Genesis 5

ere in Genesis 5 we meet another Lamech, this one of the line of Seth, the father of Noah. According to some research I read, Lamech may have originally meant "to make low". This is actually rather fascinating, since we can see how it might well apply to both characters. Lamech of Cain made humanity lower by being the first polygamist and second recorded murderer, and he also "laid low" his victim. On the other hand, Lamech of the line of Seth may have been called this due to righteous humility. He appears to know the Lord, YHWH, and passes on this knowledge to his son, Noah. Lamech shows humility through his prophecy over Noah: "Out of the ground that YHWH has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.” 

Lamech appears to accept that God has cursed the Earth, calling him by his proper name,YHWH. But he senses that his child is different, that somehow, Noah will be a deliverance from the curse that God has placed upon the land. 

Lamech's prophecy had two fulfillments. On the one hand, God would use Noah to help him propagate the human race while destroying the rest of it and restoring the land to its pre-cursed state. On the other hand, Noah was the first recorded wine-maker. Thus the inebriation from alcohol and relief it gives from toil when celebrating may be seen as another fulfillment of Lamech's words.

But turning back to the flood as it concerns Lamech's prophecy, I suppose life is often this way. We have our plans, but God has a greater one. Lamech probably didn't imagine, and would have been scared out of his mind if he knew how God would bring his prophecy over Noah to pass. Nevertheless, his prophecy over Noah was true, and Noah helped to lift the curse of God from the land, by propagating the human race into the new age spared from the wickedness of his own generation.

Lamech lived 595 years after Noah was born. And the flood waters came when Noah was 600 as we learn in the next chapter, which means that Lamech missed the flood by 5 years. This might remind us that sometimes death is a mercy from God, nor is natural death something to be hated or feared. For those who are righteous, death is truly the mercy of God, for which reason God blocked Adam and Eve from the tree of life in Chapter 2. For to live forever in sinfulness would be to be doomed to corruption and to live without hope of being united with God in heaven. As St. Paul also says, "To live is Christ, but to die is gain." Christians need not fear death, but should consider it deliverance from the toils of our hands, into the land of rest.