Lamech

“ For Lamech's sons were heroes of their race: Jabal, the eldest, bore upon his face The look of that calm river-god, the Nile, Mildly secure in power that needs not guile. ”

“ Lamech has already been pointed out by Palmer (“Egyptian Chronicles,” vol. i. p. 56) , in the name of the deified Phœnician patriarch Diamich; this name is found in the cuneiform texts as Dumugu and Lamga, two forms of the Accadian name of the moon.
The two wives of Lamech, Adah and Zillah, seem to be the Assyrian edhutu or edhatu “darkness,” and tsillatu “the shades of night;” and the names of his two sons Jabal and Jubal are but varying forms of the Assyrian abil “son.” Dr. ”

“ Now Lamech, when he had governed seven hundred and seventy-seven years, appointed Noah, his son, to be ruler of the people, who was born to Lamech when he was one hundred and eighty-two years old, and retained the government nine hundred and fifty years. These years collected together make up the sum before set down. But let no one inquire into the deaths of these men; for they extended their lives along together with their children and grandchildren ”

“ Lamech opened his Bible for spiritual guidance; he read aloud these words:
“Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.”
“Throw you your light of wisdom on the speech, Lamech,” said Puah.
“The Big Man means that it’s better for others to tell our father. Adam may plead that what we say is not true, and we will be rebuked. Let some cunning one go and bear witness.”
Puah tied her wide bonnet strings under her chin, and drew on her feet her elastic-side boots, and went to Llanwen and told Joshua to go and inform her father-in-law of the wickedness of Adam. ”

“ Langdon makes the suggestion (Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood, and the Fall of Man, Philadelphia, 1915, p. 56, note 7) that Lamech is the Sumerian LUMḪA, an epithet of the Babylonian god Ea as the patron of music. A more plausible theory would be that Lamech is a corruption of a king’s name, as suggested above, and after it was corrupted it was confused with the name of the Sumerian god LAMGA, the constructive god, whose emblem was the sign for carpenter. (See Barton, work cited, No. 503.) ”

“ This great truth, so unspeakably precious to faith, Lamech seems to have received and fed upon, until his whole soul triumphed in it. Not merely preservation from man, like Cain, does he count upon, but salvation, "the salvation of God." Learning that as a sinner he was alone with God, he takes that place, and there discovers how God can deal with him, even in the security and provisions of grace ”

“ Lamech, therefore, is an appropriate designation for a man known to prowl about for plunder and murder, and whose eye, whether taking aim or not, would give a sudden and furtive glance.
The word lamed signifies, in Hebrew, teaching; the word Talmud is from the same root. It is the same in Syriac and Chaldee. The original significant of these three languages is to be found in the Arabic Lamada: "Se submisit alicui; humiliter se gessit erga aliquem." ”

“ Lamech has no need of God for any purpose; what his sons can make and his own right hand do is enough for him. This is what comes of finding enough in the world without God—a boastful, self-sufficient man, dangerous to society, the incarnation [51] of the pride of life. In the long run separation from God becomes isolation from man and cruel self-sufficiency.
The line of Seth is followed from father to son, for the sake of showing that the promise of a seed which should be victorious over evil was being fulfilled. ”

“ One of the frescos of the Campo Santo at Pisa gives the whole subject, from the offering of Abel's and Cain's sacrifice, to the death of the young man{363} by the hand of Lamech, painted by Pietre da Orvieto about 1390. In one corner of the fresco, Cain is depicted as a wild and shaggy figure, crouched in a thicket, at which Lamech, at the suggestion of his guide, shoots an arrow. Below, the homicide is represented as murdering the cause of his error by blows on the head inflicted with his bow. ”

“ But we find Lamech, “a wild man,” who first introduces polygamy, for ever hereafter to be associated in origin with the race of Cain. One of his two wives was named Adah, a Hebrew term for “ornament,” and is found in the compounds Adaiah, “whom Jehovah adorns,” and Maadiah, “ornament from Jehovah.” ”

“ In view of the connexion, the poem is interpreted as expressing Lamech’s exultation at the advantage he expects to derive from Tubal-Cain’s new inventions; the worker in bronze will forge for him new and formidable weapons, so that he will be able to take signal vengeance for the least injury. But the poem probably had originally nothing to do with the genealogy. ”

