Why did Lamech think Noah would bring comfort (Genesis 5:29)?

Lamech, the son of Methuselah, called his son's name Noah, meaning “rest.” Whatever Lamech's thoughts were in what he said about Noah, yet his words were prophetic, being inspired by God (v. 29). Noah would “comfort us” or “give us rest from our works and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed” (NASB). We may be sure that Lamech did not know how this was to be done. For the rest that was to come was dependent upon Noah's long years of labor in building the ark. Thus the great work of the Lord Jesus in His sacrifice of Calvary is the basis of rest for the believer. The curse of sin has spoiled the earth for us, but the work of Christ has brought in eternal blessing above the level of earth, giving rest to weary hearts. Of course Noah's work is only a very faint picture of this.

Lamech, the son of Methuselah, called his son's name Noah, meaning "rest." whatever Lamech's thoughts were in what he said about Noah, yet his words were prophetic, being inspired by God (v.29). Noah would "comfort us" or "give us rest from our works and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed" (NASB). We may be sure that Lamech did not know how this was to be done. For the rest that was to come was dependent upon Noah's long years of labor in building the ark. Thus the great work of the Lord Jesus in His sacrifice of Calvary is the basis of rest for the believer. The curse of sin has spoiled the earth for us, but the work of Christ has brought in eternal blessing above the level of earth, giving rest to weary hearts. Of course Noah's work is only a very faint picture of this.

The first mention of the word is found on the lips of Lamech as he named his son — Noah. His utterance in Genesis 5:29 intimates that he was feeling the sorrows of a cursed earth, and looked forward to something in which he could find rest or repose, as the name Noah signifies. Alas! the world in Noah's day was morally unaltered; it was unable to afford any comfort to the hearts of men; even after the flood it lay under the divine indictment "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," (Genesis 8:21).

All is confusion everywhere, except what grace has done, whether it be angels or anybody else; no creature stands when left to itself, and so as to angels, we read of "the elect angels." The good angels are looking on, and therefore a woman is to have her head covered. All creatures have a sphere of responsibility - I do not mean Satan, of course, but moral creatures. Verse 24 is to be taken literally: why not? The infidel would refuse it, and improve man. You do get relief in a way afterwards: so Lamech named his son Noah, and said, "This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed." It does not say the curse was taken away; but there was a comfort concerning it. There was a certain testimony to the state of things. The curse is not gone; but it was mitigated in its effect. On the other hand, in chapter 4, Cain was cursed from the earth. He got an additional curse: "The earth shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength." In the garden Adam did not toil to get food: he ate the seed, and the animals ate the grass; but when driven out, he had to toil to get things to eat - "in the sweat of his face." Then after the flood seed-time and harvest are secured, agriculture in a way is blessed: not the curse gone, but man comforted, so that I should think it is less work to get things out of the earth now than it was before the flood. It would seem that the end of chapter 8 implies a change; for there is a promise that, though there might be toil and difficulty, yet "neither will I again smite [that is, in the flood) any more every thing living, as I have done: while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease He gives sufficient for agriculture, but the seasons remain. In Israel it was not the labour removed, but the amount of blessing on the labour increased. Adam had to dress and keep the garden, and he might well enjoy it.

Noah perceived now the fit provision of the seventh clean beast and bird. He saw by faith that it could only be rightly for an offering to Jehovah. The seventh was not one of a pair: how suitable for presenting on the altar! And so he took of "every clean beast and of every clean bird." It had thus a far larger range than Abel's; appropriate as his was for one coming to God by faith. Nor was Noah's any more than Abel's a sin-offering. What then suited was a burnt-offering. It was of a sweet savour, or savour of rest, and of course propitiatory; but here there was no question of individual acceptance as in Abel's case. It was no less a righteous ground for presenting the renewed earth to Jehovah. No such position was taken by Adam when set in Paradise. It was exactly right and due to Jehovah now, that man and every living creature and the earth might be before Him in the sweet savour He smelled: the witness of an infinitely efficacious offering whereby Christ in His death would reconcile all things. Now came, it would seem, the fulfilment of Lamech's word in calling his son Noah, This same shall comfort us concerning our works and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed (Gen. 5:29). Only Christ coming in power will remove the curse; but Noah brought in meanwhile alleviation and comfort for man in his toil.

