Women with a story to tell - 2

The Real Housewives of Nod: Adah and Zillah

 In my Bible, the story in Genesis 4: 17-26 has a heading. It says the ‘Beginnings of Civilization’. I don’t know who makes these titles up, but this one is certainly misleading. It implies that civilization (living in cities) is a good thing, but I’m not convinced. And it implies that having civilization involves certain dispositions, like multiple marriages, and attitudes, like taking care of yourself at the expense of others. Come to think of it, that does describe civilization.

 Civilization did bring increased food production and has limited the impact of communicable diseases (though we may have spurred antibiotic resistance as well as vaccine resistance), but we civilized people have also inflated the art of war so that we are able to kill large numbers of people at a distance, never mind the civilian casualties.  

 Genesis 4 tells us the descendants of Cain, who wandered away from God to live in the land of Nod. These are the generations that followed Cain. Not much is said about any of them until we come upon this man.  

 Genesis 4: 19-22.  Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools (and weapons?). The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

 Cain’s descendents will come to no good, and his line will come to an end when all his descendants die in the Flood. Lamech is the 7th generation after Cain, and you know what that means. Whatever characteristics Cain’s line has will come to perfection in the seventh generation. This time the characteristics are not good. In fact, in Lamech they are perfectly evil.

Genesis 4: 23-24.   Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;    you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me,    a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold,    truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

 The boast of Lamech is set off because it is Hebrew Poetry which, as you know, rarely rhymes but instead is characterized by the repetition of ideas. For example, line 2 says the same thing as line 1. 

 This is the only reference to these two women, Adah and Zillah (though there is another woman named Adah in Genesis 36). Lamech is the first man noted for having taken two wives. Notice the verb ‘taken’. That, in itself, is a telling comment because his greediness leaves someone else without a wife. 

Do these two have to live with this braggart                                                             who appears to be aggressive and arrogant?                                                                                        Or, are they living with him by choice?                                                                                            We don’t know of course; they have no voice.

 It is rather chilling to hear what Lamech brags about. A young man wounded him and he retaliated by killing the young man. Note the difference in status. Lamech is a middle aged man with children (see verses 20-22); the other man is a youth. Then, notice the difference in attitude about people’s legal rights. 

 In the Ancient Near East it was the norm for people to see to their own defense. But that does not mean that there were no laws preventing unauthorized killings. First, only the offended parties could retaliate. 

“Because of Israel’s corporate perception of reality, any crime against an individual was also a crime against that individual’s kinship group. Punishment was extracted by a member of the offended group, an ‘avenger of bloodshed’ (go’el haddām), who was to kill the murderer of one’s kin and thereby avenge the crime.” (Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, 2009, Page 80).    

 This incident with Lamech immediately follows an account of how God dealt with Cain’s fear of revenge. God said, “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground” (4: 10). Cain knew what that meant. He responded, “Any one who meets me may kill me” (4: 14). Graciously, God put a mark on Cain so that no one would overplay his hand in trying to get revenge. (BTW: This was not a curse as people often say, but rather a blessing because it limited what people could go when they met Cain.)

 The other point is that there were limitations on seeking justice. The familiar rule, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” is quite misunderstood. It is a limiting law and should be read: “No more than an eye for an eye and no more than a tooth for a tooth.” All written laws from that era also leave room for negotiation, that is, the offender could offer compensation rather than lose an eye. 

 I have often wondered about these two women, Adah and Zillah. Were they proud that their husband was enough of a bully to protect them in those dangerous times? I doubt it. Here is why.

 Look at their side of the story. Scripture seems to point to these two women as the progenitors of ‘civilization’. Notice that it is the son of Zillah who invented metal working in bronze and iron, perhaps creating both tools and weapons. 

 Adah had two sons. One invented pastoralism which involves the domestication of sheep, goats, and cattle, and perhaps the domestication of dogs for herding. The other son invented musical instruments and perhaps musical celebrations. Consider this: Would these women with more sophisticated sons have been embarrassed by the actions of their Neanderthal husband in a bar fight? 

 We probably will never know because the story is thin. I said that women were not well represented in the text. The only other women mentioned in the first 11 chapters of Genesis are Eve and Tubalcain’s sister. We know nothing about the latter (4: 22) except her name. She is Naamah.   

 Lamech’s sense of justice is over the top. That is not permitted in America where we have a sense of Proportional Justice. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution says:

 “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”   

 That’s good, but there is a better way yet. Lamech bragged that he would exact revenge 7 times 70 times. It is no accident that Jesus used these figures when he told Peter how many times he should forgive someone instead of seeking revenge. 

 “Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18: 21-22).

 In some ancient Greek manuscripts the phrase is “seven times seventy times.” Just as Jesus cancelled the curse that lay on Adam and Eve, so Jesus cancelled the right to get revenge. So, why do so-called Christians seek over-the-top revenge or applaud authorities who seek revenge on a whole class of people?