And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.
Ver. 23. And Lamech said unto his wives.] Who, it seems, were troublesome to him with their domestic discords, and led him a discontented life. He therefore gives them to understand in this set speech, what a man he is, if molested by them or any other, and what slaughters he can make, if provoked by an adversary. I would slay a man, if but wounded, &c. This revenge he counts manhood, which indeed is doghood rather. So Alexander Phereus consecrated his javelin, wherewith he slew his uncle Polyphron, as a monument of his manhood, and called it his god Tychon. a So Sulla caused it to be registered in the public records, b that he had proscribed, and put to death, four thousand and seven hundred Romans. So Stokesly, Bishop of London, comforted himself upon his deathbed with this, that in his time he had burned fifty heretics, as he called them. c Is not this to "glory in their shame, and to have damnation for their end?" Php 3:19 Is it not the devil which sets men working to do thus, as he did Saul to seek David's life, and Lamech to domineer in this sort over his wives, seeking so to repress their strife? A certain Indian coming into a house of the New English where a man and his wife were brawling, and they bidding him sit down, he was welcome: he answered, he would not stay there; "Hobomack," that is, the devil, was there; and so departed. d
a Plutar in Pelopida .
b Ne memoria tam praeclarae rei dilueretur .
c Act. and Mon .
d New Engl. First Fruits, p. 4.