When, indeed, we come to Enoch, seventh from Adam, God can keep silence no longer, "And Enoch walked with God … three hundred years … and Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." Precious and emphatic commendation of Enoch! Solemn and decisive judgment as to the ruin of all on earth! for the one who walks with God He takes from the earth. How plain an intimation that this pious seed is not as yet to fill the earth! Nay, surely a very clear one that that seed itself begins to fail. This Enoch-walk is as rare as it is precious. Indeed, we know that but two generations later Noah stands the solitary representative of it upon earth. Even in Noah's father, Lamech, though he speaks piously of God, we can detect deterioration. Is he not, even in his name, sadly' linked with Cain's race? — another Lamech, a "strong man;" not an Enos, taking his place in self-humiliation before God. It is striking, also, that like his Cainite namesake, he too has his memorable saying. And though at first sight they may seem quite diverse, and in some sense really are, there is yet, spite of all, a striking similarity. For if the Cainite Lamech prophesies impunity to himself for his wrong-doing, from the false argument as to God's long-suffering, the Sethite no less, upon the very eve of judgment, speaks of comfort to a generation soon to be swept away by the flood. "And he called his [son's] name Noah,' saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.' "

There was truth in this. It was of Noah's day that we read, "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor and the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake.'" Lamech's prophecy was true, then, as to the "comfort" God had in store for man; false only as to the application to a generation the survivors of whom were cut off by the judgment that preceded the blessing.

"And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years and begat a son; and he called his name Noah, saying, This [one] shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning toil of our hands because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred and ninety-five years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died" (Gen. 5:28-31).

Here again the Holy Spirit pauses on the occasion of Noah's birth; and his father was made to utter an oracle about his son. The prophetic spirit is evident in Lamech's utterances. Noah he recognised as the witness of comfort for man's work and toiling hands. And so Noah is the type of Him Who will govern and bless the habitable world to come, after it has passed through His judgment of those that defile or destroy the earth. Lamech acknowledges the righteous dealing of Jehovah no less than Enoch does in his prophecy recorded by Jude. But the difference is characteristic. Enoch speaks openly of the Lord's coming with myriads of His saints; for a heavenly portion only adds to the sense of coming judgment of all, and not only in their works of ungodliness which they ungodlily wrought but in the hard things which ungodly sinners spoke against Him. Lamech was given, though more darkly, to see in Noah the pledge of consolation for the earth, after the judgment of the quick has done its work.

Noah means, as we have seen, "rest" or "comfort." His father Lamech gave it in faith that the divine comfort would be given through him, a hope well founded. In Gen. 8:4, the ark rested, literally "Noahed," upon the mountains of Ararat. In the 21st verse of the same chapter, "the Lord smelled a sweet savor," literally "a savor of rest," or Noah. In each case, the root is the same, and shows how truly God answered the faith, seen in his name, by bestowing rest in the midst of a scene of desolation — declaring that the sacrifice was the basis of it.

The discipline is suited to the service required. Patience pre-eminently was the great lesson Noah had to learn; but it was patience, too, combined with toil. Enoch had patience, but it was in a separated walk. Noah must have it in practical life, dealing not with that which was grateful to him, but with adverse spirits. Enoch escapes from men to walk with God, and is patient therein for 300 years. Noah has to do with men in daily toil, condemning the world, and a preacher of the righteousness which by faith he had, as believing in God, who was morally denied in it. Instead of comfort from work and toil, as his father Lamech expected, it is work and toil to reach comfort and rest, and toil, too, to condemn the world, on which the curse of God rested. Patiently he went on, and patience had its perfect work, though we may notice how in nature he betrays the contrary. To arrive at comfort and rest in an evil world, I must patiently maintain the name of God and His truth. We often propose a good and valued object to our souls, but we little know the trying and toilsome path we must tread to reach it. That Noah was to be a comfort and a rest concerning the work and toil of man's hands was undoubtedly true, though Lamech never lived to see it. He saw it in progress. The purpose to reach a good and desired object modifies greatly difficulties intervening. Noah, while patiently witnessing the distinctness which ought to mark the children of God on earth, was preparing an ark for the saving of his house and also condemning the world for their unbelief and denial of God. Let him only be the patient servant, and comfort would accrue to his own house by the very toil with which he was condemning the world for their ignorance of God.

The more we look, the more we shall see the force of the comparison. Infidelity has invited our attention to a correspondence between the two lines of Cain and Seth, and there is a certain correspondence which it will be well to examine. The resemblance of some names pointed out is no doubt superficial; but there are undoubtedly two Enochs and two Lamechs, and the latter close upon the end of the old world. Of the two Enochs, all that is noted is but contrast. The first gives his name to the city which Cain builds as it were in defiance of his sentence, a city whose builder and maker God is not. Enoch, one of a line which have no earthly history, walks with God, and is not, for God has taken him. The two Lamechs have more in common, for alas! the separateness which at first obtained between the worshipers of Jehovah and those in alienation from Him narrowed as time went on. It was when Enos was born that men began to call upon the name of the Lord, for "Enos" is "frail" or "mortal man," and those content to bear that title learn the mercies of a covenant-keeping God. But as time goes on, Lamech succeeds to Enos — strength to weakness, the world and the Church approach; and thus Lamech, like his Cainite representative, has his memorable saying also: pious, and largely true, but with one fatal flaw in it. Lamech called his son's name "'Noah,' saying, 'This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the earth which the Lord has cursed.'"

And the comfort came, and in Noah, real blessing for the earth from God. Lamech was thus far a true prophet; but the people to whom he spoke, or the survivors of them, with their whole posterity, save Noah's family alone, were all cut off by the flood that preceded the blessing.