LAMECH, η??, is a name which appears in each of the antediluvian genealogies, Gen. iv. 16-24 and Gen. v. In the first he is a descendant of Cain, and through his three sons father of the several avocations of early civilization; in the latter he is father of Noah. In each case, though in different senses, he marks the close of the first epoch of the world’s history. Since the publication of Buttmann’s Mythologus it has come to be generally recognized that the two genealogies terminating in Lamech are divergent forms of a single list. The parallelism of the two is not confined to the identical names, Lamech and Enoch. Methuselah (Mα0oυσαλα) not Methusael is the true reading of the LXX. in Gen. iv. 18, and there are some textual grounds for thinking that in the same verse Mehujael has displaced an older reading Mahalaleel. Kainan again is closely akin to Cain, and there is also a less close resemblance between Jared and Irad, while Enos (Enosh) and Adam both mean man. Thus the two series beginning with Enosh and Adam and ending in Lamech do not vary more than is often the case with different recensions of ancient name lists. See especially Lagarde, Orientalia, ii. 33 sq. Again it has been pointed out, especially by Wellhausen, Jahrb. f D. Theol., 1876, p. 400 sq., that Gen. iv. 16-24 is in its original conception quite distinct from the history of the curse of Cain (Gen. iv. 1-15), and offers the history of the beginnings of existing civilization (verse 20 s<2∙), not of a civilization extinguished by the flood; and the continuation of this narrative is plausibly sought in the history of the tower of Babel, according to which the human race entered Babylonia from the east (comp. iv. 16 with xi. 2), whereas the movements of the sons of Noah start from Ararat. ...On this view we are to suppose that the oldest literary source of the Hebrew history of the origins of our race ignored the flood, and traced the beginnings of city life to a land east of Eden (Nod), which has no place in later geography, and of which Cain was the first settler. Lamech is a descendant of Cain, under whose sons the different special avocations of a very primitive civilization differentiate themselves. The mass of the people are tent dwellers and shepherds, their “father” or the patron of their occupation being Jabal; but the arts are also developed in two branches, the “father” of minstrelsy being Jubal, while the art of metallurgy is traced back to Tubal Cain (LXX. simply Θo∕3eλ). The etymologies of the proper names throw little light on this interesting conception; that of Lamech is quite obscure, and the names of the sons, if they are Semitic, may be all derived from the root ⅛', expressing the notion of “offspring.” It is indeed conceivable that some of the names are of non-Semitic origin; tûpal in Persian and Turkish means bronze, and the nation of Tubal was known to the Hebrews for bronzework (Ezek. xxvii. 13), which would go well enough with the fact that Kayn in Arabic means a smith. But on the other hand the wives and daughters of Lamech, as well as the other two sons, have names that point naturally to Hebrew roots, so that it is very doubtful how far one is entitled to press these foreign analogies in explaining what is certainly one of the oldest Hebrew traditions.
What we read in Genesis of Lamech and his race seems to be a mere fragment of an older and more copious tradition. He has two wives—Adah (∏7V> “ornament” ?), a name which reappears in Gen. xxxvi. in the genealogy of the Edomites, and Zillah (∙"⅛V, “shadow ”). Ewald gives to these names a mythological colour by making Adah meau “aurora” (Arabic ghadaf) in contrast to Zillah, “shadow” but in that case we should.expect the LXX. to transcribe the word by Γαδα not Aδa, as Irad is rendered Γαιδαδ. At the same time the unquestionable occurrence of names of gods in the Edomite genealogy where Adah recurs favours the view that something of the same sort may be found in Gen. iv. 16 sq. On the other hand it is certainly important that the sons of Lamech form two brotherhoods (verse 21) divided by their maternal descent. The fathers of pastoral life and minstrelsy stand apart from the father of metallurgy and his sister Naamah. Handicraft especially in metals is generally practised by foreigners among the Semitic nomads, so that Tubal Cain may very well represent another race, such as the non-Semitic people which introduced metallurgy in Chaldaea according to Assyriologists. The name Naamah (“gracious”) is so plainly akin to the divine name Naaman (No'mân, Adonis) that we can scarcely refuse to compare what is said of her brother with the Phoenician legend in Philo Byblius (Euseb., Pr. Hv., I. x. 9) of two brothers, inventors of iron and iron-working, of whom one named Chrysor was skilled in sayings, incantations, and divination, and was worshipped as a sort of Phoenician Hephaestus. The details of Phoenician legend, however, in this as in other cases, are widely divergent from the Bible story.
The savage “sword song” of Lamech is unique in the Bible, and breathes the true spirit of the desert :—
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, give ear unto my speech.
I slay a man for a wound, A young man for a stroke; For Cain’s vengeance is sevenfold, But Lamech’s seventyfold and seven.
In the other form of the genealogy the line of Lamech is dissociated from the guilty Cain and leads up to Noah. This form of the tradition is much more recent, belonging to the Levitical or priestly narrator. Its chief importance is that it shows how inseparably Lamech and his genealogy were connected with the ancestry of the Hebrew race.
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