Temple.
_Lamech's War-song_ (Vol. vii., p. 432.).--There have been many
speculations about the origin and meaning of these lines. I agree with
EWALD in _Die Poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes_, vol. i., who calls it a
"sword-song;" and I imagine it might have been preserved by tradition among
the Canaanitish nations, and so quoted by Moses as familiar to the
Israelites. I should translate it--
"Adah and Zillah, hear ye my voice!
Wives of Lemek, heed ye my saying!
For man do I slay, for my wound;
And child, for my bruise.
For seven-fold is Cain avenged,
And Lemek seventy-fold and seven."
Bishop Hall, in his _Explication of Hard Texts_, paraphrases it thus:
"And Lamech said to his wives, 'Adah and Zillah, what tell you me of
any dangers and fears? Hear my voice, oh ye faint-hearted wives of
Lamech, and hearken unto my speech; I pass not of the strength of my
adversary: for I know my own valour and power to revenge; if any man
give me but a wound or a stroke, though he be never so young and lusty,
I can and will kill him dead.'"
Your correspondent H. WALTER says that "every branch of Cain's family was
destroyed by the Deluge." Where is the authority to be found for the
tradition, quoted in an _Introduction to the Books of Moses_, by James
Morison, p. 26., that Naameh, the daughter of Lamech the Cainite and
Zillah, married Ham, the son of Noah, and thus survived the Flood?