Chapter III: The Descendants of Adam

=1. As the history proceeds= it becomes very plain that the descendants of Adam are selected with a purpose, which a general acquaintance with Scripture reveals. That purpose was to record the ancestry of Abraham and so of the children of Israel. Other descendants are occasionally mentioned when any interesting or important event suggests itself to the historian, but the main purpose is never lost sight of.

Thus the descendants of Cain are briefly enumerated through his first-born, Enoch, “the teacher,” as his name signifies. He was the first builder of a city, and may, as Geikie suggests, have been the first to teach men “the culture of city life,” or “the elements of physical life.”

=2. His descendants= were Irad, “the swift one,” perhaps because of his hunter’s life; Mehujael, “the stricken of God,” for some unrecorded transgression; Methusael, probably bearing the name God in the syllable “el,” and meaning “champion of God,” suggesting some religious act; as if, even among the race of Cain, God “had not left himself without a witness.”[15]

=3.= 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.” There must have been a personal attraction which made the name appropriate.

=4.= In the other wife’s name, Zillah, it has been supposed that the termination “ah” has reference to the name of Jehovah; it is more probable, however, that the meaning is confined to the root of this word, which signifies “a shade.” To her son, Tubal-Cain, we are indebted for the first work in copper and iron, as the sentence “instructor of every artificer in brass and iron” means. Perhaps we may say “bronze” for “brass,” since brass is a compound of zinc and copper, and bronze is a compound of tin and copper, and the latter has been discovered in the most ancient ruins, which has not been true as to brass. Brass, however, is used in Scripture in some instances as the name for copper.[16] Chisels have been taken from ruins in Egypt containing copper 94 per cent., tin 5.9, and iron 0.1; and a bowl from Nimrud, about twenty miles south of Nineveh, was composed of copper 89.57 per cent., and of tin 10.43. In the sepulchral furniture with which the oldest of the Chaldæan tombs were filled we already find more bronze than copper.[17] The excavations at Warka, the ancient Erech of Gen. 10:10, ninety-five miles southeast of Babylon, seem to prove that the ancient Chaldæans made use of iron before the Egyptians.[18]

=5. The name given to Jabal=, the son of Adah, suggests that he led a pastoral life with his cattle. His name means “wanderer,” and hence he was very appropriately “the father of such as dwell in tents.” “His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ;” the latter name suggesting some wind instrument or pipe. His name significantly means “the player.”

=6.= To this list of “first things” may be added the =first instance of poetical utterance=, for the address of Lamech to his wives is in the form of the earliest Hebrew poetry. Gen. 4:23.

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice,
Wives of Lamech, hear my speech.
I have slain a man for wounding me,
A young man for hurting me.
If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,
Surely Lamech seventy-and-seven.

With this ends the history of the descendants of Cain. The history of those descendants of Adam through whom the children of Israel traced their lineage is begun in the fifth chapter of Genesis.