From one point-of-view, one could say that Cain is the very messiah that the nation of the Jews sought after during the first century AD. He was a messiah of violence, of the sort they wished to have to rid themselves of the Roman yoke. Eve perceived he would be the Savior the Lord promised in Genesis 3:15, but he showed himself to be the murderer of his own brother, Able (Genesis 4:8). Moreover, like his father, Adam, he didn’t believe the Lord, even when God showed him miraculously that he would be protected. Moreover, although the Lord did cast Adam out of his immediate Presence, Cain went out from the presence or the awareness of God, willingly, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Both places seem to me to be spiritual places, rather than places one could find on a map. Eden represents the place where God had placed his name, like Jerusalem. There one sought after God, but the land of Nod was away from where one sought after God. Its very name means wandering. In fact, it was a place where one removed God from his knowledge (cp. Romans 1:28), a place where one literally went his own way.
Notice that when Cain fled the Presence of God, he took his wife, who bore him a son, Enoch. However, rather than going from place to place, as the word wandering literally means, Cain built a city and named it after his son! (Genesis 4:17). Thus, wandering and Nod should be taken metaphorically to express a spiritual state of mind. Seven generations later (reckoned inclusively): Adam, Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, we come to Lamach, the seventh from Adam, in the line of Cain (Genesis 4:17-18).
Lamach came to marry two wives, Adah and Zillah. So, the practice of polygamy had begun by this time, and it is seen for the first time in the line of Cain (Genesis 4:19). This was not the ideal which the Lord described in Genesis 2:24, because, even common sense would tell us, multiple wives could never, spiritually, become one flesh with their husband. Nevertheless, it might be something one would expect to arise out of a wanderer who didn’t care to keep the words of the Lord precious in his life. Adam was a liar from the beginning, lying to his wife (Genesis 2:16-17; cp. 3:2-3), and Cain was a preacher of falsehood, slandering the Lord to all who would listen, especially his own family.
The Apostle Jude wrote of ungodly men who had secretly crept into the ranks of believers and were tempting them through some means (Jude 1:4). We are told that, first, they despised leadership and slandered the present leaders of the community. Secondly, they whispered to others about matters not to their liking. Then, they openly complained and finally spoke against the Gospel of Christ in a manner that appealed to the desires of some within the body, and in so doing they exalted their own authority (Jude 1:16; cp. verse-4). Then Jude explains that those men had gone the way of Cain! (Jude 1:11). Such is the manner in which the line of Cain behaved among the growing population of mankind.
Adah bore Lamach two sons Jabal and Jubal. The first was a teacher of such who dwell in tents with the herds, and, according to some scholars the corresponding word in Arabic means “a herdsman who tends camels.”[1] His brother was Jubal who was an inventor of musical instruments: the harp and the mouthorgan or panpipe. Zillah also bore Lamach a son, Tubalcain, who was an instructor of all who handled copper and iron, which suggests instruments of violence (Genesis 4:20-22).
Finally, Lamach gathers his wives together to confess he had slain a young man for wounding him and causing him pain (Genesis 4:23). Then, he proclaimed that, if Cain, his ancestor who had slain his own brother, would be avenged seven times, if anyone tried to slay him, surely Lamach would be avenged seventy times seven (Genesis 4:24). Thus, indicating both his arrogance and his fear of punishment for his crime.
Interestingly, Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the line of Seth (Jude 1:14; cp. Genesis 5:21-23), and of the same era as Lamach, lived only 365 years, a young man, if his years are compared with the other patriarchs of chapter five in Genesis. The context implies that Lamach slew Enoch, a man who walked with God, because, apparently, Enoch called Lamach’s attention to his sinful manner of life. Thus, wounded and hurt in his conscience, Lamach slew Enoch!
Finally, the context returns to Eve once more, who gave birth to Seth, whom she claimed God had given her to replace Abel, whom Cain slew. To Seth was born Enos, and in his generation men began to either refer to themselves by the name of the Lord, meaning the line of Seth was the righteous line or in the generation of Enos men began to use the name of God in a profane manner, thus indicating the corrupt path the whole of mankind had taken (Genesis 4:25-26). Considering what we shall study in Genesis, chapter five, I consider the latter implication to be the truth.
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[1] See International Standard Bible Encyclopedia for “Jabal.”
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