THE LEGEND OF LAMECH—HEBREW ETYMOLOGY.
(Vol. vii., p. 363.)
Etymologists are a race who frequently need to be drawn up with a somewhat tight rein. Our Celtic fellow-subjects will not, perhaps, be much gratified by Mr. Crossley's tracing the first indications of their paternal tongue to the family of Cain; and as every branch of that family was destroyed by the deluge, they may marvel what account he can give of its reconstruction amongst their forefathers. But as his manner of expressing himself may lead some of your readers to imagine that he is explaining Cain, Lamech, Adah, Zillah, from acknowledged Hebrew meanings of any parts of those words, it may be as well to warn them that the Hebrew gives no support to any one of his interpretations. If fancy be ductile enough to agree with him in seeing a representation of a human arm holding a sling with a stone in it in the Hebrew letter called lamed, there would still be a broad hiatus between such a concession, and the conclusion he seems to wish the reader to draw from it, viz. that the word lamed must have something to do with slinging, and that consequently lamed must be a slinger. The Hebrew scholar knows that lamed indisputably signifies to teach; and though perhaps he may not feel sure that the Hebrew consonant l obtained its name from any connexion with that primary meaning of the root lamed, he will not think it improbable that as the letter l, when prefixed to a noun or verb, teaches the reader the construction of the sentence, that may have been the reason for its being so named.
As to a legend not traceable to within some thousand years of the facts with which it claims to be connected, those may take an interest in it who like so to do. But as far as we may regard Lamech's address to his wives in the light of a philological curiosity, it is interesting to observe how naturally the language of passion runs into poetry; and that this, the most ancient poetry in existence, is in strict unison with the peculiar character of subsequent Hebrew poetry; that peculiarity consisting of the repetition of clauses, containing either the same proposition in a slightly different form, or its antithesis; a rhyme of thoughts, if we may so say, instead of a rhyme of sounds, and consequently capable of being preserved by a literal translation.
And Lamech said unto his wives,—
"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech,
For I have slain a man to my wounding,
And a young man, to my hurt.
If Cain shall be avenged seventy-fold,
Truly Lamech, seventy and seven-fold."
The construction is more favourable to the belief that the man of line third is the same as the young man of the parallel clause, than that he had slain two; the word rendered hurt is properly a wheal, the effect of a severe strife or wound.
As to the etymologies of the names mentioned by Mr. Crossley, we gather from God's words that she called her first son Cain, an acquisition (the Latin peculium expresses it more exactly than any English word), because she had gotten (literally acquired, or obtained possession of) a man. As for Lamech, or more properly Lĕmĕch, its etymology must be confessed to be uncertain; but there is a curious and interesting explanation of the whole series of names of the patriarchs, Noah's forefathers, in which the name of the other Lemech, son of Methusaleh, is regarded as made up of Lĕ, the prefixed preposition, and of mech, taken for the participle Hophal of the verb to smite or bruise. Adah,
אדה
, is ornament; Zillah,
צלה
may mean the shade under which a person reposes; or if the doubling of the l is an indication that its root is
צלל
, it may mean a dancer.
H. Walter.
Allow me, in reference to Mr. Crossley's remarks, to say, that from the accidental resemblance of the Hebrew and Celtic words Lamech and Lamaich, no philological argument can be drawn of identical meaning, any more than from the fact that the words Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazar, or Belteshassar[[2]], are significant in Russian
and Sclavonian, as well as in Chaldee. Lamache in Arabic means (see Freytag) "levi intuitu et furtim adspicere aliquem;" also to shine, as lightning, or a star. Lamech, therefore, is an appropriate designation for a man known to prowl about for plunder and murder, and whose eye, whether taking aim or not, would give a sudden and furtive glance.
The word lamed signifies, in Hebrew, teaching; the word Talmud is from the same root. It is the same in Syriac and Chaldee. The original significant of these three languages is to be found in the Arabic Lamada: "Se submisit alicui; humiliter se gessit erga aliquem." (Freytag.) No argument can be drawn from the shape of the letter
ל
(lamed), because, although popularly so called, it is not a Hebrew letter, but a Chaldee one. The recent discoveries, published in Layard's last work, demonstrate this fact; Mr. Layard falls into the mistake of calling the basin inscriptions Hebrew, although Mr. Ellis, who had translated them, says expressly that the language is Chaldee (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 510.), one of them only being Syriac (p. 521.). Chaldee and Syriac, indeed, differ from each other as little as Chaucer's and Shakspeare's English, although the written characters are wholly distinct.
Davis, in his Celtic Researches, has done all that was possible, taking a very limited view, however, in fixing upon certain linguistic resemblances in some ancient tongues to the Celtic; but a clear apprehension of the proper place which the Celtic language and its congeners hold in comparative philology, can only be learnt from such works as Adelung's Mithridates, and Adrien Balbi's Atlas Ethnographique du Globe.
T. J. Buckton.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
The accidental resemblances are curious. Thus, Nebucadnetzar is in Russian nebê kazenniy Tzar, "A Lord or Prince appointed by heaven;" or, nebu godnoi Tzar, "A Prince fit for heaven." Belshatzar is also in Russian bolszoi Tzar, "A great Prince;" and Belteshtzar, Daniel's Chaldean pagan name, is byl têsh Tzar, "he was also a Prince," i. e. "of the royal family."
The interpretation of Hessius (Geschichte der Patriarchen, i. 83.) is preferred by Rosenmüller:
"Ex hujus Doctissimi Viri sententia Lamechus sese jactat propter filios suos, qui artium adeo utilium essent inventores: Cainum progenitorem suum propter cædem non esse punitum, multo minus se posse puniri, si vel simile scelus commisisset. Verba enim non significant, cædam ab eo revera esse paratam, sed sunt verba hominis admodum insolentis et profani. Ceterum facile apparet, hæc verba a Mose ex quodam carmine antiquo inserta esse: tota enim oratio poeticam quandam sublimitatem spirat."
The sense of these two verses (Gen. iv. 23, 24.) is, according to Dathe:
"Si propter viri aut juvenis cædem vulnera et plagæ mihi intendantur, cum de Caino pœna septuplex statuta fuerit, in Lamecho id fiet septuagies septies."
Herder, in his Geist der ebräischen Poesie (i. 344.) says:
"Carmen hoc Lamechi laudes canere gladii a filio inventi, cujus usum et præstantiam contra hostiles aliorum insultus his verbis prædicet: Lamechi mulieres audite sermonem meum, percipite dicta mea: Occido jam virum, qui me vulneravit, juvenem, qui plagam mihi infligit. Si Cainus septies ulciscendus, in Lamecho id fiet septuagies septies."
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
The legend of the shooting of Cain by Lamech is detailed in The Creation of the World, with Noah's Flood, a Cornish mystery, translated into English by John Keigwin, and edited by Davies Gilbert, Esq. The legend and translation, in parallel columns, are given also at pp. 15, 16. of Mr. Gilbert's "Collections and Translations respecting St. Neot," prefixed to descriptive account (in 4to., with sixteen coloured plates) of the windows of St. Neot's Church in Cornwall, by Mr. Hedgeland, who restored them, 1805-1829, at the expense of the Rev. Richard Gerveys Grylls, patron, and formerly incumbent of the living.
Joseph Rix.
St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire.