And Lemech took two wives the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the second, Zillah.
Genesis 4 traces the line of Cain away from God. By the seventh generation it reaches a man named Lamech. In one sentence it records something new: a man with two wives. Commentators see in that quiet detail the breaking of God's oldest institution.
God's answer to Adam's aloneness was one woman, not two.
He is marked as the first to violate the divine order of marriage. It was "not good that the man should be alone." But His provision was not two or more, but one woman, "a helper fit for him," his counterpart. Self-will kept growing. It no longer hesitated to cut across God's mind, which His act had made clear enough for those who fear God: and "Lamech took two wives." From the beginning it was not so. Polygamy directly breaks that unity which belongs to marriage as God first set it up. The law no doubt allowed some licence, because of the hard-heartedness of Israel — that is, of man in the flesh. But the law made nothing perfect. Christ upheld the truth, as He Himself is the truth.
One writer traces the later history of polygamy back to this one man.
He broke through the marriage order as God set it up at the beginning, when one man and one woman were united. Apparently Lamech was the first to set aside this and take more than one wife. What God had arranged was nothing to him! True, he only took two. The state of things we find with a Solomon or an Ahasuerus may seem far below this. But it was Lamech who opened the flood-gates! What led him to pioneer the entrance of this great evil into the earth? The lust of the flesh.
The names in Lamech's household sum up the family's character.
With Lamech and his sons the line of Cain ends: one in whom self-will and unrepentant abuse of God's patience reach their height. He was a polygamist and a would-be murderer. His own name speaks of the human "strength" he rejoices in. His wives' names speak of the lust of eye and ear that he chases after. His sons' names and their inventions speak of how, then as now, a soul away from God will use His creatures so as to be able to do without Him.
Both names carry meaning, and the second has more than one possible sense.
"Adah" is "beauty," or "adornment"; "Zillah" is "the shaded one," from her hair, or possibly "sounding," perhaps from her singing voice.
Only a few women are named before the flood, and one writer asks what this choice of names shows.
The names of Lamech's wives are given, as Eve's was, and of the women before the flood only these are named, along with his daughter Naamah. Eve was named with clear significance, so Lamech's choice may well show the pleasing of taste in the growing world. For Adah means "beauty," Zillah "shadow," and Naamah "pleasant." God was not in the thought behind these names. The names fitted the advances of civilisation, which looks down on the pilgrim and stranger life that faith holds dear. Earth is its home, and it welcomes anything that adds to its present beauty.
Lamech's line was prospering. One writer sees two evils tied to that prosperity from the start.
Two principles of evil are linked with this prosperity from the very first, and they cannot help but undermine the whole of society. These are seen in verse 23: corruption and violence. Lamech corrupted God's institution of marriage by having two wives. But he also confesses to his wives that he has been guilty of murder. These two degrading evils have spread throughout all the world. Today the media advertises them constantly, while government tries and fails to control the wild, brutal character of men.
The next chapter lists Seth's line, and its seventh man is Enoch.
The line of Cain was made up of men in whom the flesh and the principles of the world found expression. In the line of Seth, God preserved a godly seed in men of faith. In both lines the man of outstanding character and power was number seven. He was the man in whom each line's tendencies found their complete expression. In Lamech (Genesis 4:19-24) we have the world set out in its main features; in Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) the believer's pathway through the world.
- Self-will first. Lamech's name speaks of human strength. His two wives show self-will refusing what God had arranged.
- One, not two. God's provision for Adam's aloneness was one counterpart. Taking two breaks the unity built into marriage from the start.
- Flood-gates. He only took two — but he was the pioneer, and the road from him runs on to Solomon and Ahasuerus.
- Corruption breeds violence. The same chapter that gives him two wives has him confess to murder. Both evils have since spread worldwide.
- The other seventh. Cain's line peaks in Lamech, the world in miniature. Seth's line peaks in Enoch, the believer's path through that world.
