#16. Lamech: the Curse and the Comfort.

     The person who before the flood stands out more prominently than any other descendant of Adam, is Noah.  Enoch’s twofold prophecy, considered in previous series, pointed to the flood, and to that of which the flood was a type, the coming of the Lord in judgment. 

     Enoch could not have avoided explaining to Methuselah the prophetic import of his name, and this would doubtless have been the topic of many an earnest conversation both between them, and with Lamech, Enoch’s grandson.  Lamech was sufficiently well instructed to know that he was not the one who should survive the coming judgment, and is divinely guided in the naming of his firstborn son. 

     Before we pass on to consider the Scriptures that deal with Noah and the flood, it will be to our profit to pause awhile and learn what we can from his less prominent yet none the less godly parent.  From what the Scriptures say concerning the “days of Noah”, we may picture to ourselves the environment of the days of Lamech;  he lived to within five years of the flood, and, further, in his grandfather Enoch’s days ungodliness marked the generation (Jude 15), which evidently grew worse as the days drew on.  Lamech was 182 years of age when Noah was born.  Sufficient time had passed for him to arrive at the conclusion that has been discovered by others since, viz., that “vanity of vanities all is vanity.”

      In naming his son Noah, Lamech emphasized his felt need of rest.  Noah is derived from nuach which means “to be at rest”, and occurs in  Gen. viii. 4,  “and the ark rested in the seventh month”.  Again in  Exod. xx. 11,  “for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day”.  When we read in  Gen. viii. 9,  “the dove found no rest”, the word is manoach, or in  viii. 21,  “the Lord smelled a sweet savour”, the word “sweet” is nichoach, and literally the passage reads, “a savour of rest”.  Thus it will be seen that for God as well as man there is a place of rest, and that rest is Christ, of whom Noah and the ark are prophetic. 

     Lamech in naming his son said, “this same shall comfort us (nacham, or give us rest) concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed”.  The word rendered “toil” is twice rendered “sorrow” in  Genesis iii.  where the curse is first pronounced, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow”, and “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (verses 16, 17).  The words “work and toil” may be a figure, meaning very grievous work;  the work and the toil are clearly specified as being the work and toil of the hands, and in connection with the ground, that under the curse yielded but thorns and thistles of itself, and bread only by sweat of face.  We read that Cain experienced a special pronouncement of this curse (Gen. iv. 12), and he is the first builder of a City that is named in Scripture. 

     We cannot help noticing the similarity of names that occur in the two lines of Adam’s descendants.  If there is an Enoch who walked with God, there is an Enoch born to Cain in the land of banishment.  If there is a Jared in the line of Seth, there is an Ired in the line of Cain, which differs only in one letter.  Methuselah has a son named Lamech in the line of Seth, so Methusael had a son of the same name in the line of Cain.  Both Lamechs have seven, and seventy and seven written of them.  If these things were not recorded in Scripture we might dismiss them as fanciful, but they are written for our learning.  Do they not speak to us of the beginning of that parody of truth which Satan has so skillfully established and maintained by taking advantage of similar sounding names, and of the confusion of tongues which we associate with Babylon and Babylonianism?   (See The Two Babylons, by Hislop). 

     Lamech, the seventh from Adam, in the line of Cain, has three sons, one (Jabal) kept cattle, and so continued in the work of the ground, but Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ, and Tubal-cain an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.  It would appear that the veneer which has spread over the curse, and which is variously named culture, civilization, etc., to-day, was originated by the sons of Lamech in Cain’s line;  the Lamech who begat Noah, however, is in direct contrast, he does not appear to have attempted to evade the weary toil that must be experienced by those who, by sweat of face, eat the bread that is produced by the ground that is cursed.  Lamech longed for rest, but he did not accept the vain travesties of Cain’s descendants.  There are many to-day who, surrounded by the comforts and inventions of man could scarcely believe that there is truth in the record of the curse on the ground.  The products of the earth and sea are brought to their door, no thought passes through their mind as to the sorrow and the toil that someone, somewhere, must endure to provide them with the necessities of life.  Lamech knew no such deadening influence;  the toil of his hands was hard and wearying because of the ground that the Lord had cursed.  A friend writing recently gave an unconscious echo of Lamech’s words, saying, "When one, from the back of the land, sees the toil of man and beast, there come to the lips no more fitting words than, ‘Even so, Come, Lord Jesus’."

     Harps and organs, however, melodious and charming, brass and iron, modelled and designed into the most wonderful of machines and inventions, though they may “prove” to the natural man the upward development of man’s attainments, afford no rest for those in whose hearts the truth of God abides.   Rest for them is found in the true Noah, whose witness and whose experiences testify of the resurrection,  and a new heavens and a new earth,  wherein dwelleth righteousness.