In view of the connexion, the poem is interpreted as expressing Lamech’s exultation at the advantage he expects to derive from Tubal-Cain’s new inventions; the worker in bronze will forge for him new and formidable weapons, so that he will be able to take signal vengeance for the least injury. But the poem probably had originally nothing to do with the genealogy. It may have been a piece of folk-song celebrating the prowess of the tribe of Lamech; or it may have had some relation to a story of Cain and Abel in which Cain was a hero and not a villain.
The genealogy in Gen. v. belongs to the Priestly Code, c. 450 B.C., and may be due to a revision of ancient tradition in the light of Babylonian archaeology. It is noteworthy that according to the numbers in the Samaritan MSS. Lamech dies in the year of the Flood.
The origin of the name Lamech and its original meaning are doubtful. It was probably the name of a tribe or deity, or both. According to C. J. Ball,[3] Lamech is an adaptation of the Babylonian Lamga, a title of Sin the moon god, and synonymous with Ubara in the name Ubara-Tutu, the Otiartes of Berossus, who is the ninth of the ten primitive Babylonian kings, and the father of the hero of the Babylonian flood story, just as Lamech is the ninth patriarch, and the father of Noah. Spurrell[4] states that Lamech cannot be explained from the Hebrew, but may possibly be connected with the Arabic yalmakun, “a strong young man.”
Outside of Genesis, Lamech is only mentioned in the Bible in 1 Chron. i. 3, Luke iii. 36. Later Jewish tradition expanded and interpreted the story in its usual fashion.
(W. H. Be.)
[1] The text of Gen. iv. 22 is partly corrupt; and it is possible that the text used by the Septuagint did not contain Cain.
[2] Gen. x. 2, Ezek. xxvii. 13.
[3] Genesis, in Haupt’s Sacred Books of the Old Testament on iv. 19, cf. also the notes on 20-22, for Lamech’s family. The identification of Lamech with Lamga is also suggested by Sayce, Expository Times, vii. 367. Cf. also Cheyne, “Cainites” in Encyc. Biblica.
[4] Notes on the Hebrew Text of Genesis, in loco.