Blind Slayer

Lamech’s song in Genesis 4 is today read as a taunt and a warning. “I have killed a man for wounding me,” he tells his wives, and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy sevenfold” (Genesis 4:23-24).

But there is another reading, one involving Lamech’s blindness, Cain, and Lamech’s son Tubal Cain. Lois Bragg (Oedipus Borealis, 118-9) tells the story: “Lamech is introduced as ‘the blind man.’ He and Tubal-Cain hear movement in the forest, which is explained as due to Cain being ‘unable to stand still in one place and to hold his peace. . . . Lamech shoots Cain in the usual way, and Tubal-Cain is killed by his father clapping his hands together in grief.”

Rashi tells this story in the 11th century, and interprets Genesis 4:23 not as a taunt but as a lament: “The verse, Rashi goes on to explain, is Lamech’s attempt to appease his wives and it consists not of boasting statements but rather of rhetorical questions, ‘did I strike him intentionally in revenge for my wounding?’ to which the implied answer is ‘no.’ ‘Rather am I an inadvertent [killer] and not an intentional one.’ Thus, Rashi has Lamech deny responsibility for the two deaths, implicitly because of his blindness. The commentary concludes with a question about whether the wives separated from Lamech because they hd already borne children or because the upcoming flood would destroy te line, and a discussion of how Lamech’s experience with his wives prompted Adam to know Eve again and to father Seth.”