Genesis 4 & 5: Lamech(s)

Sunday, March 22, 2026

The Rev. Megan Collins

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Sandwiched in between the famous stories of Cain and Abel, and Noah, we meet a man named Lamech, or really two men named Lamech. The Lamech stories include long genealogies, a short violent speech given by the first polygamist, and a quick mention of the birth of Noah. 

Before we talk about the Lamechs, let’s talk about Jenga.

My family is ultra competitive about table games, and Jenga is no exception. The principle of Jenga is really simple. You make a tower of blocks, each row with three pieces. On your turn, you remove a block from anywhere in the tower, then place it on the top. The tower gets taller, and more precarious, with every turn. If the tower falls on your turn, you lose. There’s no winner, just a loser.

My family is brutal when we play. There are nice ways to play jenga. You can pull out a block from somewhere above the middle, then gently place it on top. These blocks usually come out easily, and they don’t upset the stability of the rest of the tower. You can play nicely, or you can play like my family. I can’t blame them. I’m just as much to blame.

Here’s how we play. Instead of the easy blocks toward the top, we go after the blocks on the very bottom row. We try to pull out a block from one side, and then the other, leaving the whole tower swaying on just one block in the middle at the base. It completely upsets the foundation, so that one of the other players will likely lose before it’s back to you.

The foundation in Jenga is everything. No matter how carefully you place a block on the top, no matter how stable the rest of the pieces, if the foundation isn’t solid, the whole tower can come crashing down. 

We know this to be true not only in Jenga, but in real structures, like houses.  Any homeowner gets quiet at the news of foundation problems on your house.  It doesn’t matter what color you paint the walls if the foundation is rotten. We can keep adjusting things, moving blocks, keep stacking higher, but at some point, we have to address the foundation. 

This is also true for us.

We just keep pulling out pieces and putting them on top, and we keep going. We assume it’s the blocks toward the top of our lives causing the problem. It's the house, the people, the to-do list, the job. But what we don’t see are the foundational problems, lower down, the real cracks.  

Is there someone you need to forgive?

Do you have a habit that you know is hurting you?

Is there something someone told you about yourself and it’s not true but it sure is getting in your way?

Are there places you know you need help but you are avoiding it?

This is the stuff that’s messing up your foundation. It’s not these blocks at the top, it’s the stuff lower down, that’s making your whole life feel like it might fall. 

The foundational problems in the world, are obviously a lot more complicated. This is a whole group project we are in, so it's not just about what we do or don't do. It seems everyday we wake up and check our phones to see what blocks were moved overnight while we were asleep.  It’s a horrific new policy, or another unjust war. One thing after another pulled out from underneath us. A lot of the problems in the foundation we have been building on, these go back generations.When you think about the impact of sins like racism, these are deep foundational problems that we have been covering up and minimizing the impact of for a long time.We can paint the walls a new color in the house but the floor is caving in because we never dug down and addressed the problems at the base. 

The whole tower is wobbling. We’re wobbling.

In the game of Jenga one person loses But there is a lot more at stake, a lot more for all of us to lose, when we don’t address the cracks in our lives, and in our world.

So what do we do?

That’s why I think the Lamechs have something to teach us. Let’s take a look. 

The story of us with God starts with a strong, secure foundation. We are made in the image of God. It’s these three blocks on the bottom row, with two humans, and God, together. It's like in Ecclesiastes, when it says the three strands are not easily broken. It's strong. But then things quickly start to crack. 

Adam and Eve eat the apple, they think they can do it without God. 

Then Cain kills Abel. 

Two blocks at the very bottom are removed. The whole tower is precarious. But we just kept building on it. The generations were added on top:

Genesis 4:17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he built a city and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. 

Enoch. Irad. Mehujael. Methushael. And then, Lamech. Lamech comes 5 generations after the murderous Cain. The first thing we learn about him is that he takes two wives. Then he gets his two wives together and makes this speech:

23 Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;    you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.24  If Cain is avenged sevenfold,    truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Someone wounded Lamech, so he killed them.  Then he mentions Cain. Remember after Cain killed his brother, he was sure that when God sent him out as his punishment that he would be killed. But God, who seemingly never gives up on anyone says “anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Lamech, five generations later,  does two things in his speech. He takes what he sees as retributive justice into his own hands, instead of leaving it to God. Then he escalates the violence, seventy-sevenfold. The unstable foundation of Adam and Eve and especially Cain has escalated in Lamech into polygymy and more violence. 

