Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech : And a young man for my bruise, 24 For Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, And Lamech seventy and sevenfold. 25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. 26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the named again after this chapter. 23, 24.] Here, again, we have a mysterious particular introduced, which has never received even a probable interpretation. The conjecture which seems at any rate not to contradict any probability is that Lamech bad slain some man in self-defence; and here in a poetical form he represents to his wives his innocence, and his conviction that if Cain's slaughter by an avenger of blood were forbidden, much more must his own be. The renderings "to my wounding," "to my hurt," in the A. V., are generally regarded as erroneous. "As Drechsler remarks, the history of the Cainite race begins with a deed of murder, and ends with a song of murder," Wright: who with many modern scholars, Ewald included, understands the words as a song of blasphemous triumph on the invention of the sword, and renders the verb in the future, I will slay. This alone may serve to show how entirely the interpretation and reference are wrapped in uncertainty, and also to read a lesson to all positive and rash interpreters of other parts of this primæval history, which, perhaps only from our own ignorance, appear to us more clear in meaning and reference. This saying of Lamech's presents strikingly the characteristic parallel. ism of Hebrew poetry, and has consequently been generally arranged as a lyrical fragment. 25, 26.] The narrative returns to the first progenitors of mankind, and their further posterity, in the line of which the future history is to be continued. It seems as if the writer of Genesis had retained this portion of the document prior to the new narrative in ch. v., in order to bind the portions together. (See on ch. v. 1 ff.) We may notice that here first is the first man called m ch. xii. 8; Xin. 4. xxi. 33; xxvi. 25. Ps. lxxix. 6. Isa. xii. 4. by the proper name Adam, without the article: Ha-Adam, the man, having in every case where he is directly introduced been heretofore used. Seth] Appointed or substituted. The words are put into the mouth of Eve, without any notice to indicate that they are hers. Observe, that she uses the name ELOHIM, whereas at the birth of Cain she used JEHOVAH; can any reason be assigned for this? that given by Knobel, because the Sethites were Elohists, would be a reason for the name appearing in any insertion in ch. v., but not here, where we are still apparently in the portion belonging to the history of Cain and Abel. Keil's reason that Elohim, God, who had made up the loss, is the contrast to Cain, man, who had occasioned it (so also Delitzsch), has perhaps more likelihood, but hardly seems to reach the root of the matter. Least of all will the fairjudging reader agree with Bp. Wordsworth, who tries to convince him that because the one name occurs in a passage otherwise devoted to the other, therefore no distinction is to be traced between the Elohistic and Jehovistic documents. I would rather seek the reason in supposing that this joining link between the history in ch. iv, and that in ch. v. itself belongs to some independent document. 26.] Another link with the next independent account in ch. v. Enosh signifies man, but usually on the side of our weakness and nothingness. See Ps. viii. 5, where the word is used. So that, as Delitzsch observes, the meaning is not far removed from that of Abel. The words that follow to the end have seemed to the commentators full of mystery. The expression "to call on the name of Jehovah" is found in the Pentateuch only in the Jehovistic parts (see reff.), n so (register). Neh. vii. 5. name of Jehovah. V. 1 This is the "book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3 ¶ And Adam lived an and in the sense of making prayer to Him. The notice, here inserted by the Jehovist writer, seems merely to indicate that at this time, coincidently with the apostasy of the Cainite race, there began to be a distinct and formal worship of Jehovah, that God-fearing line being founded, in and down which the true worship of the Lord descended. It is not that then first the name of Jehovah was known; for we have Eve using it at the birth of her first-born; but that it then first became a formal and distinctive name in men's worship. There is nothing corresponding to "men in the Hebrew; it is literally, then began to call, &c., no subject to the verb being specified. So widely differing have been the interpretations, that the Targum of Onkelos paraphrases, "Then the children of men ceased to call on the name of Jehovah." V. 1-32.] The generations from Adam to Noah (Elohistic). See on ver. 29. From this point the sacred narrative follows only the line of the descendants of Seth, the call ers upon the name of Jehovah; this line Present Hebrew alone is important for the purpose of the 2.] 3, ff.] The chronology of these ten pa. triarchs is much disturbed by the varieties which we find in the Samaritan Pentateuch and in the LXX. The accompanying table will show the differences. Samaritan hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his likeness, present case seems to be this: that we have, 66 12 their search after truth. See, on the whole details, Mr. Stuart Poole's able article on 'Chronology," in Smith's Biblical Dictionary. 3. in his likeness, after his image] Do these words imply a continuation of the Divine likeness and image, or a discontinuation? The word "own" of course implied, but not expressed in the Hebrew, and inserted in the A. V. for perspicuity, tends to throw the bias somewhat too strongly in the latter direction, and to bring out a contrast where it may not necessarily be implied. On the one side we have Kalisch, "The Divine image impressed by God as the first man was inherited by his descendants; for Adam begat Seth in his image and his likeness;" and Knobel, even more decidedly, holding that to insist on the identity was the object of the insertion of these words. On the other side, we have several of the older commentators, and recently Keil, Bp. Wordsworth, and Prof. Murphy. Keil gives a slightly moderated view that it is meant that Adam transmitted the Divine image through his own condition-which includes the deterioration introduced through sin. But perhaps it is more natural, seeing that the Divine image is expressly predicated of man again, ch. ix. 6, and as a reason for a permanent institution, to understand the words simply of the transmission of the image of God, in which Adam was himself created. 