avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold._

272. Thus far Moses has given us a history of the generation of the
children of this world, and having brought down the list to the time
of Lamech and his wives and children, he buries them, as it were,
altogether in silence, leaving them without any promise, either of the
life which is to come or of the life that now is. For except that
uncovenanted blessing of offspring and of food, the Cainites possessed
nothing whatever. Yet they so increased in power and in multitude that
they filled the whole world, and at length overturned and ravaged to
such an extent the righteous nation of the children of God which
possessed the promise of the future and eternal life, and sunk them
into so deep a hell of wickedness, that eight men only remained to be
saved when the flood came upon the whole world of the ungodly. And
though there is no doubt that some of the generation of Cain were
saved both before the flood and in the flood, yet the Scriptures do
not mention them, to the end that we might the more fear God and walk
according to his Word. But hard as the diamond are those human hearts
which fail to be moved by such an example as the flood, than which
nothing more dreadful is to be found in the whole chain of time.

273. Moses, therefore, having buried in silence the entire generation
of Cain, records only one unimportant fact respecting Lamech, but what
the real import of that fact is, Moses does not explain. I know not
that any other passage in the Holy Scriptures has been so diversely
interpreted, and so rent and wrested, as this text. For ignorance at
least, if eloquence is not, is fruitful of surmises, errors and
fables. I will mention some of the vulgar views upon the passage now
before us.

274. The Jews compose the fable that Lamech, when he had grown old and
was blind, was led by a youth into the woods to hunt wild beasts, not
for the sake of their flesh but for their skins; circumstances which
are altogether absurd, and at once prove the whole fable to be a lie.
And they hold that Cain was there, concealed among the bushes, and in
that solitude he not only exercised repentance but sought security for
his life. The young man who directed the spear for Lamech, thinking he
saw a wild beast in a certain thicket, told Lamech to hurl his spear,
and Lamech hurled his spear and, contrary to all thought, pierced
Cain. And they add that after Lamech had been made consc