“ On an evil day, Lamech, when engaged in athletic sport, accidentally struck and killed his fairest boy. All was then changed, the old love and peace passed away; but good rather than evil came, for man began to lead a larger life. ”

“ But when Tubal saw what had happened, he was terrified, and ran back to Lamech, crying out, "You have slain our forefather Cain!" And Lamech also was struck with horror, and raised his hands and smote them together with a mighty blow. And in so doing he struck the head of Tubal with his full strength, and Tubal fell down dead. Then Lamech returned to his house, and spoke to his wives the words that are written in the Book of Genesis. This story, a very ancient one, as I said, was invented by the Jews to explain the difficult passage in Genesis ”

“ Crossley's remarks, to say, that from the accidental resemblance of the Hebrew and Celtic words Lamech and Lamaich, no philological argument can be drawn of identical meaning, any more than from the fact that the words Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazar, or Belteshassar [2] , are significant in Russian {433}and Sclavonian, as well as in Chaldee. Lamache in Arabic means (see Freytag) "levi intuitu et furtim adspicere aliquem;" also to shine, as lightning, or a star. ”

“ Then Methuselah held sway among his kinsmen, and longest of all men enjoyed the pleasures of this world. He begat a multitude of sons and daughters before his death. And all the years of Methuselah were nine hundred and seventy winters, and he died.
(ll. 1224-1236) And Lamech, his son, succeeded him and kept the treasure. Long time he ruled the land. He lived an hundred and two winters, and begat children. ”

“ Now, if any one examines the Hebrew ל he will perceive that it is by no means a rude representation of a human arm, holding a sling with a stone in it. The word Lamech is derived from lam, the hand; and the termination signifies dexterity in shooting or discharging missiles therewith.
It is curious to notice that the remaining names in the passage of Scripture are Celtic: thus Cain is compounded of cend, first, and gein, offspring,—pronounced Kayean, i. e. first begotten. Adah means a fair complexioned, red-haired woman ”

“ The issue of this union was a boy whom they named Lamech, and this child from the very hour of his birth gave his father vast worriment, which, considering the disparity in their ages, is indeed most shocking of contemplation. The tableau of a father (aged 187) vainly coddling a colicky babe certainly does not call for our enthusiasm. Yet we presume to say that Methuselah bore his trials meekly, that he cherished and adored the baby, and that he spent weeks and months playing peek-a-boo and ride-a-cock-horse. ”

“ The rabbins are silly. Although the earth is not dug by the hands of men, but by the use of oxen, yet the labor of man's hand has not ceased. Enoch, by his translation, does not disclose the solace of bodily easement, agreeable to the belly, but deliverance from sin and death. Lamech hoped, in addition, for the restoration of the former state. ”

“ But when we have swept all these classes aside, there remains a residuum, small, no doubt, of genuine tradition. To this class, if I am not mistaken, belong the account of Lamech and his wives, and the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. In the latter instance, the type comes out far clearer in the Talmudic tradition than in the canonical Scriptures; and this can hardly have been the result of Jewish interpolation, knowing, as they did, that Christians pointed triumphantly to this type. ”

“ But Rabbinic tradition is unanimous on its signification. The book Jasher says that in those days men did not love to have children, therefore they gave their wives drink to make them sterile. Zillah had taken this drink, and she was barren till in her old age she bare Tubal-cain and Naamah. Now Lamech became blind in his old age, and he was led about by the boy Tubal-cain. Tubal-cain saw Cain in the 83distance, and supposing from the horn on his forehead that he was a beast, he said to his father, “Span thy bow and shoot!” Then the old man discharged his arrow, and Cain fell dead. ”

“ Truly Lamech, seventy and seven-fold."
The construction is more favourable to the belief that the man of line third is the same as the young man of the parallel clause, than that he had slain two; the word rendered hurt is properly a wheal, the effect of a severe strife or wound.
As to the etymologies of the names mentioned by Mr. Crossley, we gather from God's words that she called her first son Cain, an acquisition (the Latin peculium expresses it more exactly than any English word) , because she had gotten (literally acquired, or obtained possession of) a man. ”