12. Mahalaleel] praise of hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters : 14 And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died. 15¶ And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared: 16 And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters: 17 And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died. 18 And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: 19 And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 20 And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. 21 ¶ And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah : och. vi 9, only, 22 And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24 And Enoch walked with God: and See Mic. vi. 8. El (God). 22-24.] A special notice is given of Enoch, "seventh from Adam." The dread monotony of "and he died" is now first broken through, as Delitzsch well observes. His further commentary is worth extracting: "Enoch's life had another issue. He walked with God; this expression, only found in the antediluvian history (see reff.), is more than to walk before God (ch. xvii. 1; xxiv. 40) or to walk after... (Deut. viii 19). It betokens the most intimate communion of life with God, as it were a walking beside God who still walked among men (ch. iii. 3). [We may notice that the LXX. render walked with "pleased," and that this is adopted in Heb. xi. 5, 6.] The name HA-ELOHIM evermore recalls the contrast of the created and worldly to God; in the N. T. it would be said that his walk was in heaven. To this walk corresponded his end of life he suddenly disappeared (on this expression, was not, compare reff.), God had taken him away. With the other patriarchs long life is a blessing from God; Enoch's early end (his 365th year corresponds about to our 33rd) was no premature death: he was in some manner, surprising and inexplicable to his contemporaries, taken hence, and taken into nearer proximity to God, with whom he had here walked. It is not said that he was taken up to heaven: heaven was at that time not yet in the later sense the place of blessedness, the essential participation of God's revelation of Himself in glory. Heaven and earth were not yet, in respect of their personal self-witness of God, separated as they afterwards were. God snatched away Enoch from this nether world of sin and evil, to which he, as we know from Jude 14, f. (compare Sirach, xliv. 16), had proclaimed the future coming of God to judgment, and set him in His own immediate presence, where is no sin or evil, and that without his becoming a prey to death, Heb. xi. 5. He excepted him, therefore, from the law of death, shewing that though He had subjected man to this law, He bound not Himself to it,-that personal immortality was an attainable gift of grace, that for them who walked with Him in the life of the body, a higher existence was reserved." And Kalisch well observes, "We are convinced, that the 'taking away' of Enoch is one of the strongest proofs of the belief in a future state, prevailing among the Hebrews; without this belief the history of Enoch is a perfect mystery, a hieroglyph without a clue, a commencement without an end." On all matters regarding the very curious apocryphal Book of Enoch, see Dr. Westcott's article in Smith's Biblical Dictionary, and the Introduction to the Epistle of Jude in my New Testament for English readers. 25.] Some have traced 32. Jub vii. 8. Phe was not; for God took him. 25 And Methuselah pch. xlii. 13, lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech 26 And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: 27 And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. 28 And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: 29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall relieve us from our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed. 30 And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: 31 And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died. 32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. VI. 1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the 4 sons of God a Jobi. 6: ii. 1; saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they in the name Methuselah-man of sending forth [Bp. Wordsworth adds (of water), but this seems pure fancy]-a prophetic intimation of the flood, seeing that he died the same year as the flood began. But all this is untrustworthy. Gesenius interprets the name, the man of the weapon (missile). Such ground needs the utmost caution in treading. 29.] Noah, i. e. rest. The sacred writer connects the name with another root signifying to comfort (see below), "caring," as Simonis (quoted in Gesenius) observes, "more for the reality of things than of words." The construction is,-shall comfort us from, i. e. shall comfort us by relieving us from. This is nearest expressed in English by "relieve us from," as Kalisch. This last commentator understands the name, as given, to be prophetic of a relief of the human race from the necessity of living on vegetable food, requiring the hard labour of incessant tillage, and the coming permission to eat the flesh of animals. Surely this is most fanciful. Even if we are to understand ch. ix. 3, ff. as the first Divine sanction for the practice of eating flesh, who shall say that the practice did not prevail long before? Observe, that the name JEHOVAH is here found. Xxxvii. 7. See Ps. xxix. 1; lxxxix. 6. It was Jehovah Elohim who had cursed the ground, ch. iii. 17. And thus the occurrence of the name is a sign of minute accuracy, which should not be overlooked. It may point to a "Jehovistic" insertion or correction of the "Elohistic" narrative. 32.] The mention of the three sons, unprecedented as yet, serves to preface us for their playing some notable part in the history which is to follow: also for the continuation of the "book of generations," no longer in one main line, but in three branches. See ch. x. 1, ff. Of these sons, Ham was the youngest (see ch. ix. 24); Shem the eldest (see ch. x. 21, in our text). VI. 1-IX. 29.] THE LIFE-TIME OF NOAH. THE CAUSES OF THE FLOOD, ITS HISTORY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. On the mixed Jehovistic and Elohistic character, see Introduction. 1-7.] The causes of the Flood. And herein (1–4) the unnatural union of sons of God with daughters of men, by which giants and men of renown came upon earth. With regard to these sons of God, I have maintained in the Introduction to the Epistle of Jude, N. T. for English readers, vol. ii. part 2, that they are most probably to be understood as being angels. In no other way, in spite of the |