The Line of Cain

When read­ing about the early chap­ters of Gen­e­sis — par­tic­u­larly the events of Gen­e­sis 6 — it’s been rare to find the texts spo­ken about with­out ref­er­ence to the “ungodly line of Cain” and the “godly line of Seth.” I admit, for much of my Chris­t­ian life, I’ve judged Cain’s line by Cain’s actions, and Seth’s by Seth’s.

I’ve read Gen­e­sis 4 [amp] 5 umpteen times, and just about every time, I do so with the idea that Cain’s descen­dants are all patently “ungodly,” in a way over and above the fallen nature com­mon to all men.

And I admit, it doesn’t start well for that family.

Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. The Book of Gen­e­sis, 4:8

Mur­der. Count­less fam­i­lies have faced gen­er­a­tions of strife because of mur­der, and no doubt there are grim results to Cain’s self­ish act.

What imme­di­ately hap­pens as a result of Cain’s dis­obe­di­ence? I would have expected that Cain would be put to death — smote by Yah­weh for his dis­obe­di­ence. Harsh? Per­haps, but it would be a pun­ish­ment fit­ting the crime (Gen­e­sis 9:6).

What hap­pens, though, is the com­plete oppo­site: God has mercy on Cain. In a tes­ta­ment to the patience, the love, the grace, the pure mercy of God, history’s first mur­derer comes face to face not with a guil­lo­tine, noose, elec­tric chair, or ston­ing… but with a sec­ond chance.

And while Cain’s life would never be the same, the Lord allowed him to at least have life. Cain would be an out­cast, a wan­derer in the world, alien­ated from his par­ents and other siblings.

The mercy just keeps on flow­ing, though, for when Cain points out how hated he would be, that any­one who finds him would kill him, God places a mark upon Cain, a mark of pro­tec­tion, ensur­ing Cain that any­one who would attack him would be pun­ished sev­en­fold. It seems to me that God has a plan for Cain, and I don’t say that in the warm [amp] fuzzy way that the pros­per­ity or self-esteem preach­ers might say it. Rather, I’m say­ing it in the sense that God is sov­er­eign — a corol­lary to that is God has a plan for your life. Such it is with Cain.

The Land of Nod

Cain leaves his fam­ily. If you’re a par­ent of adults, you know what it’s like for your chil­dren to leave home. I don’t know that feel­ing, but I can imag­ine that it is difficult.

I can imag­ine it being much harder for Adam [amp] Eve. They had just lost one son to mur­der and, as a result, are now los­ing another.

At this point, I would expect the Scrip­tures to no longer tell us about Cain. Adam [amp] Eve bore him, he grew up, hard­ened his heart against God [amp] brother, mur­dered his brother, and was now exiled. What more could we pos­si­bly need to know?

God tells us that Cain “set­tled in the land of Nod, east of Eden” (v. 16. Do you know where Adam [amp] Eve, Seth, or even Noah dwelled? No? Nei­ther do I.

Yet we know where Cain, a man of unen­cum­bered evil (1 John 3:12), set­tled with his fam­ily. That’s inter­est­ing, isn’t it?

So Cain moves to Nod, the land of wan­der­ing, with the woman who would become his wife. Who was she? Suf­fice it to say, I believe she was his sis­ter; incest was not for­bid­den until much later, and the rel­a­tive purity of the human genome at this point would have pre­cluded any neg­a­tive birth affects due to inbreeding.

What do they do? They obey. That’s not what we typ­i­cally think when we think of Cain is it? I’m not try­ing to make Cain out to be a saint — the elder apos­tle John says Cain was of the evil one — but he was a man who was fruit­ful. He mul­ti­plied. I doubt that he had chil­dren out a desire to obey; his child-bearing may have been moti­vated by a desire to sur­round him­self with peo­ple who were not aware of his seedy past.

Or it may have sim­ply been a desire to have a fam­ily. Such a desire is very human.

Cain and his wife had a child Enoch, after whom Cain’s city was named (Gen­e­sis 4:17). Thus began the “[ungodly] line of Cain”:

The Line of Cain

Cain ⇒ Enoch ⇒ Irad ⇒ Mehu­jael ⇒ Methushael ⇒ Lamech

Of most of these men, we don’t know much, at least not until we get to Lamech (Gen­e­sis 4:18).

The first inter­est­ing thing we’re told about him? Lamech had two wives. I durst not say whether this was right or wrong of Lamech; the Scrip­tures do not record any sort of reproof of Lamech’s sex­u­al­ity, so make of it what you will. If you decide to defend Lamech, though, be fore­warned that doing so is a “thank­less job” which requires a stead­fast deter­mi­na­tion that few peo­ple seem to have nowa­days, at least so far as so-called “lost causes” are concerned.

