Genesis 4:17-24

Genesis 4:17-24

[17] And Cain  knew  his wife;  and she conceived,  and bare  Enoch:  and he builded  a city,  and called  the name  of the city,  after the name  of his son,  Enoch.  [18] And unto Enoch  was born  Irad:  begat  Mehujael:  begat  Methusael:  begat  Lamech.  [19] And Lamech  took  unto him two  wives:  the name  of the one  was Adah,  and the name  of the other  Zillah.  [20] And Adah  bare  Jabal:  he was the father  of such as dwell  in tents,  and of such as have cattle.  [21] And his brother's  name  was Jubal:  he was the father  of all such as handle  the harp  and organ.  [22] And Zillah,  she also bare  Tubalcain,  an instructer  of every artificer  in brass  and iron:  and the sister  of Tubalcain  was Naamah.  [23] And Lamech  said  unto his wives,  Adah  and Zillah,  Hear  my voice;  ye wives  of Lamech,  hearken  unto my speech:  for I have slain  to my wounding,  and a young man  to my hurt.  [24] If  Cain  shall be avenged  sevenfold,  truly Lamech  seventy  and sevenfold. 

What does Genesis 4:17-24 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

"By virtue of being Cain"s descendants, the people named in the genealogy all inherit his curse. Thus the Cainite genealogy becomes part of the Yahwist"s account of man"s increasing sin." [1]
Cain"s wife ( Genesis 4:17) was evidently one of his sisters or nieces (cf. Genesis 5:4). God did not prohibit marrying siblings and close relatives until the Mosaic Law.
"Because harmful mutations so greatly outnumber any supposed helpful ones, it"s considered unwise nowadays (and illegal in many states) to marry someone too closely related to you. Why? Because you greatly increase the odds that bad genes will show up. By the way, you also increase the odds of bringing out really excellent trait combinations. But did you ever hear anybody say, "Don"t marry your first cousin or you"ll have a genius for a child?" They don"t usually say that, because the odds of something bad happening are far, far, far, far, far greater.
"That would not have been a problem, by the way, shortly after creation (no problem for Cain and his wife, for example). Until mutations had a chance to accumulate in the human population, no such risk of bad combinations existed." [2]
Lamech ( Genesis 4:19) was the first bigamist. Bigamy was common in the ancient Near East, but it was never God"s desire (cf. Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-5). God permitted it, however, as He did many other customs of which He disapproved (e.g, divorce, marrying concubines, polygamy, etc.). That Isaiah , He allowed people who practiced them to continue to live.
"To be sure, no rebuke from God is directed at Lamech for his violation of the marital arrangement. It is simply recorded. But that is the case with most OT illustrations of polygamy. Abraham is not condemned for cohabiting with Sarah and Hagar, nor is Jacob for marrying simultaneously Leah and Rachel. In fact, however, nearly every polygamous househould [3] in the OT suffers most unpleasant and shattering experiences precisely because of this ad hoc relationship. The domestic struggles that ensue are devastating." [4]
"Cain"s family is a microcosm: its pattern of technical prowess and moral failure is that of humanity." [5]
God shows the destructive consequences of sin (cf. Genesis 2:24) more often than He states them in the Old Testament. Polygamy is one form of sin.
Polygamy is ". . . the symptom of an unbalanced view of marriage, which regards it as an institution in which the wife"s ultimate raison d"etre [6] is the production of children. Where God had created the woman first and foremost for partnership, society made her in effect a means to an end, even if a noble end, and wrote its view into its marriage contracts." [7]
This is the first occurrence of polygamy in Genesis. We shall find several cases of it throughout the Old Testament. People practiced it widely in the ancient Near East, but it was contrary to the will of God ( Genesis 2:24). Besides indulging the flesh, polygamy was an attempt to ensure the survival of the family by providing male successors. [8] The presence of polygamy in Lamech"s generation shows how sin escalated in the marriage relationship following the Fall.
The reference to forging (lit. sharpening) iron implements ( Genesis 4:22) appears anacronistic since the smelting of iron was not common until the Iron Age, in the second millennium B.C. Perhaps this is a reference to the cold forging of meteoric iron, which was common earlier. [7]6
We could paraphrase the idea in Lamech"s mind as expressed in Genesis 4:23-24 more clearly as follows. "If I am threatened again, I will retaliate again, even more forcefully than Cain did." Lamech may have been claiming that he had killed in self-defense. Nevertheless he was boasting and shows himself thereby to be more barbaric than his forefather Cain (cf. Exodus 21:25). The seventh generations from Adam through Cain and Seth, ungodly Lamech ( Genesis 4:19-24) and godly Enoch ( Genesis 5:24), stand in sharp contrast to each other. The former man inflicts death, and the latter does not die. Some scholars have called Lamech"s poem the "Song of the Sword." Lamech thought himself invincible with his newly acquired weapons.
"Both Cain"s antediluvian lineage and the postdiluvian Babel cautioned later Israel that cities founded upon arrogance resulted in violence and ultimately destruction." [10]