Genesis 4:23,24

Gen. 4:23, 24. "And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, here my voice, ye wives of Lamech,… I have slain a man," etc. The probable design of the Holy Spirit in relating this, is to show the great increase of the depravity and corruption of the world of Cain's posterity, and those that adhered to them at that day, in the generation next to the Flood. This is shown in the particular instance of Lamech, the chief man of Cain's posterity in his day. Lamech had been guilty of murder, he had slain some man that he had had a quarrel with, and he justifies himself in it, and endeavors to satisfy his wives that he shall escape with impunity, from the instance of Cain, whose life God had protected, and even took especial care that no man should kill him; and had declared if any man killed him, vengeance should be taken on him sevenfold, though the man he slew was his brother and a righteous man, and had done him no injury. But this man he had slain in, or for his wounding (as the words are interpreted by some learned men (see Pool, Synop. in loc.) See instance Joshua 24:32, [the Hebrew word for "an hundred pieces of silver"), - i.e., the man he had slain had injured and wounded him; and therefore if Cain should be avenged sevenfold, doubtless he seventy and sevenfold. By this speech to his wives he shows his impenitence, presumption, and great insensibility. When Cain had slain his brother, his conscience greatly troubled him; but Lamech, with great obduracy, shakes off all remorse, and as it were bids defiance to all fear and trouble about the matter. That he should set the price of his life so high; that he should imagine that the vengeance due to the man that should take it away ought to be so vastly beyond that which was threatened for the killing of Cain, must be owing to a prodigious pride of heart, esteeming himself a man of such great value, and accounting it so heinous a thing for any to hurt or wound him; and then it shows a vile abuse of God's goodness, long-suffering, and forbearance, in the instance of Cain, which ought to have led men to repentance. But instead of this, that instance of God's forbearance probably was so abused as to be one great occasion of that violence that the earth was filled with in Lamech's days. The sins for which the old world was destroyed were chiefly sensuality, pride, violence, presumption, a stupid, seared conscience, and abusing God's patience, of each of which Lamech (the head of that wicked world) is here set forth [as] an example, in his polygamy and his murder (which probably was some way occasioned by his polygamy), and in this speech to his wives about what he had done. It need not be wondered at that Lamech should express his mind to his wives any more than that Ahab and Haman should express the wicked workings of their hearts to their wives, [1 Kings 21:5; 1 Kings 21:6; Ephesians 5:10-14;] and it is the less to be wondered at in Lamech's case, for it is natural to suppose that his wives, knowing what he had done, were full of fear lest the friends of the persons murdered would avenge themselves on him and his family, and that they themselves should lose their lives by the means; which would be more natural still if the quarrel he had had with the young man that was slain, was about his wives, as is probable. This may well account for the earnestness of Lamech's speech to his wives, as we may well suppose it would require some pains to remove their fears in such a case.

Gen. 4:25