What­ever the con­clu­sions regard­ing Lamech’s mar­i­tal rela­tion­ships, our cul­ture — and thou­sands of other cul­tures through­out human his­tory — owe a great deal to his family.

One of his wives was Adah; she bore a son named Jabal who pio­neered ani­mal hus­bandry, mak­ing him the “father of those who dwell in tents and have live­stock” (v. 20). Jabal wasn’t their only son, and his brother Jubal helped rev­o­lu­tion­ize music as “the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe” (v. 21).

Lamech’s other wife was Zil­lah, and she bore to Cain a son named Tubal-cain, a ground­break­ing met­al­worker who was “the forger of all instru­ments of bronze and iron” (v. 22).

Tech­nol­ogy. Music. Hus­bandry. Isn’t it inter­est­ing that that the sov­er­eign Lord would choose the “ungodly line” to bring such advance­ments into the world?

Through the tech­nol­ogy pio­neered by Tubal-cain, the Israelites would forge the adorn­ments, fur­ni­ture, and items used in their worship.

Through the musi­cal instru­ments first devised by Jubal, the Israelites would wor­ship the Lord in song.

Through the hus­bandry skills passed down by Jabal, the Israelites would man­age the live­stock used not just for food but also for sacrifice.

I don’t know if any­one in Lamech’s fam­ily had faith in God. The text doesn’t tell us that, so I won’t spec­u­late. Whether they knew it or not, Lamech’s boys have a fan­tas­tic legacy, one which ben­e­fits us even today.

Lamech also had a daugh­ter (v. 22, Tubal-cain’s sis­ter Naamah. The imme­di­ate text doesn’t say much about her, and it’s at least a lit­tle pecu­liar that a daugh­ter would be men­tioned by name here. Even our first par­ents’ daugh­ers (6:4) are name­less in his­tory, but not Lamech’s. It’s almost as if she has been here memo­ri­al­ized; the spec­u­la­tion in this area is inter­est­ing to say the least.

Things were not all happy-go-lucky, reinventing-the-way-humans-do-society for the Lamech fam­ily, though.

The Vengeance of Lamech

We aren’t given the specifics. Per­haps there was a dis­pute over what­ever was con­sid­ered wealth at that time. Per­haps there was an argu­ment over over the works of Lamech’s sons.

Per­haps, like so much sense­less vio­lence today, some­body sim­ply wanted Lamech’s shoes.

What­ever hap­pened, a man wounded Lamech, and Lamech killed him (4:23). If we are to take Lamech’s word for it — and the Scrip­tures record no other word for us to take — then I think we must con­clude that Lamech acted in self-defense. He killed the man not out of jealousy-fueled sib­ling rivalry. No, this was not like what hap­pened between Cain [amp] Abel. This was dif­fer­ent. Lamech had cause. Per­haps if Lamech had no acted in self-defense, that man would have killed him. Who’s to say that the man would have stopped at sim­ply wound­ing Lamech?

In this age espe­cially — an age of no human gov­ern­ment, of no law enforcers — did not a man have the right to defend him­self, his fam­ily? I really don’t know; the sub­ject of self defense once came up at the Fel­low­ship Hall, and I don’t think a con­clu­sive answer was ever deter­mined. I’d love some feed­back on this point from you!

The ESV Study Bible says this in its note on this passage:

Lamech’s response is out of pro­por­tion to the injury, show­ing his inor­di­nate venge­ful­ness. This, like his bigamy (v. 19), reveals his deprav­ity. His behav­ior reveals that the line of Cain is dom­i­nated by those who have no regard for the lives of oth­ers or respect for the prin­ci­ple of monogamy that 2:23–24 endorses.

I’m a big fan of this study Bible, but I’m think­ing it’s way off base with this note. I don’t get the impres­sion that the Scrip­tures are intend­ing to paint the line of Cain as being “with­out regard for the lives of oth­ers” and so on. Actu­ally, aside from the judg­ment against Cain, we aren’t told of other judg­ments against this fam­ily. Even Lamech, who the study Bible says demon­strated his deprav­ity in a cou­ple of ways, receives no rebuke from the Lord.

Yet he even invokes the name of the Lord. His great-great-great-grandpappy Cain received God’s mercy [amp] pro­tec­tion after hav­ing killed Abel in cold blood.

Lamech is con­fi­dent in the mer­ci­ful­ness of the Lord; if Cain would receive sev­en­fold revenge for being killed, how much more should Lamech receive.

The ungodly line of Cain… Music mak­ers. Met­al­work­ers. Cat­tle rais­ers. Men who believed that the best defense is a good offense.

And maybe even Noah’s wife.

They may not have the godly legacy of Seth, Enoch, or Noah, but Cain’s line have had a pro­found impact upon humanity.

At least, that’s the impres­sion I get from the fourth chap­ter of Gen­e­sis. What about you?