And Adah bore Jabal he was the father of those who dwell in tents, and [breed] cattle.
Jabal, son of Lamech, stands at the head of everyone who lives in tents and keeps livestock. He belongs to the family of Cain. So why does Scripture record what such a family did for a living?
Readers often skip these names as filler. One writer finds the point of the record in what the names mean:
Sometimes people say, what is the use of recording all these names? Why are Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain mentioned? The reason is that God wants to give us the story of Cain's "way" and Cain's "world." The meaning of Jabal is "moving." He was a true son of Cain, always on the move — always wanting something new. That is the spirit of the world.
Keeping animals was not new — Abel had already been a shepherd. What Jabal introduced was a change of scale and motive:
"Jabal, the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock" — he was the one who brought the commercial spirit into the life of herding flocks. He made a regular business of what before seems to have been more a supply for individual and family needs. He is the typical commercial man, the man of business.
A tent can mean a man owns nothing and is passing through. Here it means the reverse:
Jabal, the son of Lamech, "was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock." This was not the mark of a pilgrim path. It showed men settling down to a life of prosperity without God.
The same tents can carry the opposite message:
They lived in tents, showing plainly that they were not taking up any settled place in the earth. They surrendered their rights in the world.
Jabal is the first of three brothers. Together they map an entire society:
Jabal was the man who started commerce. Jubal did not care for making money. His name — "playing" — described his character. Jubal said: Jabal, you may get money if you like, but I am going in for pleasure. So Jabal went in for money and Jubal for music. Tubal-cain worked in bronze and iron — in other words, science and art. Take out of the world the man of commerce, the man of pleasure, and the man of science, and you will find the world empty — cleaned out. Money, music, and science formed Cain's world at the start, and by them Satan holds the world in his hand now more than ever.
Nothing in the verse is condemned as wrong in itself. The problem lies elsewhere:
Notice further the capacity man has for making himself happy while estranged from God. Among the family of Cain we find the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock (v. 20). We also find the father of those who play the lyre and pipe (v. 21), and the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron (v. 22). Now there is nothing wrong in working bronze and iron, and there is no harm in sweet sounds — we read in the book of Revelation of harpers in heaven. But what Cain was doing was this: he was making the world pleasant without God.
The order matters. City life came first, and the tent life of verse 20 came after it. That is the reverse of how we picture progress:
The holy wisdom of God took care to inform His people of the true origin of city life, and of nomad life as well — nomad life coming after city life, not before. He showed them where music came from, and its practice on stringed and wind instruments, and the working of copper and iron, and polygamy, and self-absorbed poetry, the first recorded song of man. It is a picture of man's skill and energy, civilisation, letters, and luxury. Scripture shows them to be the inventions of men far from God, who tried in vain to make the earth of their exile a paradise of their own.
If commerce and craft trace back to this family, should a believer abandon them? One writer answers no:
The ordinary rule of Scripture is that a man should stay in the calling he was called in, and stay there with God. The blessed Lord was a carpenter until He was called to His fuller service, and Paul was a tentmaker who at times supplied his own needs. Christianity does not change the order of the world, even where sin has given rise to it. The world is an immense system built up by Satan around fallen man to keep him unaware of his ruin (Gen. 4:20-22). The Lord does not pray that we should be taken out of it, but kept from the evil.
- Named — Jabal's trade is on record because Scripture is telling the story of Cain's way and Cain's world. His name means "moving."
- Settled — his tents mark men settling down to prosperity without God. The same tents elsewhere mark men who give up their rights in the world.
- Threefold — Jabal's commerce, Jubal's music, and Tubal-cain's metalwork frame the whole of society. Take the three away and the world is empty.
- Godless — the livestock and the harps are not the sin. Making the world pleasant without God is.
- Kept — a believer stays in his calling with God, inside a system Satan built to keep man blind to his ruin. The Lord's prayer for him is not that he leave the world, but that he be kept from its evil.