We’re going to talk about Cain’s children and grandchildren and great-grand…you get the idea. All but one seemed to turn out pretty good, proving that only Cain was cursed and not his descendants. They developed a lot of wonderful technologies—which tells us quite a different story than we will find in pagan accounts. And we will also talk about Lamech, the first guy to take two wives (and we will talk about the problems that brings throughout the Bible) and to just be a flat-out bully.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
(Parents, all scripture is from the Eng;ish Standard Version (ESV) unless I say otherwise)
19 And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20 Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22 Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. 23 Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. 24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”
I call Lamech “the first avenger” because he makes Cain, his great-great-great grandfather, look like a boy scout and yet, he still thinks that he should be somehow untouchable. But we’ll get to that in a little bit. As we will see, Lamech is a total bully but he is also not respectful to women either. He is the first person in the Bible to take two wives but he won’t be the last. When a man has more than one wife, that is called polygyny but some people call it polygamy. Polygamy isn’t the wrong thing to call it—polygamy means that a person has more than one other person they are married to—like if a woman had two husbands or if a man had two wives. Or more. But polygyny is specifically when a man has more than one wife. And that’s what Lamech did. Unlike Cain’s wife, Lamech’s wives are named so that we can know which wife each of Lamech’s sons and daughter came from. And Lamech’s sons are very important because they did important things that we still benefit from today.
Now, you might ask—why on earth would a man marry more than just one woman? I mean, Jesus himself said that in the beginning there was one man and one woman and any more than that was a serious sin called adultery. Jesus said that God intended only two people to be married to one another. Jesus said this because there were men who were being very cruel to their wives and divorcing them and finding somebody new—but if they couldn’t afford a divorce, they would just get another wife to punish their first wife. Imagine how heartbroken you would be if that happened to you or to someone you love.
7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mark 10)
But that word translated as man is just the Greek word for human being, so no one is allowed to come between a husband and wife and it doesn’t matter if it is a man or a woman. God says two will become one, not three or four or five and with good reason. God’s intention was for two people to love and care for one another and to be a family. However, things started getting messed up with marriage right away—God told Eve that Adam was going to begin to rule over her even though God never told him to do that. Sin always makes our loving relationships less loving. Marriage got messed up. Parenthood got messed up too when Cain killed Abel and left the family. What should have been wonderful was not wonderful anymore. And now we see that there is this man, who was also a violent bully, not obeying God’s command to only have one wife. Jesus didn’t make that up, He was just repeating what God said in Genesis chapter 2!
Now, what does the Bible say about having more than one wife? Well, nothing good. In fact, whenever we look at the families in the Bible where there are multiple moms in the same family, it’s one huge mess. When Abraham and Sarah couldn’t have a baby, they tried to have a baby with another mom instead. Her name was Hagar and we will talk about her some other time. God had promised them a son but they did things the wrong way. Things got so bad that Hagar and her son, Ishmael, had to leave and go somewhere else once Sarah finally had a baby. Joseph had eleven brothers and ten of then were from three entirely different moms than his own mom Rachel. Joseph was mean to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah and the sons of the other moms plotted against him and sold him into slavery because their father Jacob treated Joseph better because he only loved Joseph’s mom. King David had many wives and one of his sons hurt his half-sister and then her brother killed him for it. And then that son died later. Two more sons died because they were trying so hard to become king instead of another son, Solomon. The prophet Samuel’s mother Hannah was treated very cruelly by her husband’s other wife. And King Solomon? He had three hundred wives and six hundred other women in his harem. Great googly moogly I can’t even imagine how many kids he must have had.
Why did some men take more than one wife? Well, it was very important to have a lot of children in Bible days. More wives meant more kids. Also, kings would want to have powerful alliances, or friendships, with other kings and so if they married the sister or a daughter of another king then that king would not attack them. They became family. Sometimes, like with Sarah, Rachel, Leah, and Hannah, the wife can’t have any babies or stops having babies and so to have more, another woman was brought in to have more babies. And as we can see from beginning to end, it caused nothing but problems. But Solomon? The Bible says he just wanted a bunch of women—way too much. And he even married pagan women and when he was old, he started worshiping idols because he wanted to make them happy. He built them temples for the idols they worshiped before they came to marry him! He wanted to please them, and there were so many that it led to the destruction of Israel.
And this was a terrible problem when Jesus came as well. I already told you what the Pharisees were doing to their wives. It was such a problem that the apostle Paul had to make strict rules for being a leader in the church. In I Timothy 2, Paul told overseers and deacons that they could only have one wife. And he repeated the same thing to Titus. Why didn’t he tell women they could only have one husband? Well, because that was always illegal in the ancient world. Women were never allowed to do that, so neither Paul nor Moses had to say anything about it. In the Bible, you will only find laws concerning things that were actually going on back then. Women had to behave themselves because they mostly were required to stay home all the time with the kids and to stay in large groups when they were in town. So, when you read the Torah laws, the commandments in the first five books of the Bible, they are almost entirely aimed at telling men what to do and what not to do. That doesn’t mean they don’t apply equally to women, just that women weren’t as much of a problem because they didn’t get out much.
