Guilty of fratricide, Kayin roamed the earth as a marked man. He did not merit being the progenitor of postdiluvian humanity; that distinction was reserved for his younger brother Seth, the ancestor of Noah. Nonetheless, Scripture records the generations of Kayin’s offspring and devotes seemingly inordinate attention to his great-great-great grandson Lamech.
“Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who dwell in tents and amidst herds. And the name of his brother was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all who play the lyre and the pipe. As for Zillah, she bore Tubal-Kayin, who forged all the implements of copper and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Kayin was Naamah. And Lamech said to his wives, ‘Adah and Zillah hear my voice; oh wives of Lamech give ear to my speech. I have slain a man for wounding me, and a lad for bruising me. If Kayin is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven fold’ (Genesis 4:19-24).”
The sages wondered why Scripture bothered to preserve the doomed Canaanite genealogical table. Rashi suggested that the seemingly superfluous text serves to confirm the Divine promise, “If anyone kills Kayin, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him (4:15).” Interpreting the ambiguous “sevenfold vengeance” to mean that Kayin would suffer appropriate punishment after seven generations had passed, Rashi noted that Lamech first begot children who were the seventh Canaanite generation before proceeding to kill his elderly forebear.
The Midrash presents a detailed narrative of Lamech’s homicidal acts, embellishing, in fanciful fashion, upon the Bible’s cryptic poetry. Lamech was blind. He went hunting with his son Tubal-Kayin. The son directed his father’s attention to what seemed to be an animal in the distance. Lamech shot his arrow and killed the creature. Upon inspecting the victim at closer range, Tubal-Kayin acknowledged that it was not a beast but a man. Lamech became distraught as he realized that he had killed his ancestor Kayin. Filled with remorse, Lamech forcefully clapped his hands. In doing so, he accidentally struck his son in the head with a fatal blow. Lamech, blind and disoriented, was stuck out in the field. At nightfall, his wives went to look for him. They found him standing over the corpses of Kayin and Tubal-Kayin. At that moment, the earth opened and swallowed the other Canaanite families of Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, and Methusael. Lamech had effectively, though unwittingly, become the angel of death for the entire Canaanite line. Upon arriving home, Lamech solicited sexual intercourse from his wives. The wives refused. He persisted in his request, noting that retribution would not befall his family for seventy-seven generations. They continued to refuse his sexual overtures, recoiling at the possibility of giving birth to cursed offspring. The dispute was taken to Adam for adjudication. Adam sided with Lamech and ordered the wives to submit to their husband. Adah and Zillah called attention to Adam’s hypocrisy. After the murder of Hevel, Adam had abstained from intercourse with Chavah for 130 years. Conceding the ladies’ point, Adam resumed sexual relations with Chavah and begat Seth (Tanhuma Bereshis 11).
The Aggadah here beautifully, though fantastically, weaves together the disparate elements of Genesis 4. The seemingly irrelevant digression about the Canaanite line serves to connect Hevel’s death with Seth’s birth. The sudden and jarring shift from Lamech’s fate to Adam and Eve’s intimate relations (4:24-25) is now coherently explained.