“ Fast as fire-flash Lameth replies, 'Tout à l'heure, On the instant, then!' And so, as the shades of dusk thicken in that Bois-de-Boulogne, we behold two men with lion-look, with alert attitude, side foremost, right foot advanced; flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado, in tierce and quart; intent to skewer one another. See, with most skewering purpose, headlong Lameth, with his whole weight, makes a furious lunge; but deft Castries whisks aside: Lameth skewers only the air,—and slits deep and far, on Castries' sword's-point, his own extended left arm! ”

“ There was no knowing what direction Lamport had taken, and with a curse on his ill-luck Bill squared his broad shoulders and strode through the mud toward the quay. He could have--in fact, to keep up the tradition of his kind, he ought to have--hailed a cab and been driven toward the harbour roaring a wild song. But Bill did not fancy this to-night. It was enough for him that his prey had escaped for the present. If they should meet! Dungaree swore under his bushy black beard that no mortal should part them until he had exacted his tithe of vengeance to the uttermost farthing. ”

“ Lamteng village, where I arrived on the 27th of May, is quite concealed by a moraine to the south, which, with a parallel ridge on the north, forms a beautiful bay in the mountains, 8,900 feet above the sea, and 1000 above the Lachen. The village stands on a grassy and bushy flat, around which the pine-clad mountains rise steeply to the snowy peaks and black cliffs which tower above. It contains about forty houses, forming the winter-quarters of the inhabitants of the valley, who, in summer, move with their flocks and herds to the alpine pastures of the Tibet frontier. ”

“ LAMACHUS OH! the moths have eaten the hair of my crest. DICAEOPOLIS I shall always eat hare before dinner. LAMACHUS Hi! friend! try not to scoff at my armor? DICAEOPOLIS Hi! friend! will you kindly not stare at my thrushes. LAMACHUS Hi! friend! will you kindly not address me. DICAEOPOLIS I do not address you; I am scolding my slave. Shall we wager and submit the matter to Lamachus, which of the two is the best to eat, a locust or a thrush? LAMACHUS Insolent hound! DICAEOPOLIS He much prefers the locusts. LAMACHUS Slave, unhook my spear and bring it to me. ”

“ So in ‘The Acharnians’ he takes Lamachus, a well-known general of the day, to represent the passion for war which he there holds up to ridicule, and dresses him up with gorgon-faced shield and tremendous crest, in parody of military splendour: though we have no reason whatever to suppose that he had any private grudge against the man, or that Lamachus was more responsible for the war than others. Here the representative figure must be a philosopher, and well known. ”

“ I have lived in Cherson, man and boy, for fifty years, and I never saw anything to compare with it. Here's good luck to Lamachus's memory, say I, and I should like to celebrate his lamented decease as often as his daughter likes.
1st Lab. Didst know him, citizen?
2nd Lab. No, not I. He has been dead these two years. Time he was forgotten, I should think. They don't commemorate poor folk with all these fal-lals and follies.
1st Lab. Well, citizen, there is one comfort—the great people don't enjoy themselves as we do. ”

“ A figure of Medusa's head, forming the centre of Lamachus' shield. DICAEOPOLIS Oh, Lamachus, great hero! Your plumes and your cohorts terrify me. CHORUS This man, Lamachus, incessantly abuses Athens. LAMACHUS You are but a mendicant and you dare to use language of this sort? DICAEOPOLIS Oh, brave Lamachus, forgive a beggar who speaks at hazard. LAMACHUS But what have you said? Let us hear. DICAEOPOLIS I know nothing about it; the sight of weapons makes me dizzy. Oh! I adjure you, take that fearful Gorgon somewhat farther away. LAMACHUS There. ”

“ Unfortunately, this had happened more than once in our village. In these little country places, where the houses are surrounded by gardens, and separated from each other by hemp and lucern fields, some of them of great extent, it is not easy to see and hear from one to another at all hours of the night, and, indeed, things are done at any time which the good God alone takes account of.
One of the worst tongues against Brulette was that of Mère Lamouche, ever since Brulette had found her out and taken the boy away from her. ”