions: Can we say otherwise of our advanced culture with its violent icons, its violent music, its violent streets?

I clip things out of magazines periodically. In a 1994 Time magazine, I clipped an article entitled Dances with Werewolves. The author stated, and I quote, that public fascination with serial killers is at an all-time high. The curious, the author noted, could then call 1-900-G-A-C-Y to listen for $1.99 per minute, as John Wayne Gacy argued against the death penalty. And if there ever was a culture of victimhood, it was this. He called himself the 34th victim. Serial killer collectibles, that is, trading cards, T-shirts, and a comic book celebrated their exploits.

And the most bizarre of all is that Gacy’s paintings of eerie clowns were selling in leaked galleries at that time for $20,000. The empirical evidence is that the last century, despite its massive advances in agribusiness, in the arts and technology, is the most violent of all centuries. So much for civilization, apart from God. Now the final stanza of Lamech’s miserable song glories in exponential vengeance.

²⁴ If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:24, ESV)

God’s vengeance against anyone killing Cain was seven-fold, meaning a perfect measure appropriate to the crime. But Lamech threatened that he would take vengeance 77-fold. He said there will be an avalanche of vengeance. And the descendants of Cain and Lamech have come to regard vengeance in terms of a duty. Vengeance formerly became a part of the human tradition of civilization, and today civilization stockpiles huge reservoirs of exponential vengeance. They are all welled up, and when the time is right, they come down as toxic avalanches on those who would offend. Seventy times seven we do it.

Now Lamech, of course, couldn’t hear Christ’s words, but I think that if he could have heard Christ’s words about forgiveness, he would have stopped up his ears. But this is what’s so beautiful about how Scripture works, that Jesus referenced this very text, and Lamech’s merciless song is a backdrop to teach Peter about the necessity of forgiveness. This is in Luke 18:21-22, when Peter came to Jesus and he asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

He’s really reaching there. And Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” So Jesus says, exponential forgiveness. An avalanche of forgiveness. And Jesus presents the ideal in contrast to Cainite civilization. He rained down grace and forgiveness on the toxic waste of our souls. And he says, if we’re true followers, we have to do the same. So after the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus immediately says this, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you. Will not forgive your sins.” Lamech’s black ecstasy was answered by the grace ecstasy of Jesus’ forgiveness. Now, you can see, as you see that, that the text starts to brighten. It’s like the sun starts to come up on the text. And this section concludes with the birth of Seth. The Sethite line is against the Cainite line. And again, as in the case of the story of Cain early on when he received his mark, God’s grace becomes explicit.

And it begins in verse 25.

²⁵ And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” (Genesis 4:25, ESV)

Seth means granted. So the sense of verse 25 is that she named him granted, saying, God has granted me another child. And so she attributes the birth of Seth to the grace and mercy of God. He came from God. He came freely as a gift from God.

And then you see that her faith shines here again because that phrase, “another child, he’s granted me another child,” is literally, and listen to this, “another seed.” That’s what it is in the Hebrew, which references the promise of Genesis 3:15 about how her seed would crush the snake’s head. So the gift of Seth ensures that the promise will stay alive in Eve, who then indeed is the mother of all living, Genesis 3:20. How sweet this must have been. She’d had two sons. One murdered the other. The other was exiled from her presence forever.

And God gives her another little man, an ish to coddle and love. And she knew that great things would happen through him, and so she sings of her faith. “So you see, it’s getting brighter. And you also see that the grace of God is not in vain in the line of Seth. Because in verse 26, Seth also had a son and named him Enosh. At that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord.

Kenneth Matthews beautifully captures the significance of men beginning to call on the name of the Lord, saying this, and listen closely, Cain’s firstborn and successors pioneer cities and the civilized arts. But Seth’s firstborn and successors pioneer worship. Called on the name of the Lord.

That’s exactly what they did. They worshipped. And actually, they did more than that, because call upon the name of the Lord in the books of Moses regularly means proclaim the name of the Lord. I think that’s the sense there.

The ideals, the people began to make proclamation about the name of the Lord. That is the nature of the Lord. What God is like. They glorified the Lord. They lifted up His name. So when you look at this whole thing with this rise of civilization and its demise at the same time, a Cainite civilization, you also understand that in Earth’s earliest ages, a special people began to develop who proclaimed the name of the Lord.

And that when Cainite civilization began to rise and worship at the shrines of abundance and art and technology, when abuse and violence and devaluation of life became commonplace, when men celebrated their unforgiving spirit, when they fancied that they were captains of their souls, then it was that Sethite civilization began to proclaim the name of the Lord, the captain of their salvation.

So what we need to lay to heart here when we’re looking at the whole thing that’s going on here is that during primeval history, before the Abrahamic Covenant, before the Davidic Covenant, before the law, God’s people were known for this. They proclaimed the name of the Lord.

That is the distinctive of God’s people. They proclaim the name of the Lord. They proclaim the character of the Lord. They sing His praises. That is what God’s people have always done through all the periods of sacred history.

The final note of this section, which began in 2:24 and goes to 4:26, these are the generations of sections, one of the ten sections of Genesis, explodes with grace and hope.

⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. (Psalms 20:7, ESV)

So we get a paradigm, we get an outline to understand civilization and culture today with its rise, with the increase in abundance, the increase in the music, arts and so on, and the increase in technology.

All of it rose, but in its rise there was a demise because of sin. And the only hope is to call upon the name of the Lord. That is the only hope. only hope for culture, that is the only hope for your soul, is to call upon the name of the Lord. And that is the name of Jesus, and that is the way it always will be.

¹² And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12, ESV)