Lamech (father of Noah)
Lamech (/ˈleɪmɪk/;[1] Hebrew: לֶמֶךְ Lemeḵ, in pausa לָמֶךְ Lāmeḵ; Greek: Λάμεχ Lámekh) was a patriarch in the genealogies of Adam in the Book of Genesis. He is part of the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:36.[2]
For the person in Genesis 4, see Lamech (descendant of Cain).
Lamech
3130 BC (869 AM)
2353 BC (1646 AM) (aged 777)
Noah, and other sons and daughters
- Methuselah (father)
Lamech (Arabic: لامك, romanized: Lāmik) is also mentioned in Islam in the various collections of tales of the prophets who preceded Muhammad, which mentions him in an identical manner.
Prophetic naming[edit]
When Lamech named his son Noah, he prophesied: "This [same] shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed." (Genesis 5:29) The people were cumbered with the toil of cultivating a ground that had been cursed in Genesis 3:17, and they hoped for relief through Noah. Albert Barnes noted: "In stating the reason of the name, they employ a word which is connected with it only by a second remove. נוּח nûach and נחם nācham are stems not immediately connected; but they both point back to a common root נח (n-ch) signifying 'to sigh, to breathe, to rest, to lie down.'"[6] At Noah's sacrifice in the new world after the flood, the LORD said, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart [is] evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done."[7]
In popular culture[edit]
Lamech is portrayed by Marton Csokas in the 2014 film Noah, handing his son the skin of the serpent who tricked Adam and Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden, before he is murdered by Tubal-cain with a battle axe.