Now, let’s talk about Lamech’s kids really quick before we talk about Lamech. Lamech’s kids did some really important things. Remember when I told you that only Cain was cursed and not his kids or grandkids? Well, one of those kids came up with the idea to make tents and to travel around with their animals looking for fresh pasture. That was very smart—like the Bedouin people today. Another one invented music, the lyre (a small harp) and the pipe (like a flute). Definitely not cursed! Tubal-Cain learned how to forge metal tools and probably weapons—made out of bronze and iron. That would make life much easier, and especially farming. Now, I am going to tell you kind of a funny story.
After the Hebrew portions of the Bible were all written, the Torah and the histories and the psalms and the prophets, different groups started writing fiction about the Bible—made up stories designed to explain the mysteries of the Bible and, oftentimes, to write about how angry they were about how pagans did things. Made up books like Enoch and Jubilees came up with stories that sometimes went against what the Bible tells us and one of the things they did was to make up stories about how human beings came up with all sorts of technology—like weapons and music and that sort of thing. These sorts of stories often claimed that angels who rebelled against God came down from heaven, took human wives, and shared with them the secrets of heaven but sometimes the things they were supposed to have shared made no sense. Like makeup and fancy hairstyles. Now, how are we supposed to believe that there are beauty parlors up in heaven when all they had up there was angels? Are we really supposed to believe that angels are up there getting their hair and makeup and nails done? And they also said that these angels were responsible for teaching people to go around without any clothes on. And many other things.
Why did they make up these stories? Well, because when the Greeks ruled over the Jews, they introduced a lot of the sorts of things that religious Jews thought were evil. Like the gymnasiums, where men competed in sports bare buck naked—which makes no sense to me why that is a good idea. Seems like an accident waiting to happen—especially in wrestling! The Jews didn’t like their proper women dressing like Greek women and wearing fancy hairstyles and putting on makeup. So, instead of just disagreeing with those things, sometimes people would write stories claiming that those kinds of things came from the evil fallen angels. I suppose it was to scare the people into not doing “Greek” things anymore. I don’t know if it worked or not or if people just rolled their eyes. But this wasn’t just something the Jewish people came up with—blaming stuff on the “gods” or “fallen angels”—it was the belief throughout the pagan world that all technology was a gift from the gods to people or to select people.
But here is another way that the Bible is entirely different from the stories told in pagan nations—it says that Cain’s descendants invented these things. Probably because they lived in cities and were able to work together to come up with new ideas. Music is a wonderful invention, right? And every other mention of music in the entire Bible is about it being used to worship God! And some things are missing that would be in pagan stories—there is no mention of the gods giving people any sort of government or kings to rule over them. Why? Because, as we will see, God is the only king over the whole world at this point. That will change in Genesis 14 where we see nine kings all of a sudden. Unlike the false gods of the other nations, God never gave anyone any ideas about actually wanting another king besides Himself. He gave them a king later when they rejected Him, and they all regretted it!
I do want you to notice something very important—that we have all this history about Cain’s kids and grandkids and great-grandkids. What does this tell us? Well, it lets us know that God never stopped caring about Cain and his family, and He blessed them and blessed the whole world through them. Think of your life without music or without tools! Or without cities, for that matter. Cain did wrong, and his punishment was severe but his kids, they did really well. Except for Lamech, and now we have to talk about that guy. Oh boy, here we go.
The first poem ever recorded was a real humdinger: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. 24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” This song was from Lamech to his two wives. Its theme was, “Nobody messes with Lamech and gets away with it.” So, a man wounds Lamech, and Lamech doesn’t just wound him back. Lamech kills him. Delightful. A young man strikes Lamech, and Lamech kills him. Of course, it’s probably the same guy he is talking about both times because that is how ancient poetry works—you say the same thing twice, just in two different ways. This is a really depressing song. But maybe this is why Lamech figured he deserved two wives, because he is the kind of guy who gets whatever he wants and no one had better get in his way. And to make matters worse, he gave a deadly warning to anyone who would try to take revenge. But what’s this about Cain’s revenge? He said, “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” Lamech seems to be super unclear on the deal between God and Cain. God said that He would protect Cain and He would avenge Cain if anyone killed him. There is nothing anywhere about Cain getting to take revenge on his enemies sevenfold. And did this guy actually think he could kill someone for only wounding him and that God was going to do the same for him? Un, no. Seems to me like he killed this guy on purpose. We can’t go out and kill people on purpose and then expect God to swoop in and not allow anyone to mess with us. What Cain did, no one had ever done before. It might have totally shocked him, we don’t really know. But this guy Lamech seemed to know exactly what he was doing and he is warning anyone who would come after him to hold him accountable and bring him to justice for committing murder.