Then the story in Genesis starts a new tower, all the way back to the first blocks:

25 Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.

Adam and Eve build a new tower. This time there is no block from Cain. The foundation is Seth instead. It seems this family tree does stay more in step with God. Adam, then Seth, Enosh, and on it goes. Several generations of seemingly quiet, strong blocks, placed on the foundation of Seth instead of Cain. One of them Enoch, was apparently so good, it says he walked with God and then was no more, because God just took him. 

All of this leads up to another mention of a man named Lamech, son of Methuselah. 

This new Lamech doesn’t have a violent speech. When he finally speaks he says “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.” He says this as he fathers Noah, the one who will be the next chapter of the human story in the Bible.

Two very different foundations.

One violent.

One in step with God.

The foundation matters.

Some of you know this first hand in your own families. You’ve seen how family garbage gets passed down. The first Lamech’s kids saw this too. They saw how angry Lamech was, and it seems they tried to break the cycle of their father. The story in Genesis goes on to say his children are the builders of civilization. One of them made bronze tools. Another plays music. Dad’s crazy, let’s write a song about it. 

Some of you know what it’s like to be the one who inherits something you didn’t choose, some behavior or pattern, and how hard it is to be the one who tries to make a change. 

Generational trauma is extremely difficult. If you have a family more like Cain’s, it’s hard to not resent families’ like Seth’s. Those kids had it a lot easier. Some people just have an easier time of it right from the start.

But here’s where the Lamech story has some good news for us. 

Foundations matter.

But it’s never too late to rebuild. 

As we look toward the gospels, Jesus doesn’t come just to straighten up the tower a bit, fix a few misplaced blocks.  God rebuilds the whole thing, from the ground up. 

In Matthew 21:42 Jesus says: “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;"

A cornerstone is the first stone set when you build. It determines the stability of every other stone in the building. This time, as God rebuilds it, it’s not Adam and Eve as those first blocks. It's certainly not Cain, or even Seth. The cornerstone, the foundation is Jesus, and he came to build something very new. 

We see this over and over again in his life and teaching.

Remember when Lamech said in Genesis: "If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Look now at Jesus in Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Lamech increases the violence against someone who hurts him, 77 times.

Jesus says forgive them, 77 times.

This is what the new cornerstone looks like. 

This is a new foundation. . 

Maybe you have some Cains and Lamechs in your family tree, and you’re trying to get away from it. Or maybe you’re pulling blocks out and rearranging , all to avoid dealing with the real issues in your life. We’ve all got some instability, somewhere. Something that causes a sway in the tower, but we know if we don’t address it, our whole lives could fall. 

But it really is never too late to start over. 

It's never too late to forgive someone.

It's never too late to let go of that habit.

It's never too late to challenge the things you were told as a kid. 

It;s never too late to ask for help.

Ask yourself: What am I building on? 

Is it stuff that looks like Jesus? Love and justice and grace and hope?

Or does it look like something else? Greed? Violence? Anger? Revenge? Fear?

It’s never too late to start over. 

Now, about that group project out there in the world. The story of the New Testament tells us that God came here in Jesus, and began a long project of rebuilding the arch of humanity, from the ground up. I have to believe that if enough of us rebuild in line with Jesus, that things can change, that it really is never too late to start over, even in a world that is such a mess.

I have to believe that the powerful people we see pull out the very foundation out from under us won’t get to win the game while the tower comes down on top of us. 

The cornerstone will hold. 

I also know that means we have to do our part.  I may never understand why, but the same Jesus who is the cornerstone, tells us we are a part of the building too.  There’s a humanness to our work, and we won’t always get it right.  But our part matters. We can’t just build our little lives and ignore the rest.

1 Corinthians 3 says:

9 For we are God’s coworkers, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 

We know who we are building on. 

But what are we building?