Lesson 22: The Lamech Story
We don’t hear much about Lamech. The Bible only gives him a few paragraphs in Genesis 4.
Nonetheless, I think he’s extremely important because he is used as an example of the evil that permeates creation before Noah’s flood. Supposedly, God gets so upset with the violence that fills the earth that he decides to start all over.
Lamech’s example is a grossly unfair retaliation. He brags to his wives that he has killed a man for wounding him and a boy for slapping him.
A good case can be made that this is a fundamental problem threatening the human community. Hebrew law tries to handle it by meticulously working out all sorts of different conditions, such as whether the act was premeditated or accidental. Underlying these efforts is the attempt to limit retaliation to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which seems fair enough.
However, fairness in some cases begets rather than overcomes evil. Historically, you see this especially in the case of killing, where vengeance leads nations into warfare and individuals into never-ending feuds. Making “an eye for an eye” the moral demand creates an unending cycle of violence. If you kill my brother, it is my duty to kill you, and then your next of kin to kill me, and then on and on.
There have been different solutions down through the ages. Perhaps the one most valued in the rule of law of a modern capitalist society is to assign a monetary value to a person‘s life. As crude as this might sound, it does provide a way to stop the cycle of violent vengeance.
In the Native American community, Hiawatha was esteemed for stopping this cycle of blood vengeance by offering wampum rather than killing.
A great deal of Jesus’ ministry addresses this problem, He taught and lived a redemptive ethic in which love overcomes hate. He countered the ancients’ call for an eye for an eye with “But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile (Matthew 5: 38-41).” Rather than retaliate he counsels turn the other cheek, forgive 70 times 7, love your enemy.
This might be the truth that sets us free. At least it frees us from the violence of blood vengeance.
All of us have a natural desire to retaliate when hurt. Christians try to overcome it in hopes of building a righteous society. We pray daily asking God to forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us.
There is great resistance to our teaching in this day. “Might makes right” rejects forgiveness and nonviolence as naive.The prevailing idea is peace must be maintained by making sure the most powerful weapons are in the hands of good people.
The present administration has taken this a step further. Echoing Lamech’s words, it threatens if you do not do what it wants or oppose it in any way, it will destroy you. The result has been the inability to co-operate in a creative way with one another. Retaliation, violence, and revenge are back in fashion.
It is time to remember Jesus’ warning that “Those who live by the sword die by sword.” The Christian way is to overcome evil with love (I Peter 3: 9 and Romans 12: 17-21) and that means forgiving rather than retaliating.
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