But what does Jesus say we need to do when someone wounds us? Does He tell us to go smack them back or kill them? Not really—we probably wish He did but He doesn’t. Sometimes I sure wish He did, let me tell you. I think we have all wanted to be Lamech sometimes. But Jesus tells us that people who are saved, citizens of God’s Kingdom, are called to a higher standard. We don’t kill. Not even if it means we are going to die. During the first century, people were still a whole lot more like Lamech than like Jesus. In fact, Jesus gave an entire sermon, called the Sermon on the Mount, telling people that it was better to be meek, loving, forgiving, and persecuted than to be aggressive, oppressive, cruel, and vengeful. Let me tell you, that Sermon wouldn’t have gone over well with a lot of the people. In those days, being aggressive and even violent was all part of being an honorable man—even if it was just with words. If you have read my curriculum book on Honor and Shame in the Bible, you already know all this. When the apostle Paul wrote about the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control—most of those words would have sounded very wimpy to first century men. They would wonder how on earth God expected them to be respected by other men if they suddenly stopped fighting back and turned the other cheek. But Jesus and Paul were both telling them that honor and reputation in the Kingdom of Heaven is better and very different from honor and reputation on earth.
The world told them to be a lot more like Lamech, that a real man was a man who fought back and who wouldn’t forgive insults. What did Jesus tell them? Jesus told them to love their neighbors—meaning everyone. And what did He say loving their neighbors looks like? It looks like mourning, showing emotion and not being so tough on the outside. It looks like meekness, which means not being a bully either physically or with your words. It means being merciful, which means being kind to people who are weaker than we are or have less than we have. It means being a peacemaker—not stirring up trouble and not holding a grudge or getting even. It means being careful with our anger—not like Cain and Lamech—so that we don’t stay angry at people, which will lead us to sin sooner or later, or insult them—which Jesus said will bring judgment on us. It means men treating women with respect and women treating men with respect. It means turning the other cheek when someone hits us, and not retaliating. It means loving the people who are acting like enemies and praying for them instead of being evil right back to them. It means forgiving people who have hurt us even if we have to stay at arm’s length from them. It means taking care of the people who are weak and poor, without making a big show about it so that people can see it and be impressed. It means admitting when we are wrong and making things right even if it makes us look bad.
Do those seem impossible? When we first start following Jesus, they are pretty darned impossible but when we accept Him as our king and give our lives to Him, He begins to change us so that we can be those types of people. We start out like Lamech and become more and more like Jesus day after day, month after month and year after year. We are never perfect but we keep moving in the right direction. When we first start following Jesus, no one likes to read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-8) because we don’t want to be that kind of person. We’re scared to be peaceful because we are afraid that people will hurt us. But God fills our hearts with more and more love and mercy and we begin to change into people who would rather be kind and peaceful than the types of people who get even and refuse to forgive unless someone apologizes. I have been a Christian for twenty-two years and a lot of this is still hard for me but it used to all be very hard. I used to hate reading it! I would come up with a whole lot of reasons why Jesus didn’t really mean it—isn’t that silly?
But let me tell you something about Jesus. The Bible says that He was there in the beginning, with God, creating us. That means He knows what it was like at the very beginning when everything was still perfect and there was no sin, no murder, no lies, and no hate. He knows exactly how things should be and so whenever He teaches, that’s His target. He doesn’t want to talk about what we can get away with. He wants to tell us about how God always intended us to live—in perfect love, peace, and harmony. And that’s why Jesus came and died for us, so that we could be born again, like in the beginning and go back to be the kinds of human beings God wanted us to be before Adam and Eve messed everything up, and then Cain made it worse, and Lamech, oh man, that guy…
Do you know anyone like Lamech? Someone who always has to win? Or always has to get even? Who never forgets anything that anyone does? Who will hold a grudge forever and never seems to see anything from someone else’s point of view? You know, like when someone hits you and you kill them and don’t even stop for a minute to think that killing someone else has hurt an entire other family? Of course, you will probably never know anyone who is exactly like Lamech but you might know someone who does the same sorts of things. There’s some Lamech in all of us—in everyone except for Jesus. Even Moses killed an Egyptian guard. Abraham lied in order to protect himself and so did Isaac. David murdered someone to cover up another crime. Jacob tricked quite a few people, including his father, brother and father-in-law (although his father-in-law was a terrible person, so don’t feel too sorry for him). Aaron made an idol because he was afraid the children of Israel would kill him. Joseph’s brothers were so jealous and angry that they sold him into slavery. The point is that people who don’t know Jesus are going to have a very hard time becoming the kind of people who won’t sin in order to save themselves or accomplish their goals. Jesus is calling us to be more like Him.
What did Jesus do in those same sorts of situations? He forgave the people who killed him. He didn’t use His power to destroy them. He didn’t lie to people or trick them in order to be safe. And He ended up saving a whole lot of the people who persecuted Him and rejected Him. That’s the kind of people He wants to change us into. People who stop hurting Him and the people who love Him and who will forgive and do good instead.
I love you. I am praying for you. I pray that you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you.