The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John Macarthur.

Genesis 4:17-22

¹⁷ Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. ¹⁸ To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.

¹⁹ Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. ²⁰ Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. ²¹ His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. ²² Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of^[a] bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain’s sister was Naamah.

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Last week’s post discussed Cain’s murder of his brother Abel and the curse that God put upon him afterwards. Protesting that it wasn’t fair and seeing that God’s decision was final, Cain went off to live in the land of Nod, East of Eden.

Matthew Henry says (emphases mine):

… he went out from the presence of the Lord, that is, he willingly renounced God and religion, and was content to forego its privileges, so that he might not be under its precepts. He forsook Adam’s family and altar, and cast off all pretensions to the fear of God, and never came among good people, nor attended on God’s ordinances, any more … Cain went out now from the presence of the Lord, and we never find that he came into it again, to his comfort. Hell is destruction from the presence of the Lord, 2 Thess 1 9. It is a perpetual banishment from the fountain of all good. This is the choice of sinners; and so shall their doom be, to their eternal confusion …

He went and dwelt on the east of Eden, somewhere distant from the place where Adam and his religious family resided, distinguishing himself and his accursed generation from the holy seed, his camp from the camp of the saints and the beloved city, Rev 20 9. On the east of Eden, the cherubim were, with the flaming sword, ch. 3 24. There he chose his lot, as if to defy the terrors of the Lord. But his attempt to settle was in vain; for the land he dwelt in was to him the land of Nod (that is, of shaking or trembling), because of the continual restlessness and uneasiness of his own spirit. Note, those that depart from God cannot find rest any where else. After Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, he never rested.

In today’s verses, we see the emergence of a secular society. God might have cursed Cain, but He used His common grace in giving Cain’s descendants the wherewithal to be productive.

John MacArthur says:

It is important to say as we take a look at Cain and secular culture that secular culture is, in itself, a provision from God for man’s life. You do not want to miss that. Secular culture is a provision from God for man’s life. It is a common grace. It brings to man the enjoyment of God’s creation. God has given man all things richly to enjoy on this amazing and astonishingly rich planet.

MacArthur adds that we have here a portrait of the antediluvian — pre-Flood — world:

It is broad, it is sweeping information on the story of civilization, the story of society, the story of culture, the story of man in his development in a very unique era of human history. And that unique era of human history is pre-flood.

As often scholars call it, the antediluvian – the “ante” in the sense of A-N-T-E, meaning before – the antediluvian society or civilization; that is, the civilization on the world before the flood …

Therefore, essentially, the only history we have of the earth pre-flood, is Genesis chapter 4. It is, therefore, a very monumental portion of Scripture. If we want to understand this part of human history, this element of the saga of man, then we have to understand Genesis chapter 4 because it is the only record of the antediluvian society. It is the only record of the pre-flood civilization. Here, then, is God’s Word – the only account in existence of the first civilization.

MacArthur also reminds us that there were no weather systems — including rain — before the Flood, so everything was of an agreeable temperature and vegetation grew well:

There was essentially no wind, no rain, no snow. The terrain may well have been more gentle. There may have been greater flatland surfaces. The climate was mild and warm. There were abundant plants and abundant animals covering the earth, and it was a very congenial environment – not at all like the current environment with all of its tendency toward natural disasters.

Cain made love to his wife, who became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch; Cain was building a city at the time and named it after his son Enoch (verse 17).

However, as Henry points out, there was nothing godly about this city building, and he thinks Cain wanted the noise of the tools to drown out his lack of inner peace:

He was building a city, so some read it, ever building it, but, a curse being upon him and the work of his hands, he could not finish it. Or, as we read it, he built a city, in token of a fixed separation from the church of God, to which he had no thoughts of ever returning. This city was to be the head-quarters of the apostasy. Observe here, (1.) Cain’s defiance of the divine sentence. God said he should be a fugitive and a vagabond. Had he repented and humbled himself, this curse might have been turned into a blessing, as that of the tribe of Levi was, that they should be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel; but his impenitent unhumbled heart walking contrary to God, and resolving to fix in spite of heaven, that which might have been a blessing was turned into a curse. (2.) See what was Cain’s choice, after he had forsaken God; he pitched upon a settlement in this world, as his rest for ever. Those who looked for the heavenly city chose, while on earth, to dwell in tabernacles; but Cain, as one that minded not that city, built himself one on earth. Those that are cursed of God are apt to seek their settlement and satisfaction here below, Ps 17 14. (3.) See what method Cain took to defend himself against the terrors with which he was perpetually haunted. He undertook this building, to divert his thoughts from the consideration of his own misery, and to drown the clamours of a guilty conscience with the noise of axes and hammers. Thus many baffle their convictions by thrusting themselves into a hurry of worldly business. (4.) See how wicked people often get the start of God’s people, and out-go them in outward prosperity. Cain and his cursed race dwell in a city, while Adam and his blessed family dwell in tents.

MacArthur discusses the words ‘was then building a city’, which likely means that Enoch finished the city:

Now, the question here – and it is no small question – is: Who is he? And the best interpretation of the “he” in the Hebrew construction here is that “he” refers to Cain. He had relations with his wife, she conceived and gave birth to Enoch, and he was building a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son.

Why was he building a city? Didn’t God tell him that he was going to spend his life – what? – wandering? That he was going to be a vagabond and a wanderer his whole life? Well, I think it’s pretty obvious why he was building a city – because he didn’t like that. In an effort to mitigate his curse, he sets out to build a city.

This is, by standards of some Hebrew scholars, what’s called a periphrastic participle, “was building,” so that the idea here is he started to do this. He was erecting this city. The implication would be a little at a time. And it may have been, as one rabbi (Nachmanides, from the thirteenth century) says, “Cain was erecting a city a little at a time due to his continuous state of wandering that resulted from the divine curse upon him.”

It was as if he was trying to get this city started, where he could settle and dwell, and mitigate the curse of wandering. It’s obvious that he desired to live in a settled place. He probably desired – probably had a nagging wife who said, “Look, can’t we ever settle down? And how can we keep dragging everything we have and our family all over the place?” So thus, he makes some kind of effort to settle.

The word “city” – we say city and we think of Los Angeles – “city” is a general Hebrew word that means a fenced-in place. It means a complex of dwellings. It could be made out of anything, it could be any size, large or small – any kind of complex of dwellings. He was trying to erect a place to settle in. He was trying to settle down. The indication of the Hebrew is he couldn’t succeed at it because he finally gave up and called the name of the city Enoch or the name of the complex or fenced-in place Enoch after the name of his son.

Now, it was common to name a city or a dwelling (a complex, a house, an estate) after the person – listen – who owned it and was responsible for it, which leads me to believe that what happened was … Cain tried to do this, eventually couldn’t do it, it became Enoch’s place and thus, it bore his name, and even Cain, the relentless vagabond, had to acknowledge that it was not to be called Cain, it was to be called Enoch.

And again, to name a city after a person was to express ownership and responsibility … It was somewhat typical if you took over a place and it belonged to you and you had both ownership and responsibility to, therefore, name it after yourself.

Henry says that Cain’s son Enoch was not the Enoch of the eponymous book:

His son was Enoch, of the same name, but not of the same character, with that holy man that walked with God, ch. 5 22. Good men and bad may bear the same names: but God can distinguish between Judas Iscariot and Judas not Iscariot, John 14 22.

MacArthur says:

Please notice: This is not the same Enoch as the Enoch of chapter 5, verse 22. That Enoch is in the line of Seth. Apparently, at the beginning of the world, there were just a few names and they kept using them over and over – not uncommon.

MacArthur then elaborates on the meaning of Enoch:

… Enoch (or Hanoch). It means dedicate. Hanukkah is what the Jews celebrate, it’s the dedication. It can mean to commence or to initiate or to inaugurate, which is consistent with to dedicate something that is new, something that is inaugural.

And this was their first child, apparently, and so they named him initiate, inaugurate, commence. The name appears, as I said, in chapter 5. One of Seth’s sons is named Enoch. You’ll also find it in chapter 25 of Genesis. Genesis chapter 25 verse 4 … But there, it is transliterated Hanoch but it’s the same Hebrew word, and Hanoch there is the son of Midian, who’s a son of Abraham, and then later on, the first son of Reuben, son of Jacob, in chapter 46 is called Hanoch.

So there are at least four named Hanoch (or Enoch) in the book of Genesis. The name seems to fit a son who was viewed by the family as the commencement (or the initiation or the inauguration) of a next generation.

Of course, we want to know who Cain’s wife was. It is interesting that her name is not included here.

MacArthur says that Cain would have married one of his sisters:

In that early generation, all marriages at first were brother-sister marriages. But there were no mutant genes in the genetic system in any of those children. There was a pristine element in humanity at that time. It hadn’t degenerated, so that even with that sort of intrafamily marriage, there was no genetic harm that could have resulted.

It wasn’t until many, many, many generations after the flood that Moses laid down the law of God, forbidding marriage within a family because those marriages had become genetically very dangerous, and thus, incest was prohibited in the law of Moses. But there was before the flood a pristine purity in the human genetic system and its bloodstream with so very, very few accumulated mutant genes, together also with a primeval absence of disease-producing organisms, which only gradually developed through the outworking of the curse, so that’s one of the reasons they lived so long. The original created microorganisms were no doubt beneficial and served to assist life in that first great age span.

So we very likely had a civilization that could populate the earth to the level of beyond seven billion people, according to some. The people would be living, as I said, in a much more congenial environment. They would be stronger than we would ever imagine. You have to be very strong to live 900 years. They would be very resistant to disease and illness and aging. They would be extremely healthy …

People always ask, “Where did Cain get his wife?” That’s not a hard question. He married his sister … At this time … there would be no other place to get your wife than to marry your sister, which was perfectly within God’s purpose.

So Cain got married. Doesn’t tell us his wife’s name, so we just like to call her “Mrs. Cain.” He married one of his sisters. It’s interesting to think about that. I don’t know how easy it was for him to convince one of the sisters to marry him because, after all, he was a murderer who had murdered Abel – murdered the delight of his mother and father – but, apparently, the stigma of being his brother’s killer did not prevent one of his sisters from being willing to marry him to fulfill the command to populate the earth.

And it was, you know, his fear – remember back in verse 14? – that somewhere down the line, some of his relatives were going to kill him because he had murdered Abel. And so as the family multiplied, that fear would become more and more heightened.

So verse 17 says, he knew her, back to that familiar word we commented on last time in verse 1 of this chapter where Adam knew his wife, a euphemistic way of referring to sexual relations. And here it’s translated, “had relations with his wife” and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch.

MacArthur says that God’s common grace blessed Cain with a family, however, those blessings were only temporal:

It also shows us the common grace of God because they were still able to procreate. Even Cain had the joy of a marriage. Cain had the privilege of having children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And out of the loins of Cain came some very remarkable people. One of them developed livestock, breeding and feeding and raising and all of that. Another one developed music. Another one out of his family developed metallurgy, all of the – literally, the hammering (and sharpening is the Hebrew word) of iron and bronze.

And all of these things brought all kinds of richness into that culture, so he had some pretty formidable people in his line. So God blesses the line of Cain, but notice: He blesses them in a temporal way; that is, only connected to time. Only in the physical were they blessed, not in the sense of the spiritual or that which is eternal. Now, all of Cain’s line was drowned [in the Flood]. All of them. All of them that came out of that union were drowned. The whole, entire progeny of Cain was destroyed. But even though they were a wicked family that ultimately ended up being destroyed, they still possessed the image of God.

And living in that pre-flood, pristine environment, they enjoyed the blessings of common grace to create a wonderful culture full of temporal joy and blessing. This is common grace. They were really enabled to fulfill Genesis 1:28, which was to subdue the earth, to make it produce, and to rule over it.

Then we have Enoch’s line: Irad, who was the father of Mehujael, who was the father of Methushael, who sired Lamech (verse 18).

Henry takes a disparaging view of so many generations in one verse:

The names of more of his posterity are mentioned, and but just mentioned; not as those of the holy seed (ch. 5.), where we have three verses concerning each, whereas here we have three or four in one verse. They are numbered in haste, as not valued or delighted in, in comparison with God’s chosen.

MacArthur says:

That doesn’t mean those were the only children born, those were just the first born in the next sequence of generations. You can be sure Cain and his wife had more children, and they had children, and there were others being born … after Seth, sons and daughters of Adam, and they were having children.

And those children were having children, and the earth is being populated, but we’re following the history of two families because in the end, there are only two families.

MacArthur explains the meaning of the names in verse 18:

Irad. Some suggest that that name – and by the way, originally, they weren’t talking in Hebrew, you understand that. We don’t know what language they spoke before the flood. We don’t know what it was, so we don’t know what the actual words were, but we do know that the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write a Hebrew record which incorporates the Hebrew version of these words. And “ir” (I-R), “hir” (H-I-R) means “of the city.” So it could be that Irad is a city dweller, a townsman. So now we have a town and we have a son who is a townsman, so we have the beginning of business.

A society is already operating within the framework of a town. This is beyond the agriculture of Cain and those like him. This is beyond the tending of sheep of those who were following, sort of, in what Abel did. This is dwelling in the town, this is the city dweller. This is the urbanization. Man has already pulled together dwelling places in which there is commerce of some kind going on.

By the way, Mehujael and Methushael both end in “el” (E-L), which is God. The best guess – we can’t be dogmatic, the best guess is the first name means God blots out and the second means violence of God. There’s no affirmation that they believed in God; there is simply an identification that they were under the judgment of God. And the picture is, you have a city and you have a city dweller, and then you have God blotting out and acting in violence against it. So you can see by the names there is a flow of iniquity that is escalating.

Then comes the climax of the genealogy of Cain in the man Lamech. Lamech maybe comes from a strong root which means conqueror or strong man. He steps on the stage, and he is the prototype of the way of Cain, as Jude 11 refers to it. He’s the prototype of the Cainite. He is the maximum man in the Cainite culture.

Lamech married two women, Adah and Zillah (verse 20).

MacArthur says:

He is the epic illustration of a declining society, and verse 19 tells us his story. “And Lamech took to himself two wives.” Stop there.

Henry expresses his disgust:

It was one of the degenerate race of Cain who first transgressed that original law of marriage that two only should be one flesh. Hitherto one man had but one wife at a time; but Lamech took two. From the beginning it was not so. Mal 2 15; Matt 19 5. See here, 1. Those who desert God’s church and ordinances lay themselves open to all manner of temptation. 2. When a bad custom is begun by bad men sometimes men of better characters are, through unwariness, drawn in to follow them. Jacob, David, and many others, who were otherwise good men, were afterwards ensnared in this sin which Lamech begun.

MacArthur says that Adam would have seen how his offspring’s offspring progressed in a corrupt nature:

You get into the seventh generation from Adam, Cain is still alive at this time, it’s still in the lifetime of Cain, still in the lifetime of Adam, who lived to be 930 years. Adam sees it all. In fact, Adam sees everything right on down, most likely, to the birth of Noah. Adam actually lived right down until he could see what was coming because this massively populated world was so corrupt.

Now, it doesn’t mean that Lamech was the only bigamist. It doesn’t mean that Lamech was the only polygamist. It just means he was one, and it indicates to us that that’s where the line of Cain went. As I said, there could be millions of people on the earth very rapidly, and we certainly can’t say that somebody else hadn’t been a bigamist or a polygamist, but this is illustrative of the direction society was going …

Wherever you see bigamy, wherever you see polygamy in Scripture, it brings conflict, sin, sorrow, and devastation to families. The Bible doesn’t always make a moral comment on it, doesn’t here, it just says he took two wives, without comment, but doesn’t need to make a comment. All you have to know is the character of the man here. All you have to know is the standard of Genesis 2:24, and the standard of Genesis 2:24 is one man, one woman, together for life, one flesh. Whenever it’s violated anywhere in the pages of Scripture, conflict, sin, sorrow, devastation results, whether you’re talking about Abraham, whether you’re talking about Jacob, whether you’re talking about David, Solomon, or whoever.

So with Lamech, the pattern of corrupting God’s design – remember now, God hadn’t made a lot of laws at this point. God hadn’t laid down a lot of laws at this point. The Ten Commandments hadn’t yet been given. There weren’t a lot of commands that they were going to be worried about breaking. But there were some things that were very clear, and one of them is God had designed marriage to be between one man and one woman, leaving parents, cleaving together, one flesh for life. That, God did say. And I think that’s why it points out here that Lamech violated that, to show you this is a rebellious person in the way of Cain.

This is a man who follows the pattern of Cain, and he leads Cain’s family, now in the seventh generation, into an open rebellion.

MacArthur describes the women as best he can and surmises that Lamech wanted a large family in order to be more productive:

Now, he marries these two girls, and by now, you know, there are a number of sons and daughters born to Adam and we don’t know the timetable here and anyway, he picks out two girls, Adah and Zillah. Now, people always want to know, “What were they like?” I don’t know anything about them.

But the best I can do – and you don’t want to overstate the value of this – is if you do an etymology on their names, Adah means ornament. I suppose you could say pretty. And Zillah is a word that has to do with a sweet-sounding voice. So he married “pretty” and “sweet-voiced,” which is a bit thin in terms of perceiving character. So, you know, he was attracted to them. He liked the way one looked, he liked the way one sounded.

I don’t know what else to say, and that’s just a stab in the dark, believe me. But that seems to be the root. We do know their names don’t mean profound and godly. The best we can say is pretty, with a nice voice. So that was Adah and Zillah.

Now, apparently, again an emphasis, to take to himself two wives is some kind of a formal act. It doesn’t say he had two sex partners. It says he took to himself these two woman, and the taking to oneself has the idea of something formal, something recognized, something legal, so that from the very beginning, there was a formal, recognized social element within marriage. There was some societal arrangement for marriage, some formal union.

Now, why two wives? Well, I mean maybe he liked them both, I don’t know. But society was still patriarchal. There wasn’t any sort of formal government. And the more wives you had, the more children you had; and the more children you had, the more work you could get done. The more work you could get done, the more productive you could be. The more productive you could be, the more wealth you would gain. The more wealth you had, the more power you got. So added to the lust factor (“pretty” and “sweet-voiced”) was the possibility that the more wives you had, the more productive you would be.

If life was largely family-business-family-related, then the bigger the family, the bigger the potential. These two wives gave Lamech at least four children, four that are named here. And these four children – three boys and a girl – are given to us here. The three boys took society to the next level.

Adah gave birth to Jabal, the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock (verse 20).

Henry says:

Jabal was a famous shepherd; he delighted much in keeping cattle himself, and was so happy in devising methods of doing it to the best advantage, and instructing others in them, that the shepherds of those times, nay, the shepherds of after-times, called him father; or perhaps, his children after him being brought up to the same employment, the family was a family of shepherds.

MacArthur has more:

Jabal, was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. He was the original cattle rancher. This is animal husbandry. Of all of those who work with – the Hebrew word is actually the word miqneh – livestock. Not talking about tending sheep. That had already been done by Abel, and there probably were others who did the tending of sheep. This includes all animals that would be domesticated. All – this whole matter of animal breeding.

And, you know, you would learn about that if you lived hundreds and hundreds of years and you had people who worked with you who lived hundreds and hundreds of years, and you went through literally millions of animals in the time of those years. You would learn about breeding and feeding and killing and skinning. You would learn about the milk of animals, the hide of animals, as well as the meat of animals, and by now they were meat-eaters. Jabal was the founder of all of that.

Now, they dwelt in tents because livestock need to graze. And at that time, the deserts hadn’t been formed, pre-flood, and the earth was full of vegetation. So you took your tent and you just moved in a very benign and congenial climate everywhere to let those livestock feed and grow and flourish.

Jabal’s brother was Jubal, the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes (verse 21).

Henry tells us:

Jubal was a famous musician, and particularly an organist, and the first that gave rules for the noble art or science of music. When Jabal had set them in a way to be rich, Jubal put them in a way to be merry. Those that spend their days in wealth will not be without the timbrel and harp, Job 21 12, 13. From his name, Jubal, probably the jubilee-trumpet was so called; for the best music was that which proclaimed liberty and redemption.

MacArthur says that this, too, was another act of common grace from on high:

What a tremendous act of God and common grace. Can you imagine our unbelieving world with no music? Music is a wonderful blessing to our world, isn’t it? It’s one of those things that God gives and doesn’t have to give. He doesn’t have to provide wonderful crops of food, doesn’t have to provide wonderful animals and livestock to give us delicious food and leather goods and all of the things that come from animals and milk, et cetera, et cetera. He doesn’t have to provide that.

He doesn’t have to provide a secular world with the beauties of music, the sweet tones of a lyre and a pipe, but He does. He invented music, Jubal did it. That’s pretty amazing. There would be the need to invent a scale, to come up with some understanding of the incredible mathematics of music, the tones, the arrangements of music. And then he also invented instruments to play it. You could never say you were a musician unless you could make a sound. And so he must have been able to make instruments.

The word “lyre” is kinnor. It was an old kind of a hand-held harp, but I think it’s the more modern word in Hebrew for violin. And then there was the pipe, which is really a flute, usually made out of reeds. So here is another element of the pre-flood genius. They have all of this urbanization, all of this wonderful development, and along with it, they have music. What an incredible gift from God to the secular world is music. And by the way, it certainly has declined. It’s declining rapidly, isn’t it?

Zillah had a son, Tubal-Cain who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron; Tubal-Cain’s sister was Naamah (verse 22).

Henry says:

Tubal Cain was a famous smith, who greatly improved the art of working in brass and iron, for the service both of war and husbandry. He was their Vulcan.

MacArthur says that Tubal-Cain’s work was no small matter:

Tubal-Qayin … may have been named after Cain. It appears that Tubal-Qayin – as a way to honor Cain. Who wants to do that unless you agree with his rejection of God? So it just tells us more about the decline of the family. Tubal-Qayin, it says, is “the forger” (the NAS says). Actually, it’s the latish, it’s the hammerer, it’s the sharpener of all implements of bronze and iron. Now, this is a metallurgist. This is not easy, either. I mean how do you just invent music and musical sounds and scales and instruments? And how do you just all of a sudden develop all of animal husbandry and the whole operation of that? Takes a genius to do that.

And how do you develop the matter of making all kinds of things out of bronze and iron? Metallurgy is a skill of great science. It demands tremendous power. First of all, you have to get raw material to make things out of bronze and iron.

MacArthur gives us a brief note on Naamah:

We don’t know anything about her, doesn’t say, but the two consonants in the Hebrew word (N and M) are frequently used in words related to music – naem, one who makes sweet music. Maybe she was the original girl singer. And I will add, the female voice is the most beautiful instrument in the world, if it is on pitch.

Henry comes to a damning conclusion about such material success, because it is devoid of anything God-fearing or God-honouring:

See here, (1.) That worldly things are the only things that carnal wicked people set their hearts upon and are most ingenious and industrious about. So it was with this impious race of cursed Cain. Here were a father of shepherds and a father of musicians, but not a father of the faithful. Here was one to teach in brass and iron, but none to teach the good knowledge of the Lord. Here were devices how to be rich, and how to be mighty, and how to be merry, but nothing of God, nor of his fear and service, among them. Present things fill the heads of most people. (2.) That even those who are destitute of the knowledge and grace of God may be endued with many excellent and useful accomplishments, which may make them famous and serviceable in their generation. Common gifts are given to bad men, while God chooses to himself the foolish things of the world.

Things kick up a notch next week with Lamech.

Next time — Genesis